Final Report

Kyndra Haggard - Responsible for the Demonstration.  Posted to group ___

Debra Shidler - Responsible for the Summary & Reflection.  Posted to group___

Desiree Soptelean - Responsible for the Summary & Table.  Posted to groups 3 & 4

Final Report

The Unity Center

EDAC 632 

Ball State University

Group 2:

Kyndra Haggard

Debra Shidler

Desiree Soptelean

Project Summary

            Our main goal this semester was to partner with a community organization to create and present a workshop focusing on Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451 as a part of the Big Read Muncie project.  Now, at the end of the thirteenth week of the semester, we have achieved this goal and much more along the way. 

            Our group had a fairly easy beginning to the project compared to the other groups, since we were able to secure a community partner almost right away and could begin planning our workshop early on.  Two main ideas or methods that shaped the planning of our workshop include goal congruence and the open systems model.  We consciously planned the activities of our workshop in consideration of how the Unity Center attracts and interacts with community members, demonstrating goal congruence (Tompkins, p. 38).  Other elements of our planning process and execution of the workshop, demonstrated qualities of an open systems model.  An open system is characterized by flexibility and an adaptive function, which were two important assets in planning for the workshop (Tompkins, p. 204).  We knew there would not be an overhead projector or chalkboard to display our discussion questions, so we planned ahead to bring poster boards with the questions written on them to display while we held our discussion.

Demonstration

            Please visit our website we created showcasing our workshop we presented with the Unity Center of Muncie at http://edac631.wix.com/edac632.

Reflection

Discovering the community of Muncie and our personal talents was one of the best opportunities of the Big Read.  We also learned about the different parts of a grant and how particular the grant writer has to be about how the funds will be used.  We all grew our technology knowledge through blogs, web site creation, and working with different internet formats.  The Big Read was a great learning experience through all the different community partner searches, marketing, and creation of workshops.

At first, we weren’t for sure who to work with there are many amazing groups in Muncie. We decided to work with the Unity Center because of the population they serve.  The other community groups we had connected with we worked with our classmates and gave them the opportunity to work with TEAMwork.  Just in this action alone, we learned how important it is to work as a team to accomplish one goal not just our individual teams, but as a class. In the end, both groups and community partners were happy with the outcome.  We were all able to work together to spread the word of the Big Read.

Next, in marketing the Big Read, we ran into how to attract people.  We were unsure of how to get people excited about a reading program.  We initially thought of food and prizes. The group worked really hard on getting donations, but many companies had already donated to other organizations.  It was at this point in the project we learned how precise we had to be with grant funds.  Even though we knew we were going to be using the funds to promote the event and gather people the funders envisioned the funds being used differently.  The funds had to be documented formally on a budget format and have original receipts.

Throughout the project we worked on various ways to promote the activity.  We created a poster to promote the activity and also a blog.  Then for our workshop we created bingo cards to make our event different and fun.  For the final project we created a web site to highlight the event and our workshop.  

Everyone in group 2 had an awesome learning experience.  We had a vision and created a great workshop.  We reached out to the community and while we might have had some hiccups along the way we worked through it.  Everyone was allowed to have their opinions and give their ideas.  We also learned about more groups that are within the Muncie community.  We all talked about how much we like immersive learning courses and that they are so useful for real life work experience.

Table

Components	Organization	Marketing	Workshop
Process	We studied the way that the Unity Center operates, and structured our workshop around the existing goals.	We specifically focused on the demographics of the Unity Center’s Coffee Talk sessions, with additional outside advertising.	The process of planning the workshop happened organically. We used the organization of the Unity Center in combination with the demographics to plan activities. Then when it came down to prepping details we planned on the physical level down to “What kind of supplies do we need to bring that are not already present in the environment?”
Results	Attendees were excited to be involved in the discussion and BINGO portions, and left the workshop excited to read the book, which we saw as the workshop was a success!	We did not have as large of a crowd as some groups had, however the attendees that we did have were very enthusiastic and involved in all portions of the workshop, which we felt was an important goal.	We were well prepared for the workshop, and had everything that we needed, and a plan in place for everything. We used an itinerary to make sure we stayed on task and did not forget to cover any area.
Significant ideas/methods	Goal Congruence	Marketing Elements	Open Systems Model
Suggestions for practitioners	Having a strong understanding of the structure of the organization you are partnering with will allow you to create activities that will align with participants’ interests.	Utilize as many free or low-cost options as possible, to allow more of the budget to be used directly for your workshop.	Consider the activities that you want to do and everything you will need to complete them (tools, furniture, etc.). Compare this with the actual space that you will use for the workshop, and fill in the gaps of anything that may be missing. You might have to get creative here!

References

Tompkins, J. R. (2005). Organization theory & public management. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.