Julie Edwards: Welcome everyone. I see a lot of you starting to join us. We'll get started here in just a few minutes. but feel free if you would like to head over to the chat. Say, Hi, let us know where you're from.
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Julie Edwards: California in first. Hi, California, Georgia, Michigan, Alabama. Wow! Everybody's coming in now. Hey? Arizona?
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Julie Edwards: We will get started here in just a few minutes.
Julie Edwards: but we will.
Julie Edwards: We'll get started here in just a few minutes, Janet. If we could. Just hide that second. There we go. Thank you.
Julie Edwards: Fantastic! So nice to see
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Julie Edwards: but come on in and get settled. We have a great webinar today.
Julie Edwards: Nebraska. I see Pennsylvania. Lots of Georgians. I've seen. Hello!
Julie Edwards: I should go back. So there were many many, many, many people over 3,000 people registered for this webinar. So I wanna go back and see. One of these days I'm I'm determined to get somebody from every Us. State and Canadian Province. So maybe this is the one.
Julie Edwards: Maybe this is the one
Julie Edwards: so nice to see you all. So it is noon here in Montana, which is where I am joining you from, and we will go ahead and get started. Welcome, everybody. My name is Julie Edwards. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Julie Edwards: Welcome to this webinar on beyond books, adult library programs that work.
Julie Edwards: So I am a librarian and instructional designer with Niche Academy. I would like to just introduce us, do a little bit of quick housekeeping, introduce our presenter, and then we are off and running. So niche Academy is an easy to use all in one learning platform to help libraries create and deliver effective training and measure success.
Julie Edwards: Our platform is the perfect tool. If you're looking to increase your eresource usage, move your programming, including your story times online and deliver and track training for staff development.
Julie Edwards: You're interested in finding out more about what we do, hearing what your colleagues say about niche Academy or talking to a member of our team. I will drop a link to our website in the chat, and we will.
Julie Edwards: You can learn more about us there. We are recording this webinar I will make the recording, the slides, the Chat Transcript and the Audio transcript available on our blog. In a few days it since you've registered for this, you'll get a direct email from me, so you can just sit back and enjoy the presentation.
Julie Edwards: If you would like to turn on closed captioning. You're welcome to do that at the bottom of your zoom screen. As I said, there were over 3,000 people registered for this webinar. 600 of us already here, so please continue to chat with each other in the chat box. But if you have a question for the presenter, please use the question and answer box on zoom, so that questions don't get lost in the chat box. I will do my best to moderate those at the end of the Webinar.
Julie Edwards: This Webinar series is part of our commitment to solving bigger problems together and to providing continuing education in the library space. I'm so happy that you've joined us today, and I will drop a link to our future upcoming webinars
Julie Edwards: in the chat as well. So our presenter today, without further ado is Jennifer Carson. Jen is a professional Yoga teacher, and the director of the LP. Fisher Public Library in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada.
Julie Edwards: She is the creator of the website, Yoga, in the library.com, and has been delivering movement based programs in schools, libraries, and museums for over a decade.
Julie Edwards: She's the author of Get your community moving physical literacy programs for all ages, Yoga and Meditation at the Library, a Practical Guide for Librarians, and her book on adult programming which she'll mention at the end of the presentation.
Julie Edwards: She blogs about her physical literacy adventures at the Ala'a's programming librarian website, the programming librarian. Org. I am delighted to have her with us today, and I will turn the webinar over to Jen.
Jenn Carson: Thank you, Julie. That was a very nice introduction. Yeah, so welcome everybody today. Obviously, we're here because we're interested in adult library programs. But some of you might not even be from libraries. I invited people that work in community centers or church groups or sporting organizations to join us as well, because, they're also working with adults and thinking about ways that we can get adults into our community centers and our our buildings and our our spaces.
Jenn Carson: But before we get right into the nitty gritty, I actually wanted to open it up, and I can't see the chat I had. Julie and I set it up so I can't see what you guys are saying, cause it won't distract me, but I want you to throw out there what you think an adult is, and Julie is. Gonna read me some of the best answers, because and it don't worry. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just throw out ideas like, what do you think an adult is? Because that's a pretty like nebulous term.
Jenn Carson: adult like, what's an adult program? You know. So put some ideas out there. And then in a second, Julie is going to read me some of your responses, so throw those up in the chat.
Julie Edwards: They are all coming in. Most people seem to be saying over 18. Some people are saying over 16. Some people are saying, not a kid. Some people are saying over 21, but it seems to be deliber divided by age here. So someone saying, someone who's responsible, someone to tell me what to do. Right? Yeah. Some of us don't feel like adults when we're
Jenn Carson: so right, that's a very typical response. Right? Is like, how do we classify in a library or another place? What's an adult program like we'd think of adults as being like, you know, you can't go to an r rated movie unless you're an adult or maybe you have to be the draft age, which is different in different countries. Or maybe you have to be of drinking age or majority able to vote, maybe able to get married to like. That's 19 here in New Brunswick, Canada, where I am. But it's different in some States or in different countries.
Jenn Carson: so we kind of think of it like in a law based way and being librarians, of course, we think about statistics. And so we're sort of, we divide our collections into things that are like juvenile collections, young adult collections, adult collections, and sometimes those readerships can overlap right? So we might have
Jenn Carson: adult adults, aged adults reading young adult fiction, and might be interested in young adult topics. And then we might have young adults really interested in adult topics.
Jenn Carson: adult topics, and so sort of getting your brain around. What an adult is so like. Also thinking about.
Jenn Carson: how is an adult related to cognitive ability? So if you have patrons who have cognitive disabilities. So maybe they're
Jenn Carson: intellectually more like a 10 year old. Should they be coming to adult programs? If maybe
Jenn Carson: those programs require, say, math skills, that they may not have. So this gets into sort of like an ethical area that we need to think about as programmers of like who is allowed or welcomed at our programs? And are they accessible for as many people as possible? And then it also comes to like the end of the spectrum of dementia. So if you have patrons that are sort of at the very end of their life cycle and experiencing
Jenn Carson: dementia or other cognitive disabilities there because of aging.
