For her week as an Event Planner, Amanda decided to stage a pop-up event to help promote awareness of One Week Job. On Friday, July 30, her and the Reframe Team staked out a spot in Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, set up a table, and started spreading the news by handing out brochures and talking to people on the street. To help get the word out, Reframe also contacted media outlets and emailed her business list.

Here are some insights that she gained from her experience:

Good Things:

• Table was good as a central location and place to talk to passerby – had a good number of people come up to the booth and ask us about what we were doing
• The signage helped attract attention, ie: “I am Passionate About…” sign. We signed up (approx.) 10 new people to receive One Week Job emails, and win an autographed book/coffee-meeting with Sean!
• A couple business people approached Sean and exchanged business cards – wanted to talk more about possibly working together
• We handed out all 100 of our fliers
• Had 5 volunteers show up to help!! Amazing!
• Not everyone is on social media, so it was a good way to share the program face-to-face with those who might not have found it online.

Ways to Improve:

• Been more coordinated with our branding – we wore yellow, but there could always be more yellow!
• Had an activity/game to attract people
• More volunteers
• Hit more street corners, moved around more
• More time – Started earlier and gone longer
• More/larger signage, put them up around where we were located, at cross walks, etc.
• Giveaways – something immediate other than the brochures that we could have given out. ie: candy, OWJ branded toy

In the end, Amanda learned the basics of how to pull an event together and discovered a fundamental lesson about event planning: It’s TOUGH BUT EFFECTIVE!

Here’s the link to her blog:

Good job, Amanda! And good luck!