Thursday, September 4, 2014

September Newsletter

Balancing Work, Parenthood & Everything in Between
Fear that you are not spending enough time with the family, friends or furry companions?  Fair season can be stressful and packed with events that occupy most of your time.  The time you spend working not only affects you, but it also impacts those around you; husband, wife, children, pets, etc.  How do we manage to be our best in all of our roles as parents, spouses and professionals?  Many couples today are riddled with this question, so we’ve comprised a list of helpful tips to consider incorporating into your daily lives in order to prioritize your tasks at work and home.
  • Plan in Advance:  Try to organize all of your activities in advance, whether that is making a list, jotting it down on a calendar or writing it down in a planner. By planning ahead, you can dodge unnecessary stress and make sure that no obligation falls through the cracks.

  • Split Chores:  If you have another individual available to assist during this hectic time, divide and conquer! But remember, be flexible and be willing to adjust in critical times, as your priorities might clash with each other’s. Children will reach an age where they are capable of being added in the helping equation. Take full advantage of this opportunity, not only will it help you out, it will also benefit your children in inheriting good habits and creating a level of independence. Start with fun steps such as allowing them to be responsible for the house pet’s upkeep.    

  • Assess Priorities: There will be times when you encounter situations that are out of your control. These situations love to present themselves on days when adding even one more thing to your to-do list is next to impossible. The best way to handle these situations is to calmly assess what is of utmost urgency and complete the things that are most important to overall success for that point in time. 

  • Find Creative Ways to Spend Time with Your Kids:  There are plenty of opportunities to spend time with your family and furry companions, but they won’t last forever so don’t miss them. Taking the time to get to know them and what they like to do is a crucial part in the relationship. You don’t have to go out of your way, it could be something as simple as turning off the TV and IPad and discussing your day in the kitchen, playing with the pets in the backyard or using your imagination to build a blanket castle in the living room. Participating in activities with your kids alongside listening to them allows you to get a better understanding of who they are and how to effectively communicate with them on serious matters. 

  • Manage Your Stress by Enjoying Their Innocence:  Be natural as parents, and follow your instincts, rather than allow guilt to drive your reactions and responses. Most important of all, enjoy the time you spend with family and furry companions, and always remember, you are doing your best!  Cherish the bonds you share, soak in the memories and it will be enough.  They will learn to value and respect you as a person.

Take a breath and relax.  It will all be okay, and with a little rearrangement of the schedule and a change in perspective, you will be able to break free of this constant worry about not doing enough at home and work and have a higher gratitude for life.


Fair Planning with FEMA
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been on a mission for 35 years to lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters with a vision of “A Nation Prepared.” Carrying out this mission successfully FEMA employees plan, prepare and mitigate all before during and after disasters. 

Businesses that are in charge of planning fairs, festivals and countless amounts of other events year round clearly have the capability and skills necessary to plan a successful function. As a planner of these events one of their most crucial steps in planning is having a plan for the unexpected natural disasters. This plan goes unnoticed majority of the time seeing as natural hazards are sporadic and not impacting every event, this step is still one of the most significant to each event planned. 

5 steps in developing a preparedness program are:

Program Management
  • Organize, develop and administer your preparedness program
  • Identify the regulations that establish minimum requirements for your program

Planning
  • Gather information about hazards and assess risks
  • Conduct a business impact analysis 
  • Examine ways to prevent hazards and reduce risk

Implementation
  • Write a preparedness plan addressing:
    • Resource Management
    • Emergency Response
    • Crisis Communications
    • Business Continuity
    • Information Technology
    • Employee Assistance
    • Incident Management & Training 

Testing and Exercise
  • Test and evaluate your plan
  • Define different types of exercises
  • Learn how to conduct exercises
  • Use exercise results to evaluate the effectiveness of the plan

Program Improvement 
  • Identify when the preparedness program needs to be reviewed
  • Discover methods to evaluate the preparedness program
  • Utilize the review to make necessary changes and plan improvements

FEMA also has a National Incident Management System (NIMS) which provides a common approach for managing incidents. FEMA provides Training Organizations such as Center for Domestic Preparedness, Emergency Management Institute, National Fire Academy and many others than what has briefly been discussed here. Check out the links below to learn more about all the training and safety FEMA has to offer for your assistance. 

FEMA Training                             FEMA Safety

YPI VIP Highlight
 

Cassie Roberts
Partnership Director
Saffire Events
Austin, Texas


Cassie Roberts has extensive experience with online marketing and event planning. She has planned strategic events with many companies including the Austin Sports Commission and the United States Olympic Committee. Ms. Roberts has two degrees from the University of Texas: her undergraduate degree is in public relations and her master’s degree is in sport management. She started working with Saffire Events in 2011. During her service there, the company has grown from supporting a few fairs in Texas to partnering with more than 130 unique events, venues, and destinations. 

Ms. Roberts enjoys traveling around the country to share strategic online planning tactics with event producers. Ms. Roberts lives in Austin, Texas, and loves to serve as a tour guide when people visit the city!

Join us in welcoming Cassie Roberts to the 2014 YPI Steering Committee. 

Mentor Spotlight

Kendra Wright
Saffire Events
Austin, Texas

How long have you been in the fair industry?
Five action-packed years!

What’s the best lesson you have learned in the industry / or the hardest? 
The best lesson is the wonderful information sharing that takes place in this industry! After working with large corporate clients for years, I can assure you that this doesn't exist in other industries! We can all steal ideas like crazy and elevate the whole industry!

What’s your favorite fair food? 
A funnel cake - generally I'm a purist about these things, but I had a jelly doughnut funnel cake at North Texas Fair that changed my life.

What do you feel is the biggest change / challenge you have faced? 
Our challenge is convincing boards that with our industry niche of almost 150 event clients, we can do better than the guy down the street! I understand and appreciate the loyalty to people who love the fair though, and if I'm going to lose a job, I'd rather lose it because of loyalty every time.

What question would you ask a mentor? 
I always ask my fellow service members what they've done that works and doesn't working in this industry. And I'm happy to say that our service members are as open to helping as our fair members!

If you could give one piece of advice what would that be? 
Be patient! Oh wait, you mean advice for someone else? I have to remind myself often to be patient, that change takes time... that there are other really important issues for fairs to solve than their virtual front door!


What’s the one thing during the fair you can’t live without? 
Since I don't actually run a fair, the thing I can't live without is my five year old son Hudson. We go visit as many fairs as we can, and I have to remind him that not everyone gets to go to fairs every weekend. But the real reason I can't live without him during the fair is that he gave me the chance to see the magic of the fair through the eyes of a child, which gave even more meaning to everything we do to support the fair industry.

What’s your advice on handling failure? 
I'm lucky that I don't think we've had a lot of failure yet. Things that didn't seem to work out eventually did. So back to my earlier self-advice - be patient!

What’s your favorite quote? 
Leap, and the net will appear! Someone said this to me when I started designing websites. I didn't have a single client before i quit my day job. I realized that it was because there are a whole lot of talkers but not nearly as many do-ers. The minute I "did," clients came knocking! That faith in the universe, paired with a whole lot of hard work, is how I attribute the success I've had.

Who is your role model / mentor? 
I love music, and I'm inspired by it. Musically, I love Willie Nelson and Justin Timberlake (and many in between). In the industry, Mike Hnatt from ShoWorks has been tremendously inspiring and helpful to me - I want to be him when I grow up!

YPI Reminders

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