Jenn Carson: Are they
Jenn Carson: adults? Of course, they're adults. There might be 80 years old. They're totally adults, but maybe they can't participate in a program cognitively, the way that say an able minded 30 year old could. But are they still allowed to come to the program? Can we adapt and modify the program for them. What about someone who has a physical disability? But intellectually they're totally cognizant. So
Jenn Carson: that we think of an adult as someone who's like able to do things in the world, get stuff done and responsible? Well, what if they live at home with their parents because they have a physical disability, or they have caregivers. Does that make them childlike? No, right? They're still adults. So I think I wanted to just broaden our understanding of what an adult is. And when we're starting to think of a program ideas, thinking about reaching
Jenn Carson: all adults and not just thinking about maybe what our sort of narrow definition of what an add could be and also not getting too hung up on the statistics of ages, because public doesn't care about our librarian statistics like we super do, but they don't right. They just want to come to the library.
Jenn Carson: And so, you know, we have to be responsible in the sense that we're not gonna present
Jenn Carson: adult content that might be like to sexually advanced or to have language issues that would be for a young audience. But at the same time we don't want to create false barriers that don't need to be there. So those are just sort of like some gears. I wanted to get turning in your brains while we're talking about these subjects, and we're gonna circle back to that at the end of the discussion. So let's launch into the fun stuff now.
Jenn Carson: And so we're gonna get into the nitty gritty of like, how we do these library programs. So first thing, first, I wanted to talk about fun stuff. So like.
Jenn Carson: where do we get our ideas? You know, I saw someone today on the programming librarian
Facebook group saying like.
Jenn Carson: I have nothing for November I know, like so many programming librarians like, I've been doing this
Jenn Carson: well, I started in museum programming in 2,005. So almost 20 years. And so yeah, you can get really burnt out about program ideas. And you can only spend so much time on pinterest before you just like I can't do all the things. Okay. And so I'm just gonna throw some ideas at you that I've done that have worked well, or that I've seen other people do that have worked well and had good feedback, and you can jot them down. But, like Julie said, they're gonna be at the end of the presentation.
Jenn Carson: included with this webinar. So don't like worry about furiously taking notes. But just this is more just like some idea sharing to spark little things in your brain of like, oh, that might be fun, or oh, I've already done that. But here's maybe like a way I can expand it
Jenn Carson: and then then we're going to get into like the implementation of how to do all this stuff. But I thought, let's do the fun stuff first.
Jenn Carson: so we're gonna talk about how we get ideas. We're gonna talk about how we get buy in from our staff. And from the administration we're gonna talk about how we pay for it. We're gonna get money. And then we're gonna talk about how we get people in the door to do the programs. And then we're gonna talk about how to get better at doing adult library programs.
Jenn Carson: So first off.
Jenn Carson: where do we get our ideas. So what I like to do is make a great big list. And I just think of all of the things that my community might like. So I live in a fairly rural part of New Brunswick, our population. We just amalgamated some local towns, and so our populations around 10,000 people.
Jenn Carson: I have like 5 permanent staff members here at the library. So we're like a medium sized library in a fairly rural town. In fairly rural province in New Brunswick. But you might be in an urban center or an academic library, so your community might look very different from what my community looks like. So I like to make a big list. Maybe use an excel spreadsheet. Maybe use a whiteboard whatever works for you creatively.
Jenn Carson: and then just make some categories. And I put like food and drink programs, arts and crafts programs, books and writing programs tech and media programs, health and wellness, business and finance, nature and gardening, and maybe you have another like category. And that's help. Sort things in my brain of like.
Jenn Carson: where are some categories of things that people who are adults, probably like. And you might have other categories that you can think of. So I'm just going to run through a few ideas from each of those categories. And then we're going to talk about how we'd actually get them done.
Jenn Carson: So here's some suggestions of what's worked in our library. So for food and drink programs, for example. And before you have questions you can put in the QA. About what do you do with food and drink? What if you don't have food handling licenses and things like that.
Jenn Carson: I'm gonna answer those questions at the end, but feel free to put them in the QA and Julie's gonna help us answer those at the end. So something that we did at our library was a water bottle decorating program. So we had local businesses that often give it water bottles like, you know, those metal ones, or the like. Bpa free plastic bottles with their logo on it. So we had some local businesses, donate those to the library.
Jenn Carson: and I was like, what are we going to do with all of these business
Jenn Carson: water bottles? And so I went and got some paint pens, which this is a very like obviously working librarians office. You can see in the background. Here I have a bin full of paint pens. I have a bin full of plastic bugs, you know, just the normal stuff people have in their office.
Jenn Carson: And so those paint pens. I went out and bought those, and then we had a local artist come in. Who was? She's a tattoo artist, actually. And she loves coming in and boring books from the library and going to programs here. And I said to her one day, Hey, Jody, like you're super good at like design and stuff. Would you wanna come in and like show people how to use these fancy paint pens I bought because I'm like, not super good at them. I'm trying, but they run and blah blah blah.
Jenn Carson: and so she's like, I love that that sounds awesome. And I said, Don't get a free water bottle out of it, and she was like great. And so she came in. and she went around, and I went around and we helped everybody use these paint pens, and we did all these fun designs on water bottles, and it didn't really cost us anything other than the cost of the paint pens. And it was just a way to use up something that someone had donated to us. But it got people like.
Jenn Carson: you know, drinking water and using something that they would use anyway. And then they have a nice memory attached to the library, because every time they use that water bottle they're like thinking. Oh, cool. I made that at the library, and that was a free program I got to do, and that was really fun. And we had like stencils for people who don't consider themselves artistic, and they could just trace the stencils. And then other people like just went super creative and did whatever they wanted.
