West Lothian College Students take part in largest third sector event in the country
West Lothian College students recently had the opportunity to work at the UK’s largest event for third sector organisations.
The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisation hold “The Gathering” every year. This year is the SCVO’s, 15th Year Celebration.
The Gathering is the largest free to attend third sector event in the UK, a place for people who are working in the charity sector to network, showcasing what they have to offer each other. This year the event attracted an audience of over 2,800 visitors, 130 exhibitors and featured around 60 seminars.
There were 1,969 tweets sent with the #scvogathering hashtag from 848 accounts and 10,065 unique visitors to The Gathering website on the days. The Gathering is held every year in the SEC, Glasgow. From its inception in 2004 the Gathering has attracted around 44,052 visitors, brought together 1,666 exhibitors and delivered 668 workshops.
West Lothian College have been working in partnership with the SCVO since 2012. Three departments from the college assist at the Gathering; Hair and Beauty, Photography and Events. The event students are involved from the beginning, with interns assisting with the planning.
Events students also assisted over the two days welcoming and assisting the various visitors.
Students who took part were thankful for the opportunity it gave them to see how such events are staged and managed and that they will be able to call on the experience in the future.
Lecturer Stephen Frew said: “We have to say thank you to the SCVO for once again inviting us to the Gathering. As always it is a fantastic opportunity for our students to get behind the scenes of a large-scale event and see how everything works and to then actually be a part of it. I hope they will have taken a lot away from the event and it will inspire them as they move forward in their studies and future careers.”