Harvest Festival Director's Planning Schedule
This lis not a complete list, but it can serve as tool to prepare for your program.
Contents
May or earlier
- Determine what age group the program is geared toward, young families, young adults, mixed?
- Decide if you will have the live band for the hoe-down. If so, book in advance
- book band in April/May—the earlier the better
- Ok to book band as late as July 5th
- Establish theme/ purpose of program
- Camp directors recruit key staff positions, such as cook, move in/move out coordinator, general affairs, etc.
- Determine people to lead activities; pumpkin carving, candle dipping, etc.
June
- Clarify with registrar when registration can open
- Usually we send out a deadline reminder for Family Camp at the end of June, and the registration announcement for the Harvest Festival should be included in this newsletter, to avoid having to send out another newsletter in July when things get too busy with Family Camp matters.
- Coordinate with registrar and webmaster about registration, should be at the end of June, see above.
- Solidify core staff team: activities leader, education component, logistics, etc.
- Hold weekly or bi-weekly meetings with staff team to discuss details.
July
- Create promotional flyers that can be handed out at Family Camp, spread the word and recruit in person at Family Camp
- Work with social media coordinator to create a Facebook Event page
August
- Continually advertise the event through social media, give reminders before early bird deadline
- Make sure you are familiar with all Shehaqua policies and the Hickory Run State Park rules. The Program Circle should assist you in finding all these policies in our Guidebook/Wiki pages—if they don’t do it, you need to reach out to them and ask.
- Continually check the “who is coming” link on the registration site so you can ask these people for help and also get a sense of the audience coming
- Proactively invite people to the event. Ex: If you have 5 core staff then every one of them should be responsible for personally inviting 15ppl with a goal of 5 attendees each.
- Post updates to Facebook Event page
- Learn how to use the staff section of the registration page to make volunteer assignments (the webmaster will have to give you access to this section)
September
- Find out how to get the key for the mattress storage, and how to return it at the end of camp
- Learn how to coordinate with park rangers (walk through at the end of program, etc)
- Send out email to all participants with code of conduct and what to bring list
Tips
Find a way to get people to programs on time. Find a way to get people’s attention and get to a location. Keep the program simple. Keep cooking simple, minimize time in the kitchen.