Jenn Carson: Recipe swap. So we often have recipe swaps here at the library. This was pre covid, where we would have people come in and bring their favorite recipes, and you can have, like different themes like it could be dessert or thanksgiving, or whatever and they bring in copies of their recipe, and you don't make them fill it all out on those little cards. You can just photocopy them for them. At the at your Cirque desk
Jenn Carson: and then you they bring in a sample of what they've made and then
Jenn Carson: you taste test. You have little
Jenn Carson: plates, and then everyone can go around and taste test, and then they take this. They take the recipe card of the thing that they liked, and so during Covid it was really hard to do that, because one, we couldn't have people come eating food at the library, or even in the library for a while. So we tried it online, and people could hop on, and they would show what they were eating like. This is my mom's best mealaf, and they would be like eating the meatloaf. And then they would like share a digital copy. People could take a screenshot or we sent it out an email
Jenn Carson: and then people could share this recipe, and it was a way for people to connect over food, because, you know, food and joining together in a community is something people really miss during Covid. And so we just made a digital version of that. So don't be afraid when you're thinking of these things.
Jenn Carson: to like make it more accessible by doing it online, because not everybody can physically get to a library and not everybody, you know, like, either, because they physically can't. Or maybe they don't have the means to get there. Or maybe the time doesn't work for them. Maybe they work
Jenn Carson: so thinking about ways to like, get these programs. In a digital format like a multi modal way of presenting them is always fun. A pop up juice bar. So we did that for physical literacy day one year. So II bought a juicer. I got a a health grant and we'll talk about funding later. And I was like, let's buy a juicer. So I got like a fancy masticating juicer and a bunch of little cups, and I would got some vegetables from a local farmer, and we just like
Jenn Carson: I did this a few times. So once we we just made juice and like handed it out after a Yoga class I was teaching, and people were just like trying the different flavors. And then another time, I actually had like how to make juice. And people put the, you know, the vegetables in the machine and then try different combinations, and some of them are really gross, and some of them are really delicious.
Jenn Carson: And then we just got to play. And so that's something that like not everyone can afford is to buy a juicer but people might wanna try it out. Or maybe they're thinking about investing in a juicer. But they don't wanna sink, you know, a couple of $100 into an appliance. If they don't know they're gonna use it. So this is a fun way for people to come and try that out and see if they might like.
You know we're just
Jenn Carson: teach them that juice doesn't have to come from a bottle at the grocery store like you can make juice with the things in your fridge
Jenn Carson: and then like a cookbook book book club. So instead of having regular book club, you do cookbook, cook, book cookbook, book, book, book, book, Book Club. That's really easy to say and then, you know, and and again, if you're allowed to eat in your library you can bring in food that you cook from the cookbook, and everybody tries a different dish. And if not, you can do it at home, and you can take pictures, and you can share which were your favorite recipes, and then people can copy it out of the book and then go home and pick a different cookbook for the following week
Jenn Carson: or month, or one, however often you do it. So arts and crafts in the book. I have, like so many arts and crafts things, because that's like one of my favorite and most popular programs at the library is making things with our hands. But some that we've done here like a performance art series like, so having performers come regularly so you can do a whole series of different dance
Jenn Carson: troops that come in and perform a little dance you can have music you could. We have like orchestral performances here? Maybe you have a library that you have to be quiet at, but we don't and we try to schedule it in a time when people aren't studying or using the library like on a Thursday evening, or something when it might be quiet.
Jenn Carson: Where we have, like a battle of the bands with local teenagers, and they come in, and they they play music, and you know we. And we give them a space to play for free where they can practice or local musicians that I, you know, need a need a space to perform. But maybe they're not quite ready to like. Go out to a bar or another venue and play yet, but we have like an open mic at the library. But you could do depending on the size of your library.
Jenn Carson: You could do acrobatics. You could do theater all kinds of like performing Arts series. We had a trash and show here at our library if you don't know what a trash in show is it's a fashion show you make out of trash.
Jenn Carson: And so I just collected all of the stuff that you know as a programming library you collect, you know, like bubble, wrap and duct tape and toilet paper rolls and pompoms and things like that old Cds. And you're like I can't throw this out. I could use this for a program. And so Kate, one of my staff members, and I had asked just ridiculous amounts of special objects.
Jenn Carson: And so we put them out on a table, and we were like, let's make fashion out of it. And I can't share all the pictures with you here, but some of them are on the blog and some of them are on the book, and you can find them on the Library's Facebook page, and the the stuff that people came up with was so creative, like dresses made out of old book paper and newspapers, and like knitted objects with old yarn, and and we just put it out and gave people a few hours to like assemble their outfit.
Jenn Carson: and then and then we have, like a little runway set up in the the great hall upstairs in our like nonfiction section. And I played like, fashion television intro music done.
Jenn Carson: And then everybody like walked down and strutted their stuff down the imaginary runway, and we took pictures, and it was so fun, and you know, like whether or not they ever were. Those objects again. Wasn't the point right? It was process oriented. It was about having fun and making things with stuff that was just gonna go in the garbage or in the recycling bin, anyway. And it gave us this really great opportunity, as we were working with our glue guns and our scissors to have a talk about fast fashion. And
Jenn Carson: it became like this, actual, like little political, intellectual exercise. While we were working where we just talked about like how clothing these days is meant to just be like thrown away and lay worn a few times, and how cloth a long time ago was highly prized, and people would repair things and stuff like that, and so that
Jenn Carson: loops into the sewing circle that I offer here at the library, where people can on a Saturday. It's like Saturday sewing circle, and people can come in with objects that they
Jenn Carson: have at home, but they'd like to repair, but they don't know what to do, or they don't have time, and they can sit down with me or one of the other staff or volunteers that have sewing skills and fix their object. Their beloved object that maybe was like their grandmother's sweater that has a hole in it. Or they sucks that they love, but they don't know how to darn or an old quilt that's falling apart. They need help with
or just a project. Maybe if they started from scratch and then got to the zipper and freaked out because they don't know how to put a zipper in
Jenn Carson: so programs like that. We also do a knitting night or a fiber night. That's the same thing people bring in their knitting projects or their crochet projects or leaving, and we all just sit and drink tea.
Jenn Carson: or whatever, and talk about our projects and help each other turn the you know, turn the heel on a sock or places where people get stuck or just wanna have the company and we still did things like that during Covid, we just did them online. We still met up with each other. We just didn't do it in person when we couldn't. And people really needed that community. Of course, lots of libraries have coloring programs. I stuck that down there. Because, yeah, you if you're doing an adult coloring program, how fun is that?
