Events

1. Why is this event being held? Why is your organization involved?
2. Who is your audience? (their needs and interests? sample personas?)
3. What efforts can your team employ to reach your audience? Can you measure those different efforts? 
4. What green goals are most important for this event?
5. What is available at your venue:
• WIFI. Check capacity.  It might be worth it to purchase faster connectivity from third party vendors.
• Cellular network? 
• Water? 
• Food? 
• What elements can you use to your advantage?  Recycling, can you offer it at your booth as a way to attract environmentally-minded people?  Located near the restrooms – offer chairs & chat with those in line. 
6. What is your budget?  
7. What are your expenses (including registration, booth/table rental, transportation, giveaways, food, etc. 
8. What will your volunteers need to know? 
• Logistics: (time, place, etc.)
• Be prepared to run every aspect of your booth and answer questions.

1. Promote your booth/table to your target audience before the event.
• Use email, social media, and/or through the host’s communication channels.
2. Promote your events, demonstrations, contests, drawings, and other activities at your booth/table before and during the event.  (Can you promote those before the event?)
3. Plan signage that will attract visitors.  
• Consider using materials reflecting low-waste goals.  
• Need logos, visuals, fliers, and common QR codes?  These are available to members by contacting Communications@ESRAG.org and ask for access to ESRAG collateral that’s in iMember.
4. Make sure your booth/table is listed on the event organizer’s map and in their literature.

1. Consider each of the different personas at the event. 
   • What will each want? How can your team provide that?  
     • Tactile activities like crafts, seedlings, or spinning-prize-wheels?
   • What kind of information will each age group want?  Is it available on mobile (reducing printing/paper) 

2. Take pictures

   Remember to get permission from visitors, especially children’s parents, for ESRAG to share with Rotary on all our digital platforms and in signage.  

   • Link to Model Release Form
   • You can also have people sign this statement.  Remember to send us a copy of the statement with any pictures you want to share. 

   I grant Rotary [Identify District/Club #]________ and [identify partner organization(s)] permission to use my likeness in a photograph, video or other digital media in any of its publications or partner organizations like the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group (ESRAG) including web-based publications without payment or other consideration. I am at least 18 years of age. 

   If “Participant” is a minor, I am the participant’s parent/guardian, am listed as “Emergency Contact”, and give consent for my child to attend this event and child’s image to be used in photographs, video or other digital media.

   Please print legibly.

   Name, Guardian Name if a participant is a minor, Mobile, email, Photo consent (Yes / No)

3. Follow-up

   Encourage your visitors to connect with you after the event.  Who will be interested in:

   • Signing up for a newsletter
   • Taking one of the Task Force team pledges 
   • Becoming an ESRAG Member. (Keep visitors happy while completing information – Are laptops, chairs, and treats available) 
   • Prepare and bring backup paper and forms. Can you offer secure payment if Wifi goes down?
   • What “green” incentives can you offer to encourage people to connect with ESRAG after the event?
   • Drawing for green products? (For example: Who Give a Crap toilet paper donates part of their proceeds to water projects and everyone loves chatting about the name; SaveourMonarchs.org offers seeds for biodiversity 
   • Drawing for green services like gift cards or donations given in the winner’s name.

1. Store or hand off materials for the next event. Share or compost leftover food, Recycle appropriate materials. Weigh the trash and record to bring down the weight for next year. 
2. Debrief with your team in a meeting or via email. What went well?  What can be improved?
3. Thank your team members, vendors, and event leaders.
4. Complete any follow-up with booth/ table visitors.
5. Share your pictures, photo permissions, and description of your event with Communications@esrag.org.  We’d love to use these to inspire other ESRAG members.

First Steps 

• Identify your audience – this will help you ‘hook’ your audience
• Develop an Impactful Short Title – (your hook)
• Establish the goal for your presentation
• Draft an outline/map with steps of how you get to your goal 

Your presentation

• Include Stories – making it personal makes it memorable
• Make connections to the Rotary 4 Way Test
• Remember ESRAG & Rotary are International 
• Consider language (translation etc)  & culture – 
• Define acronyms first time seen (ie ESRAG, RI, ……
• What ‘take a way’ do you want your audience to leave with? Why are you presenting – information, advocacy, connections.
• Can you have a concrete action that can be done by the attendees?

• PRACTICE – PRACTICE – PRACTICE – become familiar with your presentation so you present rather than read.
  • Practice at least 3X or more + stand back 6-8 ft away from your computer/laptop and RUN the PowerPoint as though you were presenting it – (you will find what works, what timing needs to change, IF your notes show, etc.)
  • If you can’t read it your audience may not be able to read it from their phone OR in a face to face presentation.

Points to consider

PLAN on a full draft of your presentation to be completed at least 2 weeks before it is due:

• Gives you time to practice and make changes that will be needed
• Limit animations (not all mac will translate to pc – AND not all viewing the presentation later will have those animations available) 
• Beware of information placement at bottom of slides (when presenting in a conference not all individuals maybe able to see throught the head sitting in front of them

Photo Tricks

• Please be sure creator & model release forms are completed. Forward the completed forms and your pictures of the event to communications@esrage.org 
• When you want to increase the size of your photo pull from a corner to keep the scale and reduce possibilities of blurring
• If possible – pictures on same slide should be of same size – (click on your picture and Picture Format appears in the top ribbon )
• Click on Picture Format tab to adjust colors – think about where you will be presenting your power point – you may want to lighten or darken the slide – use these buttons
• Use this same section to reduce all pictures and delete cropped areas of pictures you cropped.  Saves bites in sharing your power point saving

PowerPoint Tricks

• Fonts +
  • Primary fonts: headlines and navigation label (Open Sans & Arial)
  • Secondary fonts: body text, secondary headlines, and captions (Georgia)
• RI Brand Central Resources  (colors, fonts, graphics, images, logos & more) 
• Use font size NO smaller than 28 (makes for ease of reading)
• Condense words – use no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide, or five text-heavy slides in a row

• Design 
• The background should be the same throughout the presentation 
• Dark text on a light background is your best bet for visibility
• Is there a template to be used for the conference? 
• Is there a logo/theme for the conference to appear on all (or most) slides?
• Beware of filling slide with words – many conference spaces participants are sitting on floor NOT in theater settings – your participants can have a hard time seeing through the heads in front of them.

• Know your time allotted and MAKE your presentation shorter – 
  • Things go wrong
  • Allows time for Q&A and discussions
• Be sure you practice with a timer to know!

Templates

If you are an ESRAG Member, we have PowerPoint Templates that you can use to build your ESRAG presentation.  Simply log-into iMember, ESRAG’s member database, press the “Account” Tab, then “Account  Files” on the left. If you haven’t logged into iMember, email communications@esrag.org and request “Please send me instructions to log into ESRAG’s Member Portal and download Promotional Templates.”