2012
Final FTD Report
Tent City
Farm Technology Days
Outagamie County
Tent City Committee Report
COMMITTEE OVERVIEW
Tent city is responsible for Tent city layout, radios & courtesy carts. Some years Tent City is in charge of administering the driver training. Other years grounds or field demo does it.
COMMITTEE RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Tent City Layout: Involved with initial site selection and tent city layout. Also responsible for staking of tent city. IE: Staking of Indoor and outdoor lots as well as inside all Agribusiness tents.
2. Tents- responsible for working together with the tent company to order and place all tents.
3. Radios- responsible for procurement, training and management of all radios before, during and after show.
4. Tower Sound- responsible for attaining a contract with a Sound company for sound equipment for Family Living and Youth tents. We used “Tower Sound” see contract attached.
COMMITTEE STRUCTURE
Executive Board Liaison- 1 person- appointed by Executive secretary (Bill Schaumberg- 920-475-3312)
Committee Co Chairs- 2 people- appointed by Liaison (Nathen Nysse- 920-858-5756, Todd Schaumberg- 920-843-2676, Jon Schaumberg- 920-680-9903)
Courtesy Cart Drivers- Two shifts per day of 8 drivers in each shift; a few alternates were used as well
Courtesy Cart Dispatch- Co Chairs mainly did this
Radio Superintendent- Split day in two shifts- 2 people
Tent Staking – Local surveyors club with survey grade GPS for marking tent corners, tent stake pounders. Groups of three worked well (1 surveyor, 1 stake holder, 1 stake pounder). Get as many GPS Crews as possible. Local county GIS office set up points and areas for each staking crew.
BUDGET
Meal tickets: Vouchers were purchased from the foods committee. The money to purchase the vouchers was donated by Ag. Chemical companies. We had connections with these folks. $1000 was donated by two companies ($500 each), these vouchers were used by Tent city and grounds committee’s volunteers only. One $5 voucher was given to each volunteer each day.
Print/Scan/Copy/Fax machine: Headquarters trailer needs one unit, Fax/Copy function is the main one they need it for. Make sure ink is supplied in the machine.
Stakes: Approximately 2000 stakes are needed for staking tent city. This includes all outdoor lots and under all Agribusiness tents. Stakes can be donated or purchased. Ours were donated by WE Energies, all good stakes were returned to WE Energies. We used ½” by 1 1/2” stakes, planed on both sides.
Driver Certification cards: Cards are needed to certify any and all volunteers who intend to drive Gators, golf carts or tractors. We used Fedex/Kinkos to print, cut, laminate and whole punch one hole in each. We spent about $200 for these cards, and we preprinted approximately 250 cards, we also had blank ones available for training during the week of the event.
TIMELINE- See Attached
AT THE SHOW:
SET UP:
1. One representative from our committee was present on site about 2 weeks prior to show to assist with delivery and setup of tent city. They also assisted the Grounds Chair and the executive secretary with on the spot decisions needed to be made prior to the show. The rest of the committee chairs and a few other volunteers were on site starting the Saturday before the show.
2. Assisted Tent Company with special request by any committees, Roger Briggs is contact. Get to know him as best you can. He will be your best ally.
3. Agribusiness Tent staking- Get layout from Chuck at Headquarters of each tent and stake as soon as possible after tents are up.
4. Courtesy cart routes: Set up routes for each courtesy cart and area it is responsible for. We broke the routes into areas. See attached route schedule.
5. Receive radios at site, log all radios make sure all are accounted for and test Emergency override system.
6. Assist in master key board setup and parking lot for Gators and Golf carts. All Gators and Golf carts were numbered and a parking lot was set up with numbered parking lot stalls.
7. Help any vendors with finding their locations and diffuse any land disputes.
DURING THE SHOW:
1. Courtesy Cart Routes: Morning and evening of each day have all carts transport vendors and their equipment from vendor parking lot to their spot in Tent City. General attendees can be helped at this time as well, mainly if they are elderly or disabled. Once the show starts send each cart (8) out to run their specific route- See attached documents on routes. At this time carts should shuttle elderly or disabled guests around tent city as needed or to their vehicles in the parking lot. Carts can leave routes to complete a task but should come back to route as soon as task is completed.
