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Arizona Centennial
SESSION 3 REVIEW
How do we make it Happen?
During the final session, participants focused on strategies that would effectively launch an Arizona Centennial program, which embraced the ideas and resources that had been elaborated on in the earlier sessions. The components of their work has been divided into six groups:
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- CENTRALIZED AND DECENTRALIZED GOVERNANCE
- GOVERNMENT SUPPORT - NETWORKS - LESSONS LEARNED
- DEVELOP FUNDING SOURCES - EDUCATION
CENTRALIZED AND DECENTRALIZED GOVERNANCE:
- Develop a central coordinating group; Arizona History Advisory Commission (AHAC) is a possibility.
- Form partnerships
- Recruit volunteers
- Recruit volunteers
- Establish regional leadership
- Utilize loaned executives
- Develop local programming with an infrastructure that can support it
- Allow for parallel tracks and models
- Include a public relations component
- Coordinating group should construct the mission & vision statement
- Coordinating group should outline the goals and outcomes
- Coordinating group should develop a strategic plan
- A countdown to the centennial timeline should be started
- Annual themes need to be decided (should be universal in nature: immigration, water, land use, environment, conflict, borders, diversity, change).
- All programming needs to be inclusive of all aspects of our citizenry and our state.
GOVERNMENT SUPPORT:
- Seek support from legislature and governor's office.
- Find champions in the legislature.
- Maintain contact to ensure exchange of information and ideas.
- Legislate a commission and allocation of funds.
- Seek regional and local government support.
- Counties are good regional divisions - each county seat as the hub for that county.
- Seek municipal connections.
NETWORKS:
- Develop a strong communication network with Listserv, web page
- Establish a 1-800# for donations
- Maintain clear lines of communication and dialogue
- Encourage networking
- Provide a clearinghouse for information
- Develop and Maintain statewide contact lists
- Create partnerships among the cultural institutions
- Create partnerships between cultural institutions and other entities such as corporations, tourism and education
- Seek champions in the media and community
- Find vehicle(s) to communicate with educators
- The public relations effort should establish strong ties to the MEDIA.
- Press releases need to go out regularly, beginning now.
- Public service announcements.
- Advertising in papers, local magazines, on radio & TV.
- Find support from people with star power.
LESSONS LEARNED:
- Two-pronged research effort needs to begin now!
- Continue to research and learn from other state's experiences.
- Research Arizona statewide programming experiences: AZ at 50, AZ at 75, AZ Celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial.
- Archives and historical collections need to be assessed for their informative value to the Arizona Centennial.
DEVELOP FUNDING SOURCES:
- State allocations,
- Corporate investments,
- Grants
- Specified funding - ex. ADOT enhancement $$
- Contributions
EDUCATION:
- Provide educational opportunities throughout the state
- Support local efforts in developing centennial programs for schools such as: oral history workshops, fund-raising workshops…
- Tie into existing history-related programs for students such as National History Day and Arizona Heritage Project
- Assist in curriculum development
- Ask teachers what we can do to help