Spring Gathering Director's Planning Schedule

This lis not a complete list, but it can serve as tool to prepare for your program.

December

• Already start recruiting staff

January

• Inform Program Circle about activities that you are planning that cost money. The Program Circle will need to submit a budget request by the end of the month for approval by the Shehaqua Council, and unless you tell them that your budget needs to be larger than the one of the previous year because of special activities, the Program Circle will apply for the same budget for your program as in the previous year. (Estimate since you may not know exactly what things will cost)
• Camp directors begin to recruit key staff positions, such as cook, move in/move out coordinator, general affairs, presenters, etc.

February

• Determine what age group the program is geared toward; young families, young adults, or mixed?
• Establish theme/ purpose of program
• Camp directors recruit key staff positions, such as cook, move in/move out coordinator, general affairs, presenters, etc. (if not found already)
• Clarify when registration can open
• Coordinate with newsletter editor to announce Spring Gathering. Save the date announcement usually goes out in early March, and registration opens in March or early April

March

• Coordinate with newsletter editor to announce Spring Gathering. Save the date announcement usually goes out in early March, and registration opens in March or early April. The earlier you know who signs up the easier it will be for you to plan the activities and assign volunteer roles. Registration should open at least one month before the program starts. (Registration opened April 6 in 2014, April 4 in 2015, March 6 in 2016, and March 11 in 2017.)
• Coordinate with registrar and webmaster about registration
• Solidify core staff team: activities leader, education component, logistics, etc.
• Hold weekly or bi-weekly meetings with staff team to discuss details.
• Continually advertise the event through social media, give reminders before early bird deadline

April

• 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.
• 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)
• Work with social media coordinator to create a Facebook Event page

May

• 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
• Post updates to Facebook Event page

Policies every Program Director needs to read and understand

• • Pennsylvania State Park Regulations
  • General Shehaqua Program Policies
  • Financial Policies
  • Administrative Discounts
  • Shehaqua Code of Conduct
  • Staff and Volunteer Assignment descriptions
  • Shehaqua Data Privacy