2. Courtesy Cart Dispatch- One person on the Tent City channel is needed to dispatch any courtesy requests from any other committee or headquarters. Very helpful to have dispatch in tent city to dispatch, as a better handle on the happenings in tent city is acquired. Would also be helpful to have “bus stops” at a central location in front of each Agribusiness tent. Headquarters will frequently call for pickups at each Ag Business tent. Excellent communication is needed between dispatch and drivers to be successful.
3. Stake removal- Wednesday is a good time to start removing corner stakes from each lot. Set up “Good Stake” pile and “Broken Stake” pile.
TEAR DOWN:
1. Develop an Exit plan out of tent city for vendors to leave with their belongings and equipment. This plan should be developed well before the show and distributed to vendors before the show. We recommend it be included in the information that Chuck and Anna send to the vendors when they sign their contract. Also make sure you hold firm on the 4pm closing date on the last day for the vendors. They want to get out of there as fast as possible. We had grounds committee park a Telehandler in front of the vendor gates to make sure they did not try to leave early.
2. Courtesy carts are used to remove vendors and their supplies at opening and closing each day. They are especially needed at 4pm on the final day to get people and their things out of the show.
INVENTORY
1. UTVs/Gators (Please include the number of seats used)
- UTV’s - two were used for Committee chairs and Executive Liaison
2. Golf Carts (Please include the number of seats used)
- 4- 6 seat golf carts and 4-4 seat golf carts were used for courtesy carts, Note: Get as many 6 seat carts as possible, we could have used more.
3. Radios- See attached
VOLUNTEER COORDINATION
Volunteer Job Descriptions (as well as numbers):
1. Courtesy Cart Drivers: Transport any vendor and or elderly and disabled person within tent city or from parking lot to tent city and back. 8 carts were used.
Volunteer Shifts/Schedules:
Courtesy carts: Ten people were scheduled for each of two shifts during each day. 8 drivers and 2 alternates were used on each shift.
Radio checkout person: Two people were used each day.
Courtesy cart dispatch: Have the one of the co-chairs dispatch and needs for the courtesy carts by the rest of tent city.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL EVENT
1. Early exit plan- Have Chuck and Anna send it out with contract to each vendor. We did ours Wednesday night and hand delivered them all day on Thursday. This was good personal contact with each vendor but very time consuming. Also some vendors said it would have been nice to know the exit plan before the last day.
2. Watch for joy riders on gators; make sure they are doing something. We had one committee use a gator all week for personal transportation around the grounds.
3. Advertise which local radio stations to tune into for updates. Advertise on website or somewhere else the local radio stations and out of “towners” can tune into for updates or emergency information. Have this set up or posted on the website well before the show. We opened late on Wednesday morning due to bad weather. A few attendees from far away noted that they did not know what radio station to tune to, to get updates on the status of the show.
4. Beef Tent- BEWARE OF THE BEEF TENT PEOPLE- Nancy from the Beef tent will call with her demands; she will want an invoice for the cost of her tent. She will also want to use her personal Mule UTV at the show; we allowed them to use it before and after show hours, NOT DURING. She may also have other demands; run them by the executive committee before promising anything to them. They have been catered to by the state and several counties before us. They are not charged booth rental space, you may consider doing that. They do pay for their tent but not the space in tent. They also do not follow any of the safety guidelines for UTV’s that all other volunteer’s have to follow.
5. Tram delivery- Set up transportation for hauling trams from previous county to a location near FTD site or to FTD site. We used local Tech School Semi driving program, Flat beds and Box trailers were used to haul trams. SOME TRAMS ARE WIDER THAN NORMAL D.O.T. RULES PERMIT, A FEW TRAMS WERE LEFT BEHIND ON INITIAL TRANSFER. WE THEN NEEDED TO GET A SPECIAL PERMIT TO HAUL THESE WIDER TRAMS. THIS WAS NOT COMMUNICATED TO US BY PREVOUS COUNTY OR STATE BOARD. There are several trams that have signs, sign posts, and other supplies stored on them. We are not sure of the status of the wheel bearings on the trams. Also no trams have working or present tail lights.
6. Communicate with Grounds and Field Demo committees about responsibilities with driver training. In Outagamie: Tent City produced the release forms along with the certification cards. Field Demo got the teacher and tractors and grounds got the golf carts and gators for training.
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