Individual Contribution to “Fun at the Fair” event
Fun-at-the-fair was a social event aimed at raising public awareness and collecting donations for Barrestown, which is one of the most prolific and active charities. The objective of this organization is to ‘rebuild the lives of children’, who suffer from cancer or after-disease symptoms. The project was successful and met an initial objective of raising more than €500 in donations for the charity, creating a fun an enjoyable atmosphere during the event, as well as learning and developing skills for our mutual academic progress and personal development. The donations totaled €590, and our team received necessary practical insights into event management and implementation.
As far as my involvement and contributions are concerned, I was involved at all five critical stages of the project implementation:
Several objectives were completed at this stage. Firstly, the primary task of this stage was to formulate the general objectives of this project. The decision to raise money and help the charity and to harmonize it with our learning process was the product of mutual, intense discussions and deliberations. However, I was responsible for making the objectives explicit, defining value of the project and communicating it to members of the team. Finally, at this stage I helped to a summary of our project objectives.
It was also essential to understand which survey method was the best suited for this project implementation. One of the team members offered the combination of internet-based survey forms and printouts. Some members of the team insisted on the use of any of this method, while I insisted on using the combination.
Secondly, it was essential to understand our targeted audience (demographics aspect), the most optimal mode of the involved social groups use, and how to customize our activities for these groups. In practice, this task dealt with conducting a survey by means of creating a questionnaire and distributing among the targeted audiences. While completing this task, I was responsible for creating the survey forms, formulating the most important survey questions and designing it. My colleagues, in their turn, were responsible for distributing the questionnaires, collecting feedback from the research participants. When this stage was finished, the team entrusted me with the task of interpreting the results and summarizing findings of the survey.
In general, when this stage was completed, our event planning team understood the best method of maximizing project value for the benefit of all project stakeholders, which were the team, Barrestown Charity and the events attendee.
Design
The main objective of this part of the process was to design the best method of executing the event. Practically, it was necessary to identify the participants of the process, to determine the date, day of the week, location, attractive and unattractive features of the event (‘likes and dislikes’).
At this stage I was responsible for figuring out suitable venues, negotiating with their owners and asking for venue hire price reduction by explaining social nature of the event. Once the replies of the venue owners were obtained, I coordinated the team discussion and articulated advantages and deficiencies of each option. Once our team made the final decision, I got in contact with the venue owners and discussed technical details of the event. At this stage, I also had to discuss liability for potential damage and to provide warranties.
In addition, at this stage we had to plan the entertainment activities and games. On the basis of the survey results, became clear that the attendees will be most interested in playing balloon darts, performing strengthening tests, participating in ‘pick a duck’ competitions, tossing rings, participating in raffles and other traditional leisure activities. We also offered popcorn, candy floss, American-styled hotdogs, cotton candies, burgers and popcorn. I took active part in brainstorming and mind-mapping activities.
Though I was not directly responsible for this task, I actively participated in making a program schedule. In particular, I identified several flaws in the proposed option. In particular, it was my idea to confine the schedule to 1 AM, because the attendees were likely to have other important activities to attend to on Wednesday.
In general, the choice of venue, time, activities and meals exactly corresponded to the interests and priorities of all stakeholders of the project.
Planning
At this stage our team was finishing the schedule and deciding on the timespan for each project activity, as well as the location of all activities places. In particular, I was responsible for determining the popularity of activities, and, thus, for understanding how much space should be allocated for each.
It was also important to develop an appealing introductory and concluding speech, and emphasizing their key messages. I was responsible for drafting the final versions of them, and discussing them with the team. Despite the fact that they were pronounced by my colleague, task was to emphasize the importance of this event and to develop a persuasive ‘thank-you’ statement, so that the attendees of the event would be willing to participate in similar actions in the future.
Event coordination
During the event itself, I had several main responsibilities. Firstly, I was greeting the guests, who were arriving to the club, offering a welcome drink to them and asking them to come in. Secondly, I was responsible for encouraging the guests to take active part in the activities and in the raffle. My third task was to act as a timekeeper and to ensure that each activity suits its timespan.
Event evaluation
Once the event was over, it was necessary to summarize its results. I was responsible for writing online post-event survey questionnaires and distributing them among the attendees, interpreting their feedbacks, and preparing recommendations for the future similar events. In general, it was found that the project was successful, and both the team and the attendees.
Academic impacts of the project
As a result of this project implementation, our team in general, and I in particular received the skills, which are necessary for successful event planning and management. We also understood that such projects are fraught with many urgent and unforeseeable issues, and the team should always allocate extra resources to deal with them.
