Putting on an event

The bigger the event, the more people you will need to plan and organise on the day itself - so make sure you give yourself time to plan and prepare.

If you're organising a large event for lots of people, you'll need to follow national Government guidance and any localised council guidance for your area.

It's also useful to liaise with your local Safety Advisory Group (SAG) within your local authority or council. You can find your local group by visiting the Safety Groups UK website.

When bringing people together indoors or outside it’s important to think of any potential risks, what you can do to control those risks and how you can make the event safer.

Things to consider are:

• The layout of the event to ensure people and vehicles can move about safely
• The number of people attending the event, for example, managing entrances and exits to prevent overcrowding
• Keeping the venue free from slip and trip hazards
• Electrical safety
• First aid arrangements
• Fire safety e.g. knowing were fire safety equipment is and keeping fire exits free from obstruction

To find more information on how to run a safe event, look at the Government guidance on organising an event.

If you want to provide or sell food at an event, here are some basic questions you need to be able to answer:

• Are the food preparation and serving facilities and equipment clean and in good repair?
• Are they suitably situated so that the food does not become contaminated, for example from pests, animals or waste?
• Are the washing facilities adequate?
• Some people have food allergies; is there someone who can answer questions about the origin of the food and its ingredients?

If you intend to serve alcohol, you'll need to obtain a licence from your local council.

The Food Standards Agency has more information about food safety for voluntary and community events and you can also get advice from food safety officers at your local council.

Public liability insurance covers the organisers of the event in case they are held to blame or sued for injury to a person or for loss or damage to property.

There is no law that says you must buy insurance for a community event – but you might want to make sure you are covered in case in case of any issues or if someone makes a claim against you.

If you do decide you need insurance, remember that before you buy it, you should check the terms of the policy carefully to make sure you know exactly what cover it provides and any requirements you may have to meet.

If you are holding the event in your home or garden you may be covered by the public liability section of your own home insurance policy. You can check this yourself and talk to your insurer if you have any questions.

If you are renting or using someone else’s building, you may be covered by their insurance, but please do check to see if this is the case.

If external businesses are providing services, such as food or rides, you should check they have their own insurance, and that it is in force on the day of the event.

Find out more about event insurance with the Association of British Insurers’ ‘Celebrate – An ABI guide to planning an event’.

If you’re collecting donations or handling money at an event, we want to help make sure your fundraising is seamless so check out our guidelines on how to collect money safely and legally. If you have any questions drop us an email at [email protected]

We appreciate some events will have expenses and admin costs for the organiser. It’s important to note Prostate Cancer UK cannot financially support members of the public who organise their own fundraising events. These expenses are not covered in our current expenses policy and we cannot reimburse expenses that are incurred from events that are not organised by Prostate Cancer UK.

You will be responsible for any costs, taxes or expenses incurred or arising in connection with your fundraising event or activity.

If you know that you will have reasonable expenses and intend to use a proportion of the funds donated for the event to cover these costs (such as accommodation, travel or paying third parties), when fundraising you need to make sure people are aware of this before they donate.

In the case that only profits are being donated to charity you should use wording such as “all profits from my event” or clearly disclose the percentage of each donation that will be donated (we’d suggest doing this at a minimum, for example “at least 65% of each donation will be donated to Prostate Cancer UK”).

Please be aware that if you are fundraising online through JustGiving, these expenses will not be able to be reimbursed from any funds raised.