Page 140 - ShowSight - December 2019
P. 140

                    Breed Education Third in a Series: It Starts With You BY CELESTE M. GONZALEZ continued
 “KEEPING LEARNERS COMFORTABLE
OVER A PERIOD OF DAYS AT MULTI-BREED SEMINARS IS BENEFICIAL TO THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE.”
• Transparent tape (wide and narrow)
• Stapler and staples
• Paper clips (regular and jumbo)
• Scissors
• Binder clips in various sizes
• Clipboards (at least 40, mark the back
with your group’s name) These can be found relatively inexpensively online, as they only need to hold 2-4 sheets of paper at a time while learners are evaluating the example dogs and writ- ing up their participant evaluation
on that breed, or being used to hold
sign-in sheets.
• A carrier bag/box for the clipboards
• Laptop and printer to be used to print
out Certificates of Attendance for each learner. A portable black & white laser printer can be found online
for under $100. Be sure to save each learner’s Certificate of Attendance in an electronic file on your laptop!
• Extension cord(s) and linking cables for the above laptop and printer.
• Reem of copy paper
• Table covers, if needed
• If your group is providing the audio-
visual equipment, all the connecting cables and electrical extension cords that may be needed.
• If your facility has built-in audio- visual equipment, a back-up projector comes in handy.
In addition to supplies and equipment, will you or someone in your group accept shipments of educational materials from seminar presenters or their parent clubs? Is someone designated to transport the shipped educational materials to the semi- nar site? If not, what arrangements will be made for delivery and storage of education- al material shipments if you or someone in your group can’t accept shipments?
PLANNING: CREATURE COMFORTS
Keeping learners comfortable over a period of days at multi-breed seminars is beneficial to the learning experience. To that end, will your group provide bottled water and snacks during the day? Is your group planning on providing lunch as part of the cost of the seminar(s)?
PLANNING: FINANCIAL
When you and your group have decided when and where to hold the breed seminars, the amount of materials and supplies you will need, and the cost of all those, the deci- sion needs to be made as to how much to charge per person attending? Will the fee be based on attendance by the breed, by the day, by the entire number of seminars? Some combination of those? Will there be a price break or free attendance at other seminars for breed presenters? Will there be enrollment preference given to multiple-day registrants? How will income and expenses be tracked? Who will oversee or review the financial aspects of the seminars?
This would be a good time to design a spreadsheet that will suit your group’s needs. It helps to be able to cross reference income received with the names of the attendee payers, as well as amount submit- ted per attendee, payment identification, e.g. check number, transaction number, and type of attendance selected (single breed, single day, multiple days, entire course of seminars). Because the expenses are often limited to a few entities, a line-item description of each expense and amount is simple to enter and keep a running tally in the spreadsheet.
PLANNING: MARKETING YOUR SEMINARS
The means available to announce and market your seminars are many, and almost
all of them come at no charge to your group. Your parent club’s website is a likely spot to announce a breed-specific seminar to be held in conjunction with the breed’s national specialty or other significant breed- specific event. The AKC offers free seminar announcements, breed and performance, on their web site at https://www.akc.org/ clubs-delegates/clubs/resources/seminars/. All you need to do to list a conformation semi- nar is to download and complete a Semi- nar Announcement Form (also available online), then send to Kathy Caruana at judgesed@akc.org. Other web-based sites in which you can list seminar announcements are the following Facebook groups: AKC Judges Only and AKC Conformation Judg- es. Please contact the group administrators directly, as you will need to be a member of the group in order to post. Your group may want to develop its own Facebook page to announce upcoming seminars and other educational endeavors. There is an email list for conformation and performance judges, Judges-L, on which educational seminars are announced at no charge. You must be a member of the Judges-L List-Serv in order to post. Many magazines that cater to the dog fancy announce breed seminars, some through formal paid advertising, and others gratis.
NEXT IN THE SERIES ON BREED EDUCATION
The next article, 3rd in the series, will continue the planning and preparation aspects of seminar coordination. We’ll cover the multitude of types of communi- cations that should occur before your semi- nars start and address comments and ques- tions received from our readers. Please feel free to contact us with your comments and questions at editor@aramediagroup.com.
 138 • ShowSight Magazine, DeceMber 2019
   
































































   138   139   140   141   142