KBPR is experienced in event planning and has hosted events across the country for clients of all types and sizes. When Ensign (the dedicated pension plan for the UK’s maritime industry) chose to outsource the organisation of their member forums for the Merchant Navy Officers Pension Fund (MNOPF), they approached us to help.
For many years, the MNOPF has held regular member forums across the UK. The forums give members the opportunity to hear the latest news from the MNOPF and to meet representatives from the Fund to discuss pension matters more generally.
When the MNOPF became part of Ensign, the team made the decision to outsource the management of their member forums to Rock Pensions who deliver executive and secretarial services for workplace pension schemes. We’ve been working with Rock for the last five years to plan and deliver these popular events.
For the first four years of the project, we worked with Rock to host face-to-face forums at different locations across the country each year.
We researched, visited and selected suitable venues and acted as the main point of contact with the venues for everything from attendee numbers and refreshments to timetable and AV requirements.
We sent a mixture of paper and email invitations to members depending on their communication preferences, then tracked responses and sent reminders in advance of the event. Two members of the KBPR team were onsite for each event to support with management, meet and greet and other tasks as required.
The events were popular and well attended, with unanimously positive feedback from those members who attended.
In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the cancellation of face-to-face events, so MNOPF agreed to trial an online approach for a smaller group of members. We contacted those members who had a registered email address, directing them to an Eventbrite link to register their interest in attending an online version of the member forum. Having identified the number of likely participants, we then set up an event within ZOOM and KBPR’s designers created a background and templates so that we could apply MNOPF branding across the meeting.
On the day of the event, we opened the meeting, handing control to Rock Pensions who chaired and presented. KBPR’s team provided a login support service for anyone having difficulty joining the meeting and the event ended with an interactive Q&A session.
Both the face to face and online forums were well attended, and although numbers online were lower than they had been in person, Rock commented that the level of engagement was at a higher level – perhaps because members felt more comfortable asking questions online than they did in a large face to face setting.
In post event feedback for the online forum, 70% of attendees commented that they had found the event extremely useful with the remaining 30% all finding it useful. MNOPF were so happy with the outcome that we are planning to expand the online offering during 2021.
“Having already used KBPR for a major bi-annual event in our calendar, we didn’t hesitate in signing them up to arrange the next. Professional and efficient from start to finish, they necessitated a smooth and hassle-free event, with much praise for the venue and organisation from the attendees. We would definitely recommend using KBPR for your next event.”
“Rock Pensions Limited enlisted the help of KBPR to organise and run a virtual members’ webinar for the MNOPF. This was the first of its kind for the Fund, and KBPR did a great job in setting up the event and dealing with member and panellist registrations and queries. Member feedback afterwards was very complimentary”.
