It has been great to hit the ground running with lots of great ideas for new aspects of the fair this year and an ever growing support of the fair from the community. I am attaching the “new” things that I am working towards, pending discussion and support of some committees/community members. This has been my focus for the last month
- Designed 2023 graphics
- Setting up Non-Livestock Make & Takes (see the next pages)
- Began approaching organizational leaders for aspects of the fair
- Designed and sold calendars
- Started email contact list with online company
- Cleaned out the office and moved things to storage above the Home Ec building
- Set up contracts for 2023 events
- Made connections with Discovery Museum & Burpee for booths & demos at the fair
- Contracts for Entertainment
- Redesigned the non-livestock pages to a format and wording that will be accessible to people who have never entered into the fair
- Finalized a detailed marketing and advertising plan
- Worked with FHN to better promote their Baby Care station
- Worked up 2023 Sponsorship levels and brochures
Meetings/Classes/Networking:
I attended a Rise & Shine with GFP, met with Jessica & Barry at FAM about the paint classes at the fair, had lunch with Kevyn to discuss marketing, had a phone conference with Dan and Josh from the Muse about improving our website, utilizing CRMs and possibly incorporating an app for the fair, met with Thedford Jackson about high school involvement, and attended the IAAF conference with several beneficial meetings and knowledge gained.
I attended the following committee meetings:
- Finance
- Commercial
- Advertising/Marketing
New Ideas to Implement for 2023
Here is a list of fresh ideas I am working on with a plan to find an event partner for each one to assist with the planning and then the implementation. Not all of these ideas will happen. But, with community support, I hope that we can get many of these going!
- Create multiple food court tents. This will be funded by tent sponsorship of $500 each and the ability to brand it with their signage and décor
- Create “stand and eat” stations under the food court tents from cable spools to be decorated by the community. These would be painted and branded as Spools of School Spirit.
- Host a “Unique Food” contest for food vendors. The winner will have a discounted booth fee for 2024.
- Create signage for the empty booth spaces in the commercial building (in the event a vendor is a no-show). These will be either selfie stations or signage about other activities at the fair.
- Have a “Best Decorated Booth” contest for the commercial building. This would be a people’s choice award.
- Band competition or battle of the bands. There is a community member who would like to head this up, I would like to see what the entertainment committee thinks about it, he had a lot of great ideas. I offered for him to attend the next meeting.
- Local Church music night in the Entertainment tent, I have a community member willing to help make this happen.
- Weekly pop-up workshops for exhibitors (bring your friends out to the Yarn store for a tutorial on making a small project), co-sponsored by the hosting business and the fair. These workshops would all be things from categories that could be entered in the fair. The events will be completely organized by the hosting business/organization, we would just be adding it to our marketing.
- As a follow up, I would like to add a few classes that would reflect community make and takes that are available. The classes I would suggest adding:
- Quilling (Classes at the Freeport Paper Company)
- Dream Catchers (Classes at Quiet Soul)
- Fine Art 2D & 3D (Promoted by the Freeport Art Museum and their classes)
- Wheel barrel planters can be added as a class and we can have them displayed all around the grounds.
- Another option is to see if some of these promotional make and takes can also be
- As a follow up, I would like to add a few classes that would reflect community make and takes that are available. The classes I would suggest adding:
- Have a non-livestock auction for items such as canned goods, artwork, and other home ec items
- VIP Tent
- Pretty Bird Paradise on the grounds entertainment
- Mobile Dairy Educational Trailer on the grounds entertainment
- Educational booths & presentations from:
- Burpee Museum & Discovery Museum, more to come
- Midway Village or another entity to set up a historic farm display
- Volley Ball or something similar to utilized the horse arena earlier in the week
- Community member suggestion: Budweiser Clydesdale horses or young living horses
- Large Cut outs of animals for more photo ops
- Antiques Appraisal (3 hours, outside, items must be carried in hands by one person)
- Welding Competition
- Shuttle service to the parking lots for those with mobility issues.
- Online ticketing (deals & group rates)
- Create an App for the fair
- More on the grounds games and activities such as bags and other lawn games. Better signage for group games
- Volunteer Daily Meals
- Cruise in Car Show
I would like to continue most of the new items from last year, but with a designated community member to oversee the implementation of it.