Write a short paragraph about preparing for a formal
discussion. Explain how you would prepare for
discussing the topic of cleaning a local park.
Answers
Explanation:
Recruit Volunteers. Volunteers are the most important part of any clean up effort because you need people to get the job done. ...
Identify and Prioritize Cleanup Tasks. ...
Set a Date and Time. ...
Publicize the Event. ...
Form Teams and Assign Tasks on Cleanup Day. ...
Celebrate Achievements and Express Gratitude.
To prepare for cleaning up your neighborhood park, you must plan to have the right equipment available. You also need to have enough volunteers and an easily understood game plan, so that your workers can arrive at 8 or 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and be finished before lunch. We provide details for pre-planning, day of the event, and post-event debriefing below.
Cleaning up your neighborhood park is a great project for new and experienced neighborhood associations alike.
We highly recommend cleaning up your neighborhood park as a first project for a new neighborhood association or merely a group that would like to become more active in their community. The time commitment for each individual except the organizer is minor. Volunteers can see the results within a couple of hours, and the entire community enjoys and comments on the success for a few days. The beauty of this activity is that it can recur year after year, and managing the event becomes easier every time.
Planning The Cleaning Day: What To Do In Advance
First and foremost, begin to recruit volunteers. Having a very rough idea of how many volunteers you will have helps you make wise decisions about priorities. To boost recruiting, take photos of any problematic area of your target park.
Remember that people attract people, so you will want to provide a way for people who plan to attend to identify one another on social media.
Then for inspiration, if you are trying park clean-up for the first time, you may want to circulate an inspirational video about the value of parks, such as the National Recreation and Parks Association's The Power of Parks.
If you have several parks or your chosen location is large, decide on priorities for cleaning up your neighborhood park. It would be better to finish in an hour and a half and give everyone an opportunity to socialize than to tackle a much too ambitious project and leave people feeling unsuccessful at the end of the morning.
Explaining The Benefits Of Cleaning Up Your Neighborhood Park
As you notice people taking a momentary break, engage them in a conversation about why it's important to keep the park tidy. If you have a respected elder who comes to assist with cleaning up the neighborhood park, but you notice that he or she can't really keep up the pace, this task might be partially delegated to them.
Remind volunteers that all types of users should be able to enjoy the benefits of cleaning up your neighborhood park. But also explain that this event is a symbol of the neighborhood's determination to maintain high standards in every way.
A park is public space, and cooperating to take care of something that belongs to all of us is a way for people in the community to meet each other and start new friendships. It also builds community spirit.
As people leave, thank them profusely for their efforts. If your organization has any nice give-away items, this would be the time to give volunteers a token gift. If you plan for future events that include cleaning up your neighborhood park, mention it at this time. Try to build a mailing list of people who are especially interested in this activity; email works best in many communities. Encourage them to talk to others about the park and to talk with children about the importance of cleaning up the neighborhood park on a regular basis.
When Your Park Has A More Difficult Problem
This page does not address problems of drug use or sales, violence, prostitution, or petty thefts in parks. If you have those issues, you will need to see the safe parks page or the Crime Prevention section in the navigation for this site.
We should mention too that if your local community park has a major problem with littering or overgrown vegetation, you may have to repeat the cleanup weekly, every other week, monthly, or twice a year to get things under control. Be encouraged that both research and our experience show that littering decreases as a space becomes more tended. You should be able to decrease the frequency of cleanup events in the future. Repeated cleaning when needed also will help with those more severe problems of criminal activity in the park, if need be.