A few weeks ago I went to a fantastic networking event. It went for around 2 hours. I reconnected with old friends, met new people, and learnt a lot. By the end of the event, though, I was half crippled, because I am still recovering from having been very disabled before my hip surgery, and I’m not used to standing for a long time. I should probably have left sooner, or stood more carefully. It seems I gave myself a stress fracture, or upset a tendon somehow. You see how the injury was all my fault? Except that it wasn’t. Because there was not a single chair in that room.
I don’t blame the event organisers. There’s almost never a chair in the room at networking events. Occasionally there are chairs around the walls, ensuring that anyone who needs to sit down will wind up on the outside looking in. But typically we think we want people to mingle, and if they sit down and get comfortable, they’re not going to move around and talk to as many people.
For all practical purposes, though, people tend to gather in clumps and not mingle a lot anyway. And it’s really no harder to leave a sitting position than to leave a standing group. Particularly if it becomes normal to have chairs at networking events. If you’re super keen for people to mingle, ring a bell every 5 or 10 minutes and encourage (but never force) people to move to a new group. Even if everyone is standing, this will encourage more mingling than leaving people to their own devices.
The event space I was in last week, at Google in Sydney, had a bunch of tall tables with stools around them, and some shorter tables with comfortable chairs around them. This is a great mix. It helps alleviate the “snack in one hand, drink in the other, oops, now I can’t shake hands or swap contact details” problem. Careful arrangement of chairs and tables can actually maximise mingling, by making sure there is plenty of space for people to come and go without awkward shuffling of furniture. If you leave gaps, you make it possible for people to choose whether to sit or stand, which is even better, as sometimes sitting for too long can be a problem, too! It also makes it easier to access food & drinks, by encouraging people to cluster in pre-defined areas that leave through-ways. It also makes it less of a drama to leave the room to go to the toilet, get some air, or take a phone call.
Before I had my hip surgery, I could not have attended an event where I had to stand for two hours. Even one hour of standing left me in a lot of pain, which meant I was simply not able to attend most events. It was incredibly othering – and for a lot of the time I wasn’t on crutches or in a wheelchair. I was still relatively mobile. For folks with permanent mobility problems, the exclusion is permanent. It can also be a huge problem for those with energy based disabilities, which are vastly more common these days, given the prevelance of long covid. Having a range of seating arrangements would make events a lot more inclusive for surprisingly large numbers of people.
That’s assuming you have chosen an accessible venue, of course, but that’s a whole other post. I have a rant coming about the amount of extra effort required to access the so-called accessible options. For now, since we’re talking about inclusive events, let’s talk about food.
On my Sunday flight home from that event, on Qantas, there were two hot food options. A vegetarian samosa, and a butter chicken pie. They both smelt quite tasty. Neither of them was gluten free.
Sometimes the vegetarian option is gluten free, but chock full of fructose, which really doesn’t work, as a lot of people who require a gluten free diet also need one that’s low in fructose. This time they offered me an apple which, apart from being high in fructose and therefore not something I can eat, is hardly the equivalent of a tasty hot snack. It’s an afterthought that clearly says they don’t care about me or my food requirements. When I asked a second flight attendant, he was able to provide some crackers and a small piece of chocolate coconut slice. Better, but still nowhere near equivalent.
The same event with the chairs and tables has, in the past, had caterers who completely failed to feed me. They’ve offered “gluten free” snacks containing oats (which are not gluten free), or “fructose friendly” meals full of chick peas, onions, and cabbage (which are very much the opposite of fructose friendly). This year, though, one of the organisers contacted me in advance, and worked really hard to check menus and adapt them to something I could eat. I had meals at least as tasty, as fancy, and as filling, as all the other participants. In truth, there was far more food than I could eat! It was amazing. I felt really looked after.
At many other conferences, the gluten free meal (where one has been provided) has been a single dry sandwich, while everyone else gets a selection of hot meals. The gluten free snack is often a bowl of apples while attendees get a range of pastries, cookies, and cakes.
Look, it’s not the end of the world. I always assume I won’t be fed and prepare accordingly. But it does send a powerful message that the organisers don’t give a rats about me or my needs. The message “here’s a bunch of really tasty food that you can’t have,” is actually quite hostile.
I attended a conference in New Zealand a couple of times where the catering folks made sure that every snack had a gluten free equivalent (thanks Polly!). So when everyone else got scones with jam and cream, I did, too. When there were fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, there were plates of gluten free ones, too. It was amazing. I felt so welcome, so included, and so, so well fed!
The same event where I hurt my foot had little signs on the savoury snacks at the start of the event that listed the dietary requirements they met. It was great! Except that when the desserts came out, they didn’t have any signs. Apparently folks with special dietary requirements don’t merit dessert. Also, given how poorly some caterers understand dietary requirements, a list of ingredients would be much more useful, so that we can judge for ourselves (and also people with allergies to weird things like silverbeet would know what was safe!).
I get that catering for everyone’s dietary requirements is challenging. But it’s a necessary part of catering. If you’re going to feed people, do your best to feed everyone. Because otherwise you’re telling more and more people that you don’t care about them.
There are so many different types of accessibility to consider, it can be exhausting trying to meet everyone requirements. But consider how much more exhausting it is to HAVE those requirements, and to be consistently excluded from events because the organisers can’t be bothered making them accessible for you.
***This is just a small discussion of some of the types of in(/ex)clusion that have affected me recently. Are there ways you have been excluded, or things that conferences could do to include you better? Please add them in the comments!
