Last week, I shared with you the first post in this series about an event I planned for our Girl Scout troop. Today, I want to share with you the way I organized for this group event. The event organization ideas that I used worked even better than I had planned. I thought others might be able to benefit from my ideas.
As I mentioned in my last post, Girl Scout Activities {Free Printables}, I planned a Girl Sports Night for our Girl Scout troop. Our troop is a large multi-level troop. We have 60 girls in our troop that represent all levels of Girl Scouts; Daisy, Brownie, Junior, Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador. Planning this event required me to think about ways to keep things well organized and easy for all the volunteers to walk in and know exactly how I needed them to help. I think the organization ideas I used worked even better than I planned and I think they could easily be translated to other types of events.
For my event, I had 4 stations that the girls through which the girls were going to rotate. If this was a birthday party of other type of event, rather than thinking about stations, it might be games that are going to be played or things for each speaker in various rooms of an event.
I realize that using a Trader Joe’s grocery bag is not the most elegant way to organize everything, but it was what I had on hand and when planning a group event for 60 girls for $60…you go with what you’ve got on hand. If your event has a larger budget or you prefer, you could easily use pretty gift bags or solid color bags that match the event colors or theme.
First, I used my word processing software to have a list of what each station needed in terms of supplies. I also put on this sheet the activities they would be doing, the focus and the famous athlete they would be learning about. I printed one of these for each station. I then hand wrote directions for the volunteer that would be setting up the station. These directions included where this station would be (our event was in a school building) as well as specifics of what needed to be set up. This was stapled to the outside of the bag.
The bag you can see above, was the most complex station. It required measuring for a long jump and 50 yard dash. I tried my best to draw out what we wanted to have. Of course, it had to be changed some because of the space we had available. That is fine…the bag made it easy for the volunteers to grab their station bag, have a short little talk with me and be able to go independently set up their station.
We ended up taping the station signs to the TJ’s bags and adding balloons so the girls and volunteers could easily see where the stations were.
As you can see, inside each bag, I had all of the supplies needed for that station. Not only the supplies for setting up the station, but the supplies needed for the running of each station. In this bag, I included a sheet I typed up with the completed detailed directions for the person running the station. I did have a short talk with each volunteer, but the sheet gave them more information and allowed me to not need to have a long talk with each person. I also included a water for each of the volunteers. They really liked that and seemed to think it was such a nice touch.
This is what it looked like once I had one bag put together for each station ready to go. The station bags with the supplies for the station all together ready to go. The canvas bag was my bag with my master lists of things. This also made it easy for people to help me carry things into the building. Nothing too big or too heavy. Just grab a bag and help out. Thanks!
In addition to the station bags, I also had all the waters for the girls, the heart goal trackers and the other things that the girls got when they entered the event. I talked about all of that in this post, Girl Scout Activities {Free Printables}.
I had all of those things organized together in our big, sturdy American Girl bags…some how we have quite a few of those. To keep this part simple, the items were organized together so once again, I could hand a bag to someone and say, “Please put out all the water bottles here.”
Finally, the only other thing I highly recommend when planning an event is to have an ‘extras’ or ’emergency’ bag. In my bag, I had extra pencils, balloons, tape, stapler, pencil sharpener, extra bags, etc. All those little things that can go wrong…I had a contingency plan for those. Our troop has a first aid kit, so I didn’t need to worry about that, but if we didn’t have one, I would have had that in here. I made sure our main troop leader knew where this bag was. It is a good idea to make sure at least a few people know where these extra supplies are as you will be busy as the main coordinator.
All packed up and ready to go.
This system worked amazingly well! I was super happy with how easy it was to have the volunteers go help set up a station. We even had extra time to spare and it wasn’t crazy nutso getting things ready.
One other thing, that I had not anticipated, happened that was fantastic. At the end of the night, the people running the stations, put the supplies back in the bags and brought them to our main room. No one asked them to do that. They just did. It was fantastic! The people who volunteered to help clean up had almost nothing to do. I had planned to use the supplies list on each bag to make sure I got everything that I took, but I totally forgot to do that. Thankfully, everything that was mine made it home. I do highly recommend checking each supply list before you leave the event.
There you have it…a simple but organized way to pull off an event and not lose your mind! This bag system for each station and the whole event worked better than I had anticipated. Gotta love it when that happens!
Do you have any tips for running an event? Ideas for organization and working with volunteers? I would love to hear them, just leave a comment.
Just love the shot of all the bags in the hallway waiting to go! 🙂
I’m a Guider in England…..oh HOW I can relate to bags of “stuff” for activities!
Great post….I shall be adapting your event to fit my Guide badge! Thank You!
Ann-Marie
Lol! Yes, lots of bags, all ready to go. I’m so glad that you will be able to use with with your Guide badge!
Take care,
KC
Way to go! great planer!
Snowflake <3
Thanks sweetie!
Mommy
Nicely done! 😉
Thanks!
KC
Love the reuse of bags here and planning for each station! That does make it easy to assign jobs and get everything done quickly. Great idea! Thanks for sharing it at LWSL KC – glad to see you back! 🙂
Thanks, Ruth! It worked really well. Thanks for hosting at LWSL.
Take care,
KC
That’s a great way to plan ahead! Anything that helps to be organized, is a great tip!
Thanks! It worked really well.
KC
Hi! I love this type of things! Love the feeling! Came here from the Happy Go Lucky Shine on Friday!
https://anythingonmymindpr.blogspot.com
Thanks! So glad you stopped by.
KC
That is such a great idea! I love planning ahead :). Thanks for sharing at Pinworthy Projects.
Thanks, Carrie!
KC
Fabulous! This seems like a great way to keep everything functioning and efficient.
Thanks! It did work really well.
Take care,
KC