Learning Reflections Round # 3: Sept. 23 - Oct. 6

Today marks the beginning of a new month -  October -  which means that I have been a member of the marketing team at the park district for exactly 36 days (yes, I've counted them).

When I started, it was still summer, but as I am writing this, I can see that the trees outside my window have turned into a gorgeous row of orange, yellow and brown. Autumn has come.

The arrival of fall has changed the atmosphere here at the park district as well. No more concerts in the park, bug fests, ice cream socials and splash bashes. Instead, it is time for pumpkin weekends, Halloween family nights, haunted houses and of course – for zombies. Tons of information about the upcoming special events can be found on the Fox Valley Park District website.

But let’s go back to the subject of zombies. The Zombie Invasion 5K that took place on Sept. 21 turned out to be one very successful event. After the race, people took pictures with the zombies, listened to music, had food and warmed up by the bonfire. How do I know all of this? I was there.

Have a look at the photos from the event on the Fox Valley Park District’s Flickr account!

And here is the latest update of my learning adventures at the Fox Valley Park District:

Winter Activity Guide Updates

Even though fall has just approached, this week we officially started working on updating the winter activity guide with information about the upcoming events, classes and services. The information that ends up in the activity guides must be absolutely correct. Many people pitch in with the creation of the activity guides, and lots of editing and proof reading takes place.

More information about the importance of the activity guides and the work that goes into their creation and updates will follow as I am sure I will have more learning curves to report about in the next few weeks.

Press Release

Another first for me was writing a press release for an upcoming event: Dinner Theatre with songs performed by the musical group TRiO.

Jeff Long, public relations manager for the Fox Valley Park District, edited the press release and prepared it for publishing. That day I had a class Writing for Communication and I decided to show both versions to my classmates. It made for a good discussion during the class break as we were just learning how to write a press release.

Zombie Invasion 5K

There is so much to be done before a major special event, such as the above mentioned Zombie Invasion 5K. Social media promotion, press releases, not to mention the huge amount of time that goes into planning and organizing of the event. Volunteers are extremely helpful when it comes to the park district's special events. They are always willing to lend a hand, but they need to know what to do. 

Last week I spend few hours helping Anna Kish (Community Athletic Liaison at Fox Valley Park District) with proof reading, printing and laminating the instructions she wrote for the many volunteers who helped out during the Zombie Invasion 5K. Here is a snap shot of just a few:

And here is the fun part: I volunteered to be the bag check person for the event, which gave me the opportunity to communicate with people directly and to learn about their expectations of the race and of the event as a whole. Bag checking was offered for a very first time during this year’s Zombie Invasion 5K for a small fee. Once again, listening to people’s opinion has proved to be priceless for the purpose of improving the park district’s services. I know that for next year, some changes will be implemented in order to provide people with a better service.

The photo below captures a moment I will treasure forever. This is me with Dawn Hartman (Senior Marketing & Communications Manager at FVPD) and Cathy Schwieger (Marketing Coordinator at FVPD).