Event Details & Take Aways
Purpose of Event:
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Regional alpaca show that is under the Alpaca Owners' Association (AOA) guidelines and show rules.
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Raise awareness of alpaca as a production livestock.
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Help develop a connection to and love of alpacas.
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Provide youth with opportunities to work hands-on with the animals while developing communication, leadership, and animal husbandry skills that will aid in their future prospects.
Personal Contributions to Event:
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Assist with youth events by checking in participants.
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Direct participants on their order in the competition and help advise them of the expectations and procedures.
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Locate and organize volunteers to help reset obstacles and participate in the public relations portion of the competition as "inexperienced bystanders" looking to interact with the participant's animal.
Lessons Learned from the Experience:
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The youth competitions conflict with the main halter shows causing issues with animals scheduled in multiple rings at the same time and audience attention.
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Local community needed more advanced notice of event as most arrived at the end of the last day when most of the farms had already left.
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Need for better volunteer training and advanced scheduling.
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Need to improve feedback options for all parties to include not just the paper survey but might want to include a digital option and entrance/exit survey takers.
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Timing of event was too much for the youth and their animals revealing the need to divide out the events. While they are already divided by age, the younger kids do not go through all of their competitions before the older kids.
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