Jenn Carson: And but you can do groups like that for other things like it doesn't just have to be coloring like we have a ukulele group, and we have, like 20 or 30 people come every week and play ukulele together and sing. That's just the thing that they do. And it started off small. And it it became a thing. And now they all go get coffee together afterwards, and they're like friends.
Jenn Carson: And so that library becomes that, you know, palace for the people that third space that we talk about in libraries where it's they start by just coming from the program. But they leave with friendships that they that they've developed from being here. And that's what we're looking for. Right? It's a value. Add, it's not just about making something and taking it home.
Jenn Carson: Books and writing. Obviously the title of this is beyond books. So I wasn't gonna focus too much on book programs, cause we already know a lot about that. But some of the more sort of out there programs that we've done book related is we did like a pop up poetry reading. And so I just put out an old junkie typewriter that I had, and some paper and people came in. We just announced it, we and then people just came and like
Jenn Carson: just wrote poetry if they felt like it, and we just like tacked it up. And it's, you know, bad poetry. Oh, no tree. You know. And it was okay, like it was the perfect time to just like stick up bad poems, and you could read them, or you could crumple them up and throw them in the garbage, and then people also were invited to bring poems they'd written at home and share them, and it was like an open mic. It was just a spontaneous open mic, and people could get out. And we did put a limit, you know, cause some people really like to share and other people are really scared to share. And so we're like 2 poems each
Jenn Carson: and they can't be like like
Jenn Carson: a long form home, an epic adventure that's been 27 couplets like it had to be, you know, like a a page or 2. And they could get up, and they could share that. And it was really fun. And it brought people out of the woodwork that I don't see that often at the library or people that I just come in and get a book and leave, but don't normally participate. And they were secret writers, and I didn't even know it. And so that was really fun. We teach cursive writing programs here at the library. We teach calligraphy programs at the library. So thinking about
Jenn Carson: cursive especially, or for your feet. If you know, as those skills fade, it's really hard to read historical texts and documents. It's hard to read letters from your grandmother or your your ancestors if you find them, or you have them. If you don't know how to read cursive or writing cursive, you know my generation still learned, cursive in school, but then the newer generation of kids that are coming up, they they can't they? I mean, they can barely sign their name in cursive
Jenn Carson: and so that's a great skill to offer if it's not being taught in your area, in the school system or to refresh people's memories, cause maybe you know, they got out of school, and then they printed for the next 30 years, and then they're like, oh, I kinda mislearn writing incursive, and they might wanna learn it again, or writing in fancy calligraphy for wedding invitations, or just for fun. Book series. Trivia night. So that's really fun. We do it with movies, too, or a TV series. And like we did Downton Abbey.
Jenn Carson: But you could do like Harry Potter or outlander, and everybody comes dressed up in costume, and then you do, Trivia, and you have to try to. Whoever wins, you know, gets some sort of period related prize that goes with that historical period or the theme of the book, if it's fantasy, or whatever and those have been really popular here at the library. So you're still talking about literature? But you're making it fun. And I know a lot of you do. Trivia sort of related stuff already.
Jenn Carson: And then digital storytelling. I love teaching people how to make digital stories. So you can do like claymation, stop motion animation. I love doing like little Lego, stop motion. You can do drawings. You can use all sorts of software to tell digital stories. This could obviously also go under our tech and media column.
Jenn Carson: But I just stuck it under books and writing but that is like so fun being able to tell stories in a different format, because not everybody reads books right? And maybe they listen audio books. Or maybe they want to watch a Youtube video with a story, and it's still a story. You're still storytelling. So that's something fun to think about how you would teach that
Jenn Carson: tech and media. So again, doing stop motion animation classes, and everybody brings their phone and you can get little apps on your phone to do stop motion. You can just use like toys you have in the children's department. We just use like
Jenn Carson: little Mini, plastic bugs and turtles and things like that, or Lego or
Jenn Carson: You know, actual clay if you want to do claimation. But that takes a lot longer drawings and doing little flipbooks. You can do all kinds of fun stuff we have adult brick builders, clubs. We have adult
dungeons and dragons clubs. But you can come in and just like play with Lego for an hour. We also have a board game collection. Come in and play board games, and if you don't have a friend to bring with you, make a friend here and play a game with somebody.
Jenn Carson: I love doing this. So you got a new for Christmas or it could be a different, you know for your birthday or whatever. And we offer sessions because oftentimes people are gifted with technology and they don't have to use it. I'm not gonna say, a certain age demographic of people cause it could be anyone. I only got a cell phone when I was 41 years old. And my children will tell you how difficult it was to teach me to use some of the apps on it.
Jenn Carson: And so sometimes people get gifted things like my son got gifted some sort of digital music making pad thing for his computer last year, and I still don't know how to use it. I have to find my friend Brent and teach him how to use it, because I looked it up on the Internet and
Jenn Carson: Nope, I do not have the skills. I wish I had a librarian. Is there a librarian out there that knows anything about audio equipment? Who could help me? And so those are great programs where people come in and they bring their ipad, or they bring their phone and things like that. And you do your best. You know their their new kindle, and you do your best to show them how to use the thing. You might run into a stop.
Jenn Carson: You know. Problem where you don't know how to do it. Do it, either, in which case you're just like sorry I tried but at least at least we tried right. And that's that's always fun. Usually you have more knowledge.
Jenn Carson: Then the
Jenn Carson: I don't wanna say Luddite, but the person who's coming in who's very, very lost cause they probably already tried themselves. If they're a person who has access to technology and is good with it. They probably already tried really hard themselves. If that's the case, most people, it's like they're afraid, and they bring it in, and they and you can help them. Chess clubs. So we have an in person Chess Club. But we during Covid. We also took it online. And you can all play on the same app together and find each other and have names, and then have chess tournaments.
Jenn Carson: and you can win prizes and and do all kinds of stuff like that. And that's super fun
Jenn Carson: health and wellness, obviously like physical literacy is what I do. That's like my, my bread and butter is a movement based programs. And so I could do an entire
Jenn Carson: hour, long year long presentation on health and wellness programs. I teach Yoga and running and Cycle club and all kinds of stuff at our library.
