Good afternoon and welcome to the community culture committee hearing for Thursday, April the second, two thousand twenty-six.

Let us stand for the Pledge Allegiance.

Frederick is I move by Director of Recreation Bob Smith and Director of Special Events Office of Special Events, Jen Martin.

Welcome to the afternoon, Council Members.

Uh Bob Smith, Parks and Recreation.

Well, Jen Martin, uh, development and fundraising program manager for the Office of Special Events.

Um today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about our office and how we work with celebrate Frederick.

Uh Celebrate Frederick is a five oh one C three nonprofit organization with a fifteen member board of directors, nearly two hundred volunteers who donate over four hundred plus hours a year.

We start in mid-May with the beyond the garden gates garden tour.

And we round out uh mid September with In the Streets.

The first two weekends uh weeks in December.

Um most of them have been around for over four decades.

Uh, that began in 1978.

And I mentioned that because I think it demonstrates how deeply meaningful these events are to the community.

Um, they've become personal traditions to many folks, um, and we take that very seriously.

Uh, we also see how significantly they uh contribute to the quality of life here in Frederick.

So, our vision and hope for these events are that they create uh shared cultural experiences for those that attend, that they strengthen the quality of life here in Frederick, and that they promote tourism through large-scale signature community events.

Um, how have these events remained such a cornerstone for so many decades?

Um I think one large reason is the strong unique partnership between the City of Frederick, uh, the Office of Special Events and Celebrate Frederick.

So just a unique or quick rundown of what each of those organizations are responsible for.

Um, the City of Frederick provides in kind professional staff support in the form of the Office of Special Events.

Um our office is 2.25 employees.

I'll explain.

So my role is to work directly with the board of directors to support their initiatives.

I also am responsible for fundraising, mainly in the form of sponsorships.

And I also market the events and the organization, everything from social media to electronic uh newsletters, uh press releases, um, traditional media, those sorts of things.

We have a full-time events coordinator who works directly with the events committees and is responsible for um all the logistical details.

Um, and then our point two five employee is actually a recreation supervisor, um, and she manages the volunteer program, um, typically the day of event volunteers.

Um the city also provides logistical support from other city departments that um achieve you know public safety, street closures, sanitation, those sorts of things at the events, and of course, uh city facilities for meetings and hold the events.

Um, the Office of Special Events.

I did sort of touch on this when I talked about staffing, but our responsibilities are to raise the funds to ensure that the events are financially independent from the city to market and promote the organization and the events and then to manage the event logistics.

Okay.

Uh for its part, Celebrate Frederick is responsible for recognizing the city as a major sponsor for recruiting and training volunteers to serve on the board and the planning committees.

And these are really the leaders in the organization that make the events possible.

The board also, or celebrate Frederick also assists with fundraising and sponsorship with their time and also their connections, and of course, they operate within the bylaws and policies and procedures of Celebrate Frederick.

As you can imagine, Celebrate Frederick has a hefty policies and procedures document.

Um, but I did pull out a few key things just to give you an idea of the sorts of um things that that document does address.

Um, for instance, volunteers, uh, that portion of the manual does discuss uh the volunteer committee ways we recruit volunteers, how we recognize and thank them, um, how we address a violation and a policy and possibly terminate um ties to a volunteer and our conflict of interest policy.

Um for fundraising, we identify sponsorship levels, um, we address how we handle individual giving and grants, um, our first rate of refusal policy during our renewal period, um, and also our preference to work with local companies when at all possible.

Um, for entertainment, that portion addresses how individual artists can apply to perform at one of our events and how our volunteers pick those performers, um, our booking and contracting, um, what we require in terms of insurance and a cancellation policy.

Our booking and contracting, what we require in terms of insurance and a cancellation policy.

And for the events, we do have policy, individual policies for each event because they are unique and nuanced in their own way.

But we do address things like accessibility, how we manage vendor selection, the different admission or fee structures, and then how we deal with possibly canceling events.

So our long-term vision for celebrate Frederick is to continue to evolve and expand our events.

And whether that's expanding current events or adding new ones, either either is a possibility.

Increasing inclusivity with programming and booking updates, continuing to appeal to different audiences within our community.

Diversify funding streams to further strengthen the nonprofits financial stability.

And finally, just plan for additional staffing and resources to support the organization being able to grow and expand the events within the community.

Thank you.

Any questions you may have?

We'd be happy to do the best we can to answer.

Can you go back to the first slide, please?

If you don't mind.

Second slide.

So we see most of these events, of course, happening in our downtown area.

Correct.

And I think now, particularly that we move to the district form of representation of government and for our respective council members who represent those districts.

How can we have more events as our city continues to grow as our council representation represents their respective constituents?

How can we ensure or ensure?

But how can we now expand so that we're able to have these types of I'm not well aware of such things as industries or summer concert series in terms of that?