Tuesday, November 1, 2016

2016 Christmas Parade

DECEMBER 3RD, 2016                         1:00 PM


This will be the first Christmas Parade that I help organize and it is a different process that I'm used to. The GCCVB chooses the theme, takes the registration, organizes the event and hands it off to a few different organizations. (Kiwanis & 93.1 The Wolf) Which is a great way to work with different community organization, according to the staff here this is how they have done it for years and it must work well for us.

Our first staff meeting about the Parade was to choose the theme. We looked into our archives of past Christmas Parade themes so that we didn't duplicate. I turned to Pinterest for inspiration and my goal was to find a creative theme that would encourage the participants to think outside of the box. I came to the staff meeting with a notebook of suggestions and the one that took was, "All I Want for Christmas is..."

When the dates and details were confirmed here comes the fun/hard part, spreading the word about the Parade. Social Media is a great way to share an event but you have to be clear with your information. Myself and Executive Assistant Karen McCarty went to work on the registration form. Happy to say there hasn't been too much confusion, if any, with the form. I also created a logo (one of my favorite things to do) for the parade to add to forms, social media, etc..

Our goal was to make the form easy to understand for participants to fill out and for us to understand what they are requesting.
We are working mainly with Facebook, because it is one of the more popular social media site in Gallia County. We created an event page to share the Parade and answer questions. It has also been a great way to share the registration form. Unfortunately we aren't able to create a online form to fill out at this time but allow forms to be submitted via social media, email, hand in, mail or via telephone (if necessary). The event page can be found on the official Gallia County Convention and Visitors Bureau Page or clicking here.

My battle is getting the expressing the importance of meeting the deadline (November 18th) to register. With Thanksgiving right after the deadline and other events that we must take care of, there are only a few days to finish the line-ups and get the information out to the right people. As a staff of only two full time and two part-time employees, there is only so much we can do. So my first step was sending registration forms to all past participants, then emailing my contacts the forms. I dropped a few forms to local businesses on Second Avenue and shared with the Gallia County Chamber of Commerce. On social media I have been doing my best to blast with deadline reminders.





Stay tuned for the reveal of this year's Christmas Parade Marshall!

The Parade itself will take place on December 3rd, 2016 at 1:00pm, 2nd Avenue through town ending at the Gallipolis City Park. The participates are judged and will receive certificates for, Best Baton/Dance Unit, Best Old Car, Best Theme Float, etc.  






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