The Third Iwamizawa international festival.  Organized by Jennifer Chou, this festival attracted over 300 attendees, covered its costs, and donated 33,039 yen to the Hokkaido English Camp Fund.  The festival was held on June 6th, 2009, and ran from 12:00 until 2:30.

Countries and States Represented

Australia

Canada

Jamaica

Japan

New Zealand

Russia

Singapore

South Africa

Trinidad and Tobago

United States of America

Comments

1.      Very enjoyable, more enjoyable than last year

2.      An Iwamizawa citizen wrote to the city hall on how she was so impressed with the beads making at Jamaica’s booth

3.      Range of new activities, including making bead bracelets and making masks (hopefully we’ll be able to do the Limbo dance next year)

4.      Made money (even though last 15 minutes we had to sell the rest of the food & drinks for 50% discount)

5.      250-270 people attended, in spite of rainy weather

6.      Good family atmosphere

7.      Running time from 12:00-2:30 were really good

Suggested Improvements

1.      Plastic bags for next year (people often buy food in bulk)

2.      More tacos & muffins, less sausage sizzle/croissant as they were selling slowly

3.      New food menu: peanut butter jelly sandwich, pizza and possibly of NZ honey or chocolate for sale

4.      This year not many adult wanted to participate in the activities , therefore not many passports were given out

5.      Tell the ESS kids to give the passports back to the participants after they’ve exchanged for the prize.  Delegate them properly and advice them to move around

6.      Make sure there are 2 people in each booth

7.      Have the event later as it clashed with sport’s day, examination period and raining season

8.      We needed more people to help out with lifting.  Work out a better schedule before hand and make sure enough people are being distributed to help out the day before, one the day and after

9.      Have some sort of opening and closing ceremony

10.     Have a floater to go around with the microphone to interview people, make announcements….etc.

11.     Make sure each ALTs give each their schools’ students a small B5 print out of the poster so they can take it home to show their parents (great PR)

12.     Make up signs for the instructions of the activity in every booth and even at the reception table on how to complete the passport

13.     More Japanese volunteers will be appreciated. People from IIES Club and Pocatello Sister City Association…..etc.

14.     Detailed attentive plan for the layout of the booth on the day

15.     More focus on the activities rather than decorating the booth