Jane has been Club Liverpool Programme Manager since it first began in 2015.
Working with Marketing Liverpool’s Liverpool Convention Bureau and ACC Liverpool Jane has established and grown the programme from our first Ambassador to over 300
Jane tells us how the programme first began and how it grew to be what it is today…
How did it begin?
There had been a conference ambassador programme in the city for a number of years and it was simply time to give it a facelift as a means of attracting new members. A new name ‘Club Liverpool’ was decided and new website created and on a blustery night in January 2015 we held our launch event at ACC Liverpool – about three days after I joined!
Why is the programme so important to the City?
Conferences bring people to the city who fill our venues and hotels, eat in restaurants, visit attractions and travel via the airport, they are important to the visitor economy. In many cases delegates may not have visited otherwise but they love it and want to come back!
Holding a conference also showcases the amazing research and work being undertaken in Liverpool City Region, it gives our academics and medics (even more) kudos and an opportunity to share what is happening here with the world. This in turn helps to attract talent and cement the future of the region.
Why would someone want to be an ambassador?
Ambassadors are passionate about the City and want to bring their association’s conferences here. It’s extremely rewarding bringing an event to a City you love and want to show off.
Our Ambassadors receive free support from our team to bid for and host conferences in Liverpool. We can produce a comprehensive bid document, run familiarisation trips for event organisers, find suitable venues for conferences and social events, provide an accommodation booking service, obtain letters of support – the list is (almost) endless!
It’s often a daunting prospect to bid for a conference but our aim is to make it less so.
We also hold networking events where Club Liverpool Ambassadors can meet other people in a similar situation, several collaborations have come from this, one Professor said he had met more people from his university via Club Liverpool events than at the university itself!
Each year the city rewards those ambassadors who have brought a conference in the previous year at a special Recognition event.
How many events brought in since began?
Club Liverpool Ambassadors have won 75 events for the city since the programme started, with a combined economic impact of £79m. This is great for Liverpool and it is wonderful to have so many fantastic ambassadors to continue to make such a positive impact on the City.
What do you enjoy most about being Programme Manager?
It is a privilege to play my part in supporting the growth of the Liverpool City Region, this is a special place with so much to shout about. I am lucky to work with a great team at Marketing Liverpool and ACC Liverpool.
Club Liverpool ambassadors are such a warm, diverse and interesting group of people. I have learnt so much about what is happening in our city through them. I have had some incredible experiences, watching a live operation which was simultaneously being beamed to a conference in India, seeing snake venom being milked and witnessing the microwaving of pig waste for biogas production to name a few!