Jenn Carson: but here's just some quick ones. So we have a go fly kite program. So we have a bunch of kites at our library, and then we go and fly them with people. It's really shocking. How many people have never flied flown a kite before adults that don't know how to fly kite properly and not hurt themselves or others. So that's a super simple thing. And kites, if you buy just cheap plastic ones. Are not that expensive? We have really nice.
Jenn Carson: like organic cotton kites. But we invested in it, and we got a grant and a whole bunch of stuff. And someone donated a bunch of the time and materials. Because we knew it was going to be something we would use regularly.
Jenn Carson: Body image. Bootcamp is something that myself and mental health professional, came up with together where we did a whole like. I think it was 3 or 4 week series.
Jenn Carson: on how to love your body and have a good relationship with your body. And that was super fun, and that's detailed in the book. I can't get into all the details of it, but it was really it was really great. Build your own rickshaw or freaking bike. So if you have handy people on your staff
or in your community.
Jenn Carson: Chris stares, I will give a shout out, is our local resident, frank and bike builder here in Woodstock and so he built rickshaws with us. And he builds Frank and bikes. And so you just take a whole bunch of old parts wheels and and metal tubes and gears, and you just
Jenn Carson: try to build something that works, and that you can sit on and push around, and it's surprisingly fun. There's a whole bunch of pictures in again in the book and on on the Facebook page, on our library, Facebook page. Of things like that that we've been doing. We have a community pantry here. Some libraries have community fridges food. Insecurity is a huge issue, as you know, and public libraries, and in college libraries.
Jenn Carson: And so, having access to free food, will often bring adults into the library that might not otherwise come in. We even offer free glasses. So our library board
Jenn Carson: reading glasses and varying stray strengths, and we keep them on top of the food pantry. And so that way, people that may not be able to. Look at literature because they don't have access to glasses. Can get some free reading glasses at the library, and you can just get those at the dollar store. They don't have to be fancy, or I just bought like you buy a huge Costco or on Amazon.
Jenn Carson: have different strengths.
Jenn Carson: business and finance. So we did a huge business conference here, and it actually wasn't as hard to do as it sounds we just had a whole bunch of local businesses from the Chamber of Commerce get together and everybody that wanted to got to talk about a different topic. That was their special interest. So maybe it was change management.
Jenn Carson: or like environmental sustainability and business or whatever. And we had took the whole day and we booked out different rooms in the library, and it was free to attend, and local businesses would come in and and listen to other business people in our community talk about their specialty, and it was really great because they were people who wouldn't necessarily be regular library users.
Or they might come in with their families for a children's program, but they wouldn't use the library on their own and so having them in the library and having the library is like a professional business center for a day. It was like a completely different vibe. From what the Public library is normally like
Jenn Carson: local love. So that's sort of like.
Jenn Carson: I kind of one tiny version of that is, you do like small business speed dating. So you have a bunch of small businesses come in. Maybe it's like someone who makes hand cream and someone who makes their own whiskey. I don't know different things, and then they come in and they set up little like booths, their little tables on our like, or spots on a table, and then people take turns, and you only have like a minute to talk to each person, and you go around
Jenn Carson: and they do their little elevator pitch about what their business is about. And it's really fun way to get to know different businesses in your community. So you get to know what the local brewery and you get to know about the local local Yoga studio, or the
Jenn Carson: place that brings gravel to your driveway. Whatever landscaping business you know, it could be anything. But it's a great way to find out about places or new businesses in your community that you didn't know existed and get to really talk to people face-to-face. And you can do an online version of that as well, where you can have, like a little panel of local business owners talking about the products and services.
Jenn Carson: And it's really fun to just like, hear how they got started and why they're in the business, and they only have a minute. So if you hate their product or you don't like them you don't have. It's just like speed dating. You only have to do it for a minute, and then you'll be like, not that guy, and then move on to the next person. I really didn't want to talk about headstones and cemeteries. No more funeral director, and then move on. And so like it's it's just a great way to support local business as well, and get those people into your library. Other things to think about is like.
Jenn Carson: think about what your patrons are struggling with as adults like adulting 101 stuff like how to have a mortgage, how to renovate your house.
Jenn Carson: how to buy a car how to do your taxes and bring in an expert on those subjects. So like one of my library board members, is a mortgage broker, and so bringing her in and giving like a credit, counseling session to people, and talking about how to consolidate your Loans, or how to apply for a mortgage or a a loan for a car, or things like that. And so that's just information that people don't know necessarily where to find, and why not find it at the library?
Jenn Carson: Nature and gardening. So we have a CD. Saturday at our library every year. We have a seat library, and we bring people in that are different experts in the in their field farmers or homesteaders. And they come in and they talk about different things to do with growing things. And it's usually something that's pertaining to the average person. You know, it's not like a super specialized
Jenn Carson: like how to graft a specific strain
Jenn Carson: of something onto some other plant. You know it would be like how to start growing tomatoes on your patio, or how to save seeds from one year to the next, or how to can your harvest and things like that? And so it's pretty basic. But it gets people who might be interested in gardening a little step into it, and then we have free seeds that people can take home and try it.
Jenn Carson: And so it's like a no pressure way for people to try gardening, and it's great for newcomers. Who don't know anything about our climate or our region. To be able to learn a little bit about that stuff
Jenn Carson: so we, in in conjunction with that, we usually do a giant plant sale so that time of year here in New Brunswick, when everybody's digging up in the spring, all of their perennials and dividing them is we get them to donate some of those cuttings to a library, those divisions, and then we sell them. And we also have local nurseries who will donate stuff that's like
Jenn Carson: you know, maybe not their best product, but is still an okay condition. And we sell that or stuff. They grew too much of, you know, like, maybe they didn't need 1,100 eggplants starters, and so they give 20 of them to the library, and then we sell them for a dollar each or something, and that's a great fundraiser for us to use to pay for programs
Jenn Carson: pet worms that work. So Verma, culture is super cool. So having. I guarantee there's someone in your area that's really interested in worms or mushrooms or bees, or any of those sort of like more esoteric gardening activities or animal husbandry activities? And have them come in and and talk and answer people's questions, or like how to raise backyard chickens. Things like that. The people are interested in
Jenn Carson: but mess don't necessarily even know where to start. We've had a lot of success with like tree or plant id workshops, so we'll have a local botanist or a local ranger come in and bring like cuttings of plants and pitchers, and talk about our watershed and our local forest and where to find stuff like that.
