This will be my second year as event chair and I am getting ready to do a wrap up session for our 2007 Rlay but want to get people ready for 2008! In the past the Relay in my community has really just been advertised or done fud raising only a few months prior! I want to start now so that not eveyone is working so hard and burning out those months right before Relay! I would love to get some feedback or ideas on getting a "dead community" back it in the sprit(we are a small town with little corporate funding)! I'm hoping to have a Fair /Carnival theme for 2008 so that we can get more involvement! Any ideas would be great! Thanks!

Much of what you have written sounds a bit like some of our previous experiences.  We have a growing community, but yet it's a small group that is routinely involved.  We too are trying to expand Relay from just months to a year round event.  Our first attempt is going to be a Rally this October.  Our event is late in July, and by the time everyone gets back to school we quickly find ourselves occupied by the holidays. Hopefully a late Oct Rally will work with the "official" kick-off in Jan. 

I found some very useful agendas, tips and checklists and other information in the library on this site.  The information is also coined "Open House" and "Kick-off" - so far, we're just in the planning phases of our Rally, so I don't have much to share - but if we find anything useful, I'll be sure to pass along....please do the same.

Cheers!
-e

This is also my second year as chair.  I've only been involved at the Committee level for 2 years - this year going into my third year.  My experience with our committee has been almost a total disbanding right after Relay, then a huge 'ramp-up' effort in the fall to try to get everyone back together.  A lot of energy was spent in recruiting committee and teams.  When I was asked to be Relay Chair last year, I decided that the Committee was going to become a year-round 'club' that meets every month for the entire year. 

I have built the committee from about 10 individuals at the end of 2006 to 40+ going into 2008.  Not everyone attends every committee meeting - nor is there an expectation for 100% - or even 50% - attendance.  But....our Relay 2008 is scheduled for June 27 and 28.  I had a meeting last week on July 10th - a whole year out from Relay 2008.  Not only did I have 10 veteran committee-people enthusiastically in attendance, but I also had 4 NEW committee people join and attend.  Additionally, we made progress - focusing on Sponsorship in the summer months, as well as defining the program to more fully engage our schools with Relay.  The Sponsorship and School Development sub-committees have been meeting throughout the summer, outside of the Committee Meetings making plans and progress.  So, that information is brought back to the Committee and keeps everyone motivated. 

In August, I am cancelling the Committee meeting, because we are having an OKC RFL Retreat (aka Relay Retreat) for the Committee and Team Captains to come together and work for 4-6 hours on a Saturday in August.  The goal is to identify our Theme, brainstorm on how to incoporate the Theme and Mission through all apsects of our Relay - from the Survivor Dinner, to Team Captain meetings, right through to Relay and Wrapup.  We also will be furthering our work on Sponsorship and School Development - all key areas to us this year.

I found the most significant point to 'keeping the ball rolling' was to already have all my Team Captain Meetings and Kickoff,  Committee Meetings, and significant events scheduled before we even had this year's Relay and printed the 2008 calendar in my Program.  Additionally, I've set up the calendar on Google Calendars for all to see.  Generally, I don't ask if someone thinks it's a good idea -- I just move along as if 'of course we're a year-round Relay Committee....and this is when our meetings are!'  You MUST MUST MUST keep up the positive attitude and know with full conviction that this works and you'll make progress. 

Don't expect 100% participation in meetings....but DO keep everyone updated of your meeting minutes and progress regularly through email so they can chime in and participate when necessary.  People are busy and just cannot be as focused on Relay all the time as you are.  I love email...and use it regularly.  My committee has come to expect a Sunday morning email from me....that's my time.  Sometimes it's a short sentence about the upcoming meetings....sometimes it's a call to action to certain individuals for deliverables needed for an event or meeting.  Always, everyone knows what's going on and emails are sent to the entire committee, not just a couple.  It keeps the communications open and prevents appearances of 'clickishness'.

By the way, I don't know if my Wrapup was full of energy or not.  People liked it.  We had a slide show of all the pictures taken at Relay that I could round up - over 300 pictures.  Then we had some pizza, handed out awards, talked.  We had tables set up...but everyone wound up pulling the chairs into a group (which turned into a large circle) and reminisced and came up with postive suggestions.  I intentionally did NOT review surveys at the Wrapup - but did collect them for review at our Retreat.  People worked hard on Relay.  This was not the forum for discussing what could have been better.  I still had some worn-out committee people attending the wrapup.  I wanted the wrapup to be a celebration of the excellent work that everyone brought to the event.  We have the rest of the year to work on improvements  (Note:  it is still very important to get those surveys filled out so as not to lose excellent suggestions, but you must be very careful on how the discussion goes with reviewing those comments.  They need to stay positive.)

I apologize for the lengthy reponse.  I hope it helps in some way.  Good luck with your Relay.