On Sunday, April 2, volunteers met for our monthly meeting to plan and organize the upcoming Spencer Pride Festival. The meeting was well-attended. Our demolition work day was the same afternoon, so we had to relocate our meeting to the courthouse lawn because the commUnity center wasn’t yet cleaned and put back together. Thankfully, the sun was out and it was a beautiful, bright Spring afternoon for a meeting outdoors.
After going through the usual business updates and general discussion about the festival, the 3 committees broke out for focused conversation about our key areas. Updates from each committee are below.
The entire group also discussed 3 other topics of importance.
- Decorations for the stage: We discussed this for a short period of time to generate some ideas. Ultimately it was agreed that final decisions on decorations could wait until the May volunteer meeting.
- T-Shirt designs: The t-shirt design needs to be drafted so that we can start the process of having the shirts made. We will reach out to some local artists to see if they are interested in helping to design the shirt. We need their ideas within 2 weeks in order to meet our timeline for the shirts. The goal is to order the shirts by no later than May 1st.
- Cardinal Spirits partnership: Cardinal Spirits (a local distillery in Bloomington) will be selling cocktails at Spencer Pride. This is a first for us. We believe that we can maintain a family-friendly atmosphere while allowing responsible drinking as well. We will have Cardinal set up their canopy and a pride lounge (the only area where drinking will be permitted) on the south lawn.
If you are interested in helping plan our event, or if you are interested in volunteering at our event in any way, please send us an e-mail at info@SpencerPride.org and we will be happy to get you the necessary information to get started. We’d love to have you join our family. It’s fun and it makes a difference! In May, we will be meeting every Sunday from 4-6 to work on the festival plans.
The Welcoming Committee discussed the following:
- Decorations for the welcome booth in order to make it more visible. Purchases will be made over the coming month to support this.
- We need to get the right supplies for our roaming 50-50 sales.
- The strategy for updating the informational kiosk. Some things need to be printed in advance from VistaPrint for weather-protection. Other items (such as sponsor recognition) we aren’t able to discuss until we get closer to the event and understand the number of sponsors we will need to advertise on the kiosk.
- We will not be using the merchandise cart on the lawn; instead, it will be used by the Activities committee as a prominent location from which to sell Dunk Tank tickets on the street.
- The billboard design is complete and was sent to Lamar.
- The festival fliers will be designed by a local artists (who is also one of our volunteers). The plan is to have the fliers printed locally and ready to distribute to our volunteers at the May meeting.
- The festival program will need to be printed by mid-May. Volunteers will review last year’s program for recommended changes and the committee will finalize plans at the May volunteer meeting.
The Activities Committee made the following decisions:
- Contracts are ready to be signed and paid this week for Bloomington Aeriology and PartyZone Rentals. Bloomington Aeriology will be participating in Spencer Pride for the first time and will be doing both performance as well as lessons throughout the day. PartyZone will be providing a Bounce House, 3-in-1 Sports Challenge, Deluxe Slip-n-Slide, Toddler Town, and Dunk Tank. These will all be placed on Market Street.
- The dunk tank will utilize the old merchandise cart. This will help bring some shade to the street for our volunteers staffing this booth, plus it will draw more attention because of the large umbrella.
- We need to spend time soliciting for raffle donations. We do not have many items as of this time.
The Marketplace Committee, which has a lighter load that doesn’t kick into high gear until May, discussed the following next steps:
- We need to update the vendor communication letter, which will be sent Mid-May. We will likely also send a reminder e-mail this month to those who have already registered, stating that the set-up information will be coming in Mid-May.
- We need to update the layout based on some of the changes that have occurred this year. After that is complete, we can begin making vendor assignments.
- The inventory of our canopies and tables needs to take place in the next 4-5 weeks.