Jenn Carson: We have a really good partnership with our local preserve. And those guys and the Transcanada trail that runs through our town, and those guys will come in and offer free programs for us. So that is just like
Jenn Carson: me, just spewing for like 20 min about a whole bunch of fun program ideas. I know you have probably so many more. But let's talk about like, how do we get those programs off the ground, because, having great ideas is awesome. But if you can't implement them, then you'll just feel frustrated and impotent, and we don't want that to happen.
Jenn Carson: So getting buy in. I always start at the bottom. I never start at the top. I always start by the people who are actually going to do the work which is sometimes me, do I really wanna do this? Jen? Do you want to do this? And I talk to myself first like, Oh, this sounds like a lot of work. Is the fun, and going to be a good trade off like we brought a zoo to our library. Do I want to have rabbits and mice
and snakes at the library. Is that worth it? Can we do it outside? Yes, we can. Okay, it's worth it. Let's do it, it'll be fun.
Jenn Carson: So first I have that conversation with myself, and then I talk to my staff, and volunteers, and don't forget a pair of professionals. Your public service librarians.
Jenn Carson: people that are actually gonna do the work
Jenn Carson: and get their ideas. And they might have a different spin on what you're thinking about like they really really know your clientele in your library. They're the people who talk at the serp desk or the reference desk to people every single day. They know what they're reading, they know what they're looking up on the computers. They know what they're interested in. They know what they call about, so pick their brains and ask them what they might be interested in.
Jenn Carson: and also whether or not they that you think they think something is viable or not. Talk to them first. Okay, and listen to them and take notes and make sure that they know that you you really care about their opinion, and that
Jenn Carson: the work that they're doing is valuable. And they're that you couldn't do it without them, right? So that's gonna get that buy in. Because if it's a program that they came up with, or that they're really excited about, they're gonna be so much more likely to want to work on it. Then if you say, Hey, Doug, guess what you're gonna lead a whole bunch of people and play guitar, they're gonna be like then they don't want to play guitar at work. But if it's if it's their idea, and they came up with it, they might be super into it.
Jenn Carson: and then move to the top. Right? So whoever that is, and it's different in every library, like, maybe you have a regional director or an assistant regional director, some someone in senior management. Maybe you have to talk to your board of directors, someone on your municipality.
Jenn Carson: Whatever shareholders that you have to deal with, that you need permission to either do crazy stuff.
Jenn Carson: Maybe break a couple of rules, or, like, you know, stretch the boundaries of what your library is used for, or just spend money so like whoever you need to ask permission from, it's always better to ask permission first and flesh it out, then to like, apologize profusely later, cause. You don't want to be known as that person who's always like duffing stuff up, and, you know, taking risks, and then like groveling afterwards, you can do it once or twice in your career, but like don't make it a habit.
Jenn Carson: But that's it. You have to go and load it like lead with metrics that suggest that these adult programs will really boost your services. And I have so many statistics in this book that will help you. And there's all kinds to be found online
Jenn Carson: and in different library journals about how having adult services really increases your program and library usage? A short history of other successes. What's another program that's similar to this that you've done in the past that went really, really well, that you can brag about and be like, I think it's gonna be just like that time I did this
Jenn Carson: or other people's that, you know, while so and so's library did that. And everybody loved their Tacos, and so we need to do it, too. And then, if you have like enough wherewithal to get a detailed proposal of like how you're gonna roll this out like.
Jenn Carson: here's where we're gonna do it. And here's how we're gonna pay for it. And here's who's gonna do it. And this is the time it's gonna be at. And this is where we're gonna do it. Who's gonna clean it up? Then it's like you've done your homework. You know what you're doing, and they don't feel like you're just totally winging it a little bit. Just make sure that it sounds like you're like.
Jenn Carson: you know what you're doing?
Jenn Carson: And then also, if you can, funding projections like how much it's gonna cost them, and who's gonna be staffing it and like. Whether or not you need extra coverage that day. How much it's gonna cost in in staffing allocations for that you need to bring in extra people or their volunteers that can do it. And then bonus points. If you can show how that program ties in with your strategic plan and the overall mission of your library cause. Then, like, how can they argue with that? You're you're like following the strategic plan and trying to like
Jenn Carson: meet the goals. The greater goals of the organization. Well, okay, so go through all that stuff. And then it's really hard for people to say no to you. And then you need to get some money. So either you have to make things really, really cheap or free, which we do all the time here at the library. Or you need to find money to pay for it. And so grant funding is amazing.
Jenn Carson: And so if you have access to grant, connect we have that here this, the service here in New Brunswick at in our public library service, and if not, maybe you do too, or you can get onto it. But it will list all the grants that you're eligible, for when you're looking for funding I have gotten so many grants for so many different things like from skateboards to a juicer to yoga props
Jenn Carson: food like all kinds of stuff. So but you do have to dig, and you do have to fill up the applications for it, and I've also lost grants. I've you know. We applied for a grant this year for a new microfilm, reader, and we didn't get it.
Jenn Carson: Boohoo! Now we have to find the money some other way. But if you don't. if you ask and you don't try. You definitely won't get it. So like playing the lottery, you don't buy a ticket. You're not going to win
Jenn Carson: partnerships and volunteers. So obviously I can't teach all the programs myself, and I rely heavily on partners that come in, and they will do it for you often for free because they're so interested in that. So find that person who's really into crossfit, or that person who's really into beekeeping, or whatever, and ask them if they're interested. We had an a doctor of acupuncture come in
Jenn Carson: and do an acupuncture class at our library and actually stuff needles and people with permission.
