How can I help grow our creative economy?
Planning
Hosting an Engage Workshop is a first step toward raising the value of art and creativity in your town. The workshop helps you explore how creativity, innovation, and the arts can build new connections in your community and expand your local economy. We’ve designed a two-hour public event you can easily host with local partners. Allow 6-8 weeks for planning and promoting.
Community Partners
Identify and connect with community partners. These can be anyone in your community with a stake in the local economy, including local government, tourism, chamber of commerce, Rotary, arts councils, churches, libraries, hospitals, social service agencies, school districts, and active community members. The diversity of people, opinions, and experiences at decision-making tables make communities and economies stronger. Include people you don’t know in the planning process to increase diverse participation in the workshop.
Facilitators and Event Volunteers
CT Air Certified Facilitators are trained to deliver workshop content and lead exercises. For online workshops, there will be one facilitator per six participants. In person workshops one facilitator per nine participants. We encourage you to recruit volunteers to help with event logistics for in-person workshops.
Event Space
Secure an event space appropriate for a public meeting. You will provide:
- Chairs (and tables if possible)
- A computer with large wall monitor or a projector with a screen or light-colored wall
- A sound system if the room requires.
Whether or not you provide tables, make sure the room setup allows participants to meet in groups of up to 10 people in a circle or around a table. Be sure to consider ADA accommodations, such as mobility, hearing, and visual.
Advertise!
We already created the marketing materials for you. All you need to do is customize and distribute them. Hang flyers in high pedestrian traffic areas, submit a press release to local newspapers, create a Facebook event, and send out invitations to everyone on your mailing list as well as your community partners’ mailing lists.
Refreshments
We recommend working with one or more of your local restaurants or food businesses to provide food. This is a great way to give some advertising to your local creative chefs and cooks! If you have the budget to pay them, please pay them. If you can work out a reduced price in exchange for sponsorship of the event, try that. If none of that is possible, please buy some chips and salsa or bake cookies and provide water, coffee, and tea. You want people to stay nourished and happy at your event. You can skip the refreshments for online events.
Registration
Use Eventbrite or another free event management system to register people for your workshop so you can plan for enough chairs, printed materials, and food and beverages. This can also help you boost your social media presence.
If you have time and resources, print name tags for the people who registered online. Otherwise, make sure you have blank name tags and markers for people when they arrive. For online workshops, we recommend using Zoom for registration and delivery.