Where did my three year, two fair policy for planning come from? And what do I mean?

It came from the posters that were placed around the dragon last year (2004) about changes coming. It got people really talking about what they needed and what their concerns were.

Over the years I have observed many problems arise in our planning process despite our best efforts to try to accommodate everyone. Most of these come from lack of communication or rushed decisions.

I have long thought that we need to use the time we get together to engender discussion. It is the only time we are all here. It is the only time we can communicate with all of us.

So when I saw this great discussion going on around the posted plans I realized we were on to some thing interesting.

I have found that if you give the faire family enough information they will support the final decision. There was a lot of disagreement with the preliminary drawings but everyone was full of suggestions to make it work for them.

I could see that if further, more detailed plans were posted the next year, most everyone would buy into the future design. At the very least no one could say it caught them by surprise.

Some would say this is too slow. I think it is a good idea to do our path planning on a slow basis. I have observed over the years the fair works best with slow changes.

This process is designed to give the most people notification, both to involve them in the process, or at least expose them to what is happening in the faire.

This is really designed for our normal path planning process, not for emergency relocation, also. I also don’t think it should apply to a single booth, even if it is a faire construction. It really refers to changing multiple use areas.

Now there will always be emergencies, due to trees or bank erosion, which may need to be dealt with that year. I think those can be helped on an individual basis. Planning should not be driven by emergencies.

As part of the planning process I would hope the faire will keep at least 15 booth spaces as temporary, ones that can be filled with emergencies or new crafters. I think we need to increase the temporary booths to at least 20.