Striving for Event Excellence: Planning, Preparing, and Executing Featuring Beth Duda (Part II)

In this Beyond the Blog podcast, Kiarra Louis examines TPF excellence through the lens of event management. In Part II of the Striving for Excellence podcast, Beth Duda, the director of the Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, joins the conversation to discuss the documents TPF uses to embed excellence in event planning, preparation, and execution.   

Key Themes

• Defining event excellence 
• Celebrating and honoring relationships 
• Intentionally planning and preparing 
• Evolving processes and technology 

Key Quotes

"We strive from the moment people walk in the door that they feel welcomed that we are introducing them to others. We have conversation starters and activities on the table, so no one has the feeling that I don't know what to do or that I don't feel like a part of this." 

"Good enough isn't good enough when you're talking about truly honoring people's contributions to this movement. Whether it is the Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading or any one of the other initiatives that The Patterson Foundation puts forth. We know they're as good as the sum of their parts, and we need to hold up all of those parts and honor the spreadsheet people, honor the creatives, and, probably most importantly, honor our community members who come forth to participate in the things that will make our world a better place." 

"We all want to be part of something that is alive, and if we just do the same thing over and over and over again, just talking about it in that way makes it seem not alive and not vibrant. If we talk about SCGLR being a movement, we continue to welcome new people into the movement, and people want to do things that are exciting and vibrant and feel like they matter. So, the more attention we can give things, and the more thought we can put into things, and the more we can learn from the people who are already part of it, the better off we're going to be. So, some of the evolution is to keep it fresh, some of the evolution is because every time we do something, we learn things. And if we're learning something new, it would be crazy not to implement it."

Timestamps - Part 2

• 1:49 – Start of part II
• 2:06 – Event Excellent Documents 
• 2:27 - Using Frameworks
• 5:24 - Using run of shows 
• 3:43 – The Costs
• 4:13 – Including people in the event 
• 6:56 – Evolving each event 
• 8:40 – Using Kahoot -
• 10:59 –  Tangible Takeaways  
• 11:00 - Live The Day
• 11:58 - Planning invitations and reminders 
• 12:25 - Adding cushions to the timeline 

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