One of the first and most regular activities community park groups carry out to improve their park or green space is to hold an event like a Fun Day. Events are a great way of raising the profile of your park or green space, getting people to join your group or campaign and consulting with people about their views or aspirations for the park or green space. A successful event is great for energising your group, especially in its early stages.
An event can be defined as:
“Any entertainment activity in a park or green space that the public are invited to attend”.
Unlike the activities covered by a Task Day, ‘events’ are likely to involve a more open invitation, where people will attend that aren’t known by the organisers and it is more likely that the organisers can’t accurately predict the numbers attending. An exception to this are guided walks and talks as you will need to know the numbers attending.
Events are also more likely to involve a coming together of specialist organisations and activity providers, eg a bouncy castle provider, etc.
Typical popular Fun Day activities include:
- Bouncy castles and other inflatables, eg an inflatable assault course
- Arts and crafts for children to take part in
- Food stalls, craft stalls and bric a brac
- Ice cream vans and other food vans
- Mini football tournament
- Kite making and flying
- Music/bands, etc
- Guided walks and talks
- Raffles
- Guess the number of sweets in the jar/name of the teddy bear, etc. and any number of others
Reproduced with permission of North West Parks Friends Forum