Jenn Carson: because he just wanted to talk about acupuncture, cause he's so into it. And we're like, Yeah, we had a chiropractor come in and talk about like the benefits of chiropractory. And I don't know if I said that right and you know, like he didn't do any adjustments on anybody. But he just talked about proper posture and things like that. And it was really interesting, and he did it for free
Jenn Carson: and so finding those partnerships with people in your community that already really invested in a topic and then make a program out of it.
Jenn Carson: have creative fundraisers like I mentioned the plant sale. We're doing an author talk in in October. With stock reads, and we're bringing the author Beth pounding in and we're selling tickets to the show, and she's gonna talk. And we're selling copies of her book that we bought at wholesale. And well, that's a fundraiser for the library. So there's there's all different ways that you can raise funds? And then, of course, you
Jenn Carson: hey, do they know about your friends program
mentioning that when you have
Jenn Carson: a program like, Oh, if you love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love this program. And you want to see more programs like this. Did you know that you can donate to the library and the money will go right towards our programs
Jenn Carson: and then getting people in the door to come to the programs. So if you don't tell them or show them because people love pictures, then they won't be able to come, and they won't know about it. And there's so many things clawing for people's attention out in the world they see so much on Facebook or Instagram, or, you know, anywhere.
Jenn Carson: they hear so much on the radio that you have to be fun and lively and get their attention. And so figuring out where your users are at like, the average middle-aged woman is almost definitely on Facebook. Okay, but she might or might not be on Snapchat. Depends on if she has kids on Snapchat
Jenn Carson: or if she's just really into it. But like, you can look up the user demographics for different social media and figure out who's using what app? At what times of the day, and then try to share your information about your event at those times.
There might be some people in your community that are listening to the radio every day on their ride into work. And can you do a free Psa? You're a nonprofit. There shouldn't be a reason why you'd have to pay for advertising. We call into our radio station all the time
Jenn Carson: and do little blurbs and or little interviews and talk about what's going on. And people hear that on their drive into work or their drive home, or lots of people in their office plate have the radio playing all day, like, if you work in retail. You know. You might have the radio on in the background all day, and if you hear 6 times that there's a trash and show happening at your library. You might be interested in that, or think your daughters are, or whatever who does your website, you know? Can you can you optimize your website, so that it's really inviting and gets people
Jenn Carson: interested in coming to the library thinking about posters. We still do print posters. We still do a print calendar cause. There's a lot of people in our community that like a piece of paper, they can stick on their fridge and be like what's happening at the library this week, and then they oh, cool. I'm gonna go on Wednesday to that, whatever program
Jenn Carson: and then also don't forget about just talking to people in person. We give away so many passes to things. And get so many people interested in programs because they're just up at the surf desk talking our face off about
Jenn Carson: whatever, and if we hear something that they're interested in like, oh, you're taking out a bunch of gardening books. Did you know we have a seed library. Did you know that someone's coming in to give a talk about rhododendrons on Thursday? And then boom! Now you have a person coming to the to the library to go to one of your programs definitely use. Learn to use canva. This pretty presentation I made in canva for free.
Jenn Carson: it's such a great program. If you have 0, like graphic design skills which would be neat, you can totally use canva to make lovely Facebook tiles and presentations and posters.
Jenn Carson: and and they look like you paid a professional to do them. And it takes you like 10 min. So I would totally check out canva and sign up for a free canva
Jenn Carson: membership, and you can look through the templates and just turn your filter on to free cause. Some of the templates you do have to pay for, but if you just set the filter to free, it'll give you all the templates that are in
Jenn Carson: in your league of being able to use, or else just pay the small membership fee, and then you have access to all of the stuff.
Jenn Carson: so yeah. Just think about different ways that you can reach your audience and then go go. Diversify that as much as possible. Right? If you have time, it'd be great if you could have a staff member dedicated to just doing marketing. But I know you're all super busy. So just pick your top ones that you can and sell, sell those programs. And then let's get good at this. So
Jenn Carson: you probably have a lot of questions about this stuff, and I'm going to go over it as quickly as I can, and but as thoroughly as I can, so legal issues. So some of you are going to worry about insurance. Does our insurance cover teaching Yoga classes or having a water fight or a nerf gun battle, or whatever you think sounds like really fun that you put on your list of fun things to do.
Jenn Carson: Well, that's going to be dependent on your own library, and so check with your liability insurance check with your boss. This is one of those things you bring up in that conversation with your boss or your shareholders. Am I allowed to do this? And if you can't, then you can't, you know, and you might have to find a workaround for how you can do the program in a way that meets your liability standards.
Jenn Carson: food handling. In our library. We have to have people who are trained have food handling certificates in order to cut up and handle food. Not food. That's pre-packaged. So anybody at our library can hand out a granola bar to somebody. But if you want me to cut up a watermelon and give it to people, I have to have a food handling certificate. So, checking your jurisdiction to see if that's available. Sometimes it's free. Or you can get like a nonprofit deep discount to get that
Jenn Carson: liability waivers. If you're doing anything where people are out of physical risk, make risk, make sure they sign a hold, harmless form or a liability waiver. So that you resolve the library? You know, and and let them also be aware that there is some risk to this, you know. Like, yeah, you're riding a bicycle. You may get hurt. Photo and video release forms. Obviously, like, if you're out in a public place, people take pictures. It happens
but we want to make sure that everybody knows their picture is going to be taken at this event, and that they're comfortable, that it might be shared on social media and check with people and really respect it if they say no, because there might be really important reasons, I'm thinking, like domestic abuse situations. Where people don't want their picture, or a video of them shared
Jenn Carson: consent again, this links in with consent. But if you're ever doing a program where you're doing something that might involve touching someone. I always ask consent first, like, Hey, I'm gonna put this hat on you for this. Dress up the thing that we're doing, is it okay? If I touch your hair, some people don't like their hair being touched, or is it okay? If I help you with these gloves? Or if it's a yoga program, I hand out little cards at the beginning of the Yoga class that says
Jenn Carson: Yes, please. And on the back it says, no, thank you, and they can flip the card over. And if I come around to give people adjustments or help them with something, if they don't want to be touched. It's really it's really quiet. They can just have it flipped to. No, thank you. And I know hands off. I'm just gonna leave them alone. They don't need to verbalize that, because for some people that's really traumatizing to verbalize that they don't want to be touched or traumatizing. To say, I really need to be touched today. Please adjust my feet. I could use a foot massage
Jenn Carson: and so, having that option in a quiet way is really helpful for people thinking. Like I said earlier about how you can do digital or in person versions to make things more accessible for people, and also to broaden the scope of who you can reach. Think about your logistics like, where are you going to do this?
