By Diane Hinds.

Living with Sickle Cell Disease puts me at a very high risk during Covid-19, but it’s given me a different perspective on the pandemic. I’m one of those people with 'underlying conditions' that you hear about so much in the discussion around the disease, and I’ve had to manage my interaction with the outside world very, very carefully.

One positive outlet that I’ve found throughout lockdown has been working with the CIPR’s Greater London Group (GLG) team to help arrange and stage two exciting virtual conferences aimed at public relations professionals like myself.

What started as a light-hearted discussion on Twitter that we should arrange a #CoronaCon for PR professionals to share best practice about what’s happened to date, and how we can prepare ourselves for the future is real and takes place in June 2020!

We will be hosting the online event on 9 and 16 June featuring an array of experts discussing how the industry has responded to the changing environment such as working from home and the increased dependency on tech.

There have been a great many lives impacted by this pandemic, and we wanted to use this event as a way not just of sharing experiences and advancing knowledge, but raising money for some organisations that are actively trying to help people through this difficult time.

Ticket sales are being divided between the CIPR’s benevolent fund iProvision, which has an important role helping PR practitioners affected by the crisis, and the Felix Project which feeds local communities in London by rescuing surplus food from the food industry and delivering it to over 350 frontline charities and schools.

I’ve been delighted at the quality and the caliber of the speakers who’ve willingly given their time to be part of this event, at short notice.

The current CIPR President Jenni Field will be giving a presentation on ‘how have PR agencies and industry responded to Covid-19?’. The current PR Week Global PR Professional of the year Alex Myers of Manifest Group will be talking about how Covid-19 has accelerated and evolved the purpose.

Lansons co-founder and CEO Tony Langham, who has unrivalled expertise on the subject of reputation management, will give a presentation on "It's all about reputation now: Who's having a good war, and who isn't". We’re also privileged to have local government presented by Polly Cziok, the Director of Communications, Culture and Engagement at Hackney Council. She’ll be talking about the local communications challenges caused by COVD-19.

When I was helping to organise this event, one area I was keen to focus on was not just where we are now, but the implications of the future.

The event we’ve organised on the 16th June is looking to address just that. We’ll have Andrew Bruce Smith, Director, Escherman discussing 'What does the future hold for the BIG digital platforms (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Amazon) following Coronavirus? And the implications for the PR industry?'

Ronke Lawal, Founder of Ariatu PR will be talking about Future-facing brands and how consumer brands can embrace opportunities afforded to them by digital communication tools.

Sarah Waddington, Founder of Astute.Work and former CIPR President will be speaking about what lessons can be learned by senior management from their response to COVID-19. And Sharon O'Dea, Co-founder Lithos Partners will be looking at the future of work in the wake of Covid-19. Social distancing has accelerated moves towards remote working by a decade within just a few weeks.

We believe this event will give PR practitioners an opportunity to consider the impact of the health and economic crisis on our industry and to contribute to charities that support those directly impacted by Covid-19.

It’s been hugely rewarding to help organise #CoronaCon. I’ve been delighted to have something on which to focus and help contribute to ‘giving back’ to both our chosen charities and wider PR community. It’s not been without its challenges to organise a remote event, but we’ve found tools like Zoom, Dropbox, Google docs and the CIPR GLG’s Guild Group instrumental as ways to stay in touch with one another and coordinate things throughout the lockdown.

I’d love for this event to be a huge success for iProvision, for The Felix Project and for the members who’ve willingly given their time to help stage it, and for as many PR and communications professionals as possible to join us by buying tickets for 9 June and, hopefully, buying tickets for 16 June too! CIPR Members can buy tickets for £10. Non-Member tickets are £15.

Working in art and entertainment PR, Diane Hinds looks forward to telling her grand-children some scandalous and potentially libelous stories. She has taught Campaigning & Persuasive Skills at the University of Westminster and is a frequent Guest Visitor at UCLA Extension programme.

Photo by Марьян Блан | @marjanblan on Unsplash