Louise Millard lives in Shoreham, grew up in Brighton and likes to go dancing with her husband during the week and for long walks on the weekends. She is also the Events Coordinator at Southcoast Conferences and with lots of experience in event management, the team is lucky to have her.
“Before I worked here, I worked for Brighton and Hove City Council. I worked at the library service, which was mostly at Jubilee Library in town. I used to manage the commercial and conference team there. We used to do room hire, venue hire and I managed the shop as well,” Louise explains.
Today, nearly six months after starting her new role, Louise is an integral part of the Southcoast Conference team and her experience working with the events so far has been positive: “I’m definitely really enjoying it. It’s really interesting because there’s a lot of stuff going on. The team is incredibly nice. We’re quite a new team so it’s great for all of us to be learning at the same time. It’s also lovely working for a university as I’ve never worked at a university before. So that’s really different. And working with the students and with our student event support staff is really cool. It’s nice to be involved in university events, like the International Orientation as well as conferences. My days look very different,” Louise explains, “If it’s an office day, obviously we’re based at Exion, and then it would be things like contacting people, checking up on emails, planning things, making lots of to-do lists, doing the logistical sides of the events, contacting the different departments, making sure we have all the details we need, setting up registration sites, lots of meetings – just making sure we’ve got everything covered. On an event day, we’ll go to wherever the event is taking place in the University and then we do things like setting up the event, managing the team we’ve got there, making sure the event runs smoothly. There’s always something different going on, so I really enjoy that.”
When asked what her favourite part of her new role is, Louise is certain: “The best thing is probably that great feeling when things go well and you’ve put the time in beforehand and then something runs really smoothly and it works and you get good feedback afterwards. When people enjoy the event – that’s probably the best part.”
So what is Louise looking forward to most in her new role?
“Honestly, I’m just looking forward to the day where I know where every building is,” she laughs when asked, “This place is huge.”
Welcome to the team, Louise! We are so happy to have you.