At an early age I began my career in event planning by gathering my neighborhood friends on a regular basis. Throughout high school and college I volunteered for committees and headed organizations allowing me to bring people together for a variety of reasons.  Concurrently, I began a writing career with newsletters, articles, copy for marketing material, and later writing and editing guidebooks, user manuals, and how to books.  These two careers continue in concert for more than 27 years.

My expertise and good humor helped to create successful business relationships with clients in the banking industry, hospitality trade, educational and non-profit organizations, professional associations, athletic clubs and the environmental community.  Having participated with these diverse groups, I am familiar with multiple segments of the business and social world.

With the writing and event planning skills strongly embedded and using my multilayered experiences, the book, The Complete Guide to Successful Event Planning, was born. 

I am currently teaching event planning classes, workshops and seminars, and doing public speaking.  I have developed a curriculum for all levels of commitment. I have mentored beginners through their first event and assisted seasoned professionals seeking new heights of proficiency.

My latest endeavor for event planning is to help the industry create new Environmental Standards.  I am in the process of writing my next book dedicated to “greening” the hospitality and event planning business. 

In my leisure time you will find me in my garden, in my kayak, drinking MonaVie or in the clutches of a good book.  I happily live near the ocean north of San Francisco.

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Okay, so maybe you've known me for years and never knew that, but now you do. Anyway, I am in the process of planning my boss's inauguration, and decided I needed some more event planning resources in my library of books. So I picked up "The Complete Guide to Successful Event Planning" by Shannon Kilkenny with companion CD Rom.  This morning I popped in the CD ROM.

Oh.

My.

WORD.

This is an amazing resource...the organizer in me is giddy with excitement! Checklists, Budgets, Event Task Status Reports, Room Set Ups, Speaker Arrangements...it's a plethora of reusable resources right at my finger tips!! Granted, many of these things I have used in the past with events, but oh...to have them easily accessible again...in pdf OR Word format so I can tweak them to my liking...this is almost more exciting than reading the book itself!

Timelines. Room Designs. Food and Beverage Servings.

I feel like I've just overdosed on sugar at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory or something...bliss...

Sarah May 21, 2008