As we enter the last quarter of 2022, we’ve noticed that sometimes project teams steer clear from engaging over the summer holidays and often not starting again till February.
The reality is, the community doesn’t stop and neither do their expectations of organisations, agencies and governments.
It can also be a great time to engage with families and the working community, who at this time are out and feeling a bit more relaxed. This is a great opportunity to engage with them in person, whether it is through a pop-up in the park or through a community event.
Planning your summer engagement activities in advance will drastically improve your project outcomes.
Our advice will be to:
- Consider the timings and locations popular with your target community.
- Determine the resources needed to accomodate them in the said location.
- Conduct a risk assessment for your engagement to ensure all areas are covered (e.g. OH&S and wet weather plans are very important!).
Based on our experiences engaging over summer, we’ve prepared a list of pros and cons to help you weigh up if it’s right for your projects and stakeholders.
Pros:
- More people out and about in the community – you’ll get to capture important views and sentiments of those who aren’t usually out and about in the day/week (e.g. the working group).
- You can’t be boring – you’ll be competing with ice cream, the beach and summer markets, you’ll need to match this excitement (like a caravan!).
- Weather is stable for outdoor engagement.
- Less COVID-19 risk if you can be outdoors.
- Reaches visitors and long-time tourists with a connection to the project.
- Social media are used more during holiday times which will boost your online engagement.
Cons:
- Participants may be less likely to come to you. You will need to catch them out and about (e.g. a workshop may be harder to run than a pop-up).
- Some people may leave for the summer break so we recommend a longer engagement period.
- Internal staff teams are likely to be on leave which makes resourcing tough. Preparing ahead of time is key.
We can help you achieve the best outcomes for your projects. If you are looking to do some engagement from November 2022 to February 2023, we have some sweet deals to help you with your efforts to engage over the warmer months. Only for new bookings from October 2022, your project can benefit from either:
- A free coffee service upgrade for one pop-up (valued at AUD$580); or
- An extra hour onto your engagement project (valued at AUD$320); or
- A free printing bundle for your pop-up (valued at AUD$420)
Book us for your summer engagement here.
