John Lawrence’s message from July 9, 2018
They really know how to make pancakes in Johnson County. I had a few samples Sunday morning during Johnson County’s 100-year anniversary event. Today I’m in the office for a teleconference and a one-on-one meeting. On Tuesday I’m back on the road for centennials in Winneshiek and Delaware counties. My July includes 17 county centennials, at last count, and I hope to visit a few additional fairs along the way. (I also want to thank my leadership team colleagues who are covering other centennials that I can’t get to.) Luckily, I have an online schedule and excellent staff to help me keep track of where I’m supposed to be at any given time.
However, it takes a lot more than luck to carry out all these county extension centennials, as well as county fairs, festivals and community events across the state. “We’ve always done it this way” had to start somewhere. Call it art or call it science, managing fairs, festivals and events can be a huge task for local organizers. Fortunately, ISU Extension and Outreach has a resource that can help. Did you know?
- You can share our “Event Management Training Toolkit for Managers of Rural Iowa Fairs, Festivals, and Events” with your clients. The 15-page toolkit is available for free download from the Extension Store. It provides resources for solving some of the more challenging aspects of managing events, such as crises and controversies, security, cross-promotional activities, media relations and regulations.
- Eric Olson and Lakshman Rajagopal, from Iowa State’s Department of Apparel, Events and Hospitality Management, created the toolkit supported by the Heddelson Junior Faculty Grant. This fund was established to ensure that new human sciences faculty are exposed to and incorporated into ISU Extension and Outreach projects in Iowa counties.
- The toolkit is based on results from a survey of 212 Iowa managers examining the challenges in planning and managing events. Read about the research behind the toolkit in the Journal of Extension.
Festivals, fairs and events have a great economic impact in Iowa communities. In addition, when people work together to carry out these events, they are developing their community identity and increasing social capital, which helps to build a strong Iowa.
More notes
- Make sure to review the July program update from the leadership team.
- Our Disaster Recovery website includes information on dealing with flooding, as well as severe weather, fire and drought.
- The Internal Communications Task Force met again July 2 and the executive summary from the meeting is posted on Cybox.
— John D. Lawrence
Iowa State University Vice President for Extension and Outreach