June 2019 Sunfest

Sunfest 2019

What: BAS/BYA booth at Sunfest in Sooner Park May 31-June 2.

Who: BYA and BAS members; coordinated booth location and timing for check-in and transporting of gear to and from location with Heather Smith, non-profit booth coordinator at Sunfest.

Where: Sooner Park off Madison Blvd.

When: May 31—10 am booth setup; staffed booth 3-5 pm (actually stayed till around 8 pm as a lot of visitors to Sunfest, and weather was nice.) June 1—10 am-6 pm. June 2—10 am-2 pm. Shifts were two hours each.

Who coordinated: Denise Gregg coordinated with Sunfest. She filed the non-profit application with Sunfest in March and worked with them on timing for check-in and setup the week of the event. Denise also solicited volunteers to man our booth (minimum two people per shift). Rick Bryant designed an awesome, eye-catching banner with our new logo which looked great at our booth and could be read easily from a distance. John Grismore developed a QR code sheet which he suggested laminating for Sunfest. (We actually laminated three copies of the QR sheet and three of the BAS summary sheet.) People could use the QR code sheet to scan our main BAS site, BYA site, and online email signup form.

We also had our new logo on our 6-page astronomy guide which Craig and Denise had done a lot of editing on this year, as well as a freshly edited BAS summary sheet.

We used a different email signup form this year that Rick Bryant and Kristi Herrman had worked on. This one verifies that the person signing up is age 13 or older, as we can’t solicit this type of information from someone younger than 13.

Publicity used: We discussed at BAS meetings starting in April; solicited volunteers to man our booth at the May meeting. Denise forwarded email about Sunfest details (our booth location would change due to very wet grounds at Sunfest, after the recent rains) as received from Sunfest on the week of the event. Publicity for Sunfest in general is handled by Sunfest. Derek promoted our Sunfest booth on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Number of people who attended: We had 16 volunteers from the BAS and BYA. We were probably visited by at least 200 people. We had at least two people per shift, and usually three or four.

Materials used:

• Canopy

• John Grismore’s long table for booth display

• Brand new banner designed by Rick Bryant

• Handouts (BAS summary sheet, 6-page astronomy guide, June star chart, BYA flier and BYA stickers, rulers and bookmarks)

• Printed copies of new email signup form

• Booth supplies, including meteorites that Bob Young brought

• John Grismore brought a laptop to show short videos on (and a flash drive for Evan, who brought his own laptop later) but this didn’t generate much interest. This could be due partly to our booth location being about 12 feet back from the walkway.

• Note: We got nice weatherproof bins at Staples this year to hold handouts and other booth supplies, and in view of our transitioning storage of Club materials to our storage room at First Christian Church, Denise and Craig are outfitting the bins with permanent supplies, so supplies don’t have to be brought from home every year. Some things will still be brought from home at the last minute (suntan lotion, etc. that we use little of) but other basic non-perishables will be in the bins. There will be a list in the bins of bin contents, so they can be re-checked before an event to make sure they are still there.

Materials of location site used: The Highland Baptist Church had bottles of water; we took a few. Other than that, we bought water and other soft beverages and food from Sunfest vendors.

BAS expenditures: Sunfest application fee, new banner, printing of handouts at Staples, storage bins and supplies.

Comments:

• We really need four people to do setup and teardown. Denise will specify this next year. (We did have four people, and we needed them as the booth canopy has four corners!) Denise is considering changing the Sunday staffing next year from 11-1 and 1-3 instead of 10-12 and 12-2, in case weather is nice on the Sunday afternoon. (Sunfest closes at 4 pm on Sunday.) Sunfest is lightly visited from 10-11 on a Sunday morning.

• Our booth location this year was along the east-west walkway at the north of the park due to wet grounds at our usual spot. It was a good location—Heather specifically selected it due to good open sky visibility—but we were asked to set it up about 12 feet back from the walkway, as there was a row of widely-spaced picnic tables closer to the walkway. This may have impeded some people from stopping at our booth, but we think that those who were truly interested did stop.

• We need to encourage more youth to man the booth. (We think attendance by youth is better if there is a youth manning the booth!)

• At one point we thought we might have had to supply mulch for our site, but didn’t need to in the end.

• John has suggested perhaps getting another type of screen display for videos that might be more eye-catching.

• We are going to laminate three copies of the BYA flier to use at events. We will also need to coordinate better getting the BYA items before Sunfest (perhaps, at the BAS or BYA May meeting).

• We would like to laminate images our Club has taken to attach to the Velcro strips on the canopy…Hubble pictures we have laminated are good, but our own would be better!