A measure of success

This past Saturday, the Bateman Team held our big event, a family caregiving fair, for our campaign for FamilyCaregiving101.org. The entire time we were planning this event, we didn't know how many people would be a good goal number, so we decided if we had 50 attendees, it would be great. Well, come Saturday, our plans changed a bit. We had amazing success with the number of "vendors" and representatives from local organizations/agencies that deal with aging issues. We had 21 signed up, but on the day of the event, one couldn't come. When we recruited organizations to represent themselves at our fair, word spread like wildfire. We were contacted by many people wanting to set up a "booth." In that aspect, we were very successful.

In terms of attendees from the community, i.e. caregivers, we only had about 30 people show up. At first we were really excited because many of them came for our panel discussion with three local experts in caregiving. We had a wonderful and engaging panel discussion that we actually had to cut a bit short so that the "vendors" would have time to present their information. However, as the event wore on, fewer people showed up. We got a little nervous, but everyone who came told us how much help it was and they were so glad we hosted it because there were many helpful organizations of which they were unaware. That made us feel really good, as it was the main goal of our project.

After talking to some of the professionals who were at our fair, we began to feel better about our lower-than-expected attendance. They told us that in their professional opinion, after having participated in many similar events, we should definitely consider our event a complete success. They informed us that caregiving is a very sensitive issue that many people don't want to discuss in public. Also, it was a cold February morning, and many Georgians do not like to go out in the cold if they don't have to. But the people who did attend were very engaging, both in the panel discussion and in talking with the "vendors."

This event clearly taught us that success is measured in many ways. Even if you don't have tons of people show up to your event, if the ones that do come are very interested in the topic and leave with a feeling that they learned many new things, then it's a success. And talking with some of the attendees, we learned that they heard of the event in many ways - fliers, radio, newspaper, church, word of mouth - proving that our publicity materials really paid off. So you don't always need a huge turnout to be successful - hard at first to grasp, but in the end, very worthwhile to know.

For more information about this year's Bateman Team and Family Caregiving, visit www.uga.edu/athensFC101 !