Jenn Carson: Think broadly. It doesn't have to be in the 4 walls of your library. When are you going to do it? Like? I said, earlier people work, shift work. Some people work during the day, and they can't come to a day program. But maybe if you're targeting like a retired demographic
Jenn Carson: Thursday afternoons is a great time for them to come. You know, think about who your target demographic is, and if they can easily and accessively get to that location. And so that's maybe when you want to do it online or in a place that's easy to reach. Or, you know, like, if you're teaching a gentle Yoga program for seniors, maybe don't put it in the upstairs in your of your building. Put it at a room that's really close to the door, so they don't have to walk so far to get there
Jenn Carson: just thinking mindfully about the logistics of what we're doing, and then that ties into accessibility. 10 as many people as possible attend this program.
Jenn Carson: And if not? Is there modifications that can be made for people that say.
Jenn Carson: have dementia, or have a physical disability or cognitive disability? Because they too are adults? And can they participate in this? Maybe with a helper, or maybe with some modifications? Maybe they might not have the manual dexterity to make this claim.
Jenn Carson: Dog that you're doing. But can they make a claymation dog that looks more like a blob? And that's okay. Like, does it have to look like the dog you're making? Probably not. So think about ways that you can
Jenn Carson: open your understanding of how your program can be delivered, so that as many people as possible can find it accessible. And again I talk about that a lot in the book. I don't have time to flesh it out here. I'd like to do an entire presentation just on accessibility, because it's super important.
Jenn Carson: having things out like in outreach and off site. So you can reach users that maybe can't get to the library during your opening hours. Or can't get there for physical barriers. Maybe it's hard to get to your library.
Jenn Carson: Maybe transportation issues are pro problem of person. Cost issues things like that. Make sure. Staff and and volunteers have training training on all of these subjects. Like being aware of, say, cultural appropriation, you know. Like, are you making a craft of, say.
Jenn Carson: a dream catcher? Well, a dream catcher is something that's made very specifically by certain members of certain nations that are in North America, but not all. First nations. Communities use dream catchers and making them as a craft. When you're you yourself do not belong to that first nation. Might not be appropriate. And so, having staff training on what is, or isn't cultural appropriation
Jenn Carson: or where we have racial biases might be really important. Sensitivity training for dealing with people in different demographics, whether financial you know, or
Jenn Carson: like all different kinds of levels of society, and then also training on how to actually do the program. And so you know. Maybe your staff wants to teach a program about book binding, but they haven't done any book binding for 10 years, and maybe they want to take a free little refresher course or watch it. Class on Youtube. Give them time to do that, and then don't forget to evaluate your program like, you know, ask for feedback
Jenn Carson: and don't be afraid to update your program and try again. If maybe all the feedback wasn't positive. and then I'll come back to the beginning of like intergenerational programs for the win. So you know, think about intergenerational not just being kids
Jenn Carson: and adults, but intergenerational in the sense of like generations working together. So I'll go through 3 terms here. Scaffolding, which is when we benefit from sharing with people who are younger or less skilled than us, and also learning from those who are older or more skilled than us, and those words are not always interchangeable. Right? And then proximal development is when we have to play and collaborate with someone with a higher skill level in order to participate.
Jenn Carson: So people that come to our ukulele group
Jenn Carson: might not have any ukulele skills the first day that they show up. But everybody else is doing awesome. And so they gotta struggle to keep up, and eventually they level up and get there, because if they want to play, they've gotta try and so, having that working that dynamic of working with like somebody who's better at something than you is so important. And then also that beginners high that you get when you're with a bunch of other beginners, and you're all like slogging through something together and failing at it.
Jenn Carson: That's really fun. And then you have that collective story and that memory of the remember that time we all tried mountain biking, and we sucked at it. That was so funny. And so having that interaction with other people, makes you makes you have fun right. And that's what we want people to do. Come to library and have fun and maybe learn something.
Jenn Carson: So thank you so much for listening. We had to cram a lot into an hour. So I see that there's 21 questions in the QA. Hopefully, I've answered some of those. But I'm going to get Julie to fire out a couple at me and see if I can help with anything.
Julie Edwards: Yes, and
Jenn Carson: hey, no problem. And there's like there's some of my books. So if you want to read more, you can hopefully. Your library has copies
Julie Edwards: mit Ctl. And thank you, Jen, thanks so much for this presentation. Yes, we have a lot of questions before we dive into them. I just want to clarify. Since I've seen this question quite a bit in the chat. Today I am sending out the Chat Transcript. It will be posted on the blog along with the recording and the Audio Transcript and Jen's slides. So you'll have all access to all of this information in just a few days as soon as we get it ready. So
Julie Edwards: look in your email, look on our blog niche academy.com slash, blog. All of this will be out there. I'm gonna start with the question that I've seen several people ask, which is that you mentioned a site for library grants, and people would like to know what that is.
Jenn Carson: Grant, connect
Jenn Carson: GRAN. T. Connect grant connect. It's a software that filters
Jenn Carson: based on the criteria you place in for what your grant is. So let's say you're doing a wellness program, and you need to find funding to pay for a Yoga teacher and some Yoga mats. So you can enter all that stuff in there, and it will find grants that fit that criteria based on your organization and what you're seeking funding for. And it'll spit those options back out to you. And if you don't know how to use it yourself, I bet you can find a librarian who knows how to use it, and they can help you.
Julie Edwards: Great. Thank you. Someone's asking, what are your recommendations for finding people? If you're a new librarian in an area, how do you connect with people who might be able to offer programs in your library.
Jenn Carson: I'm going to totally age myself here. But Facebook, because I'm a middle aged woman. But seriously, go on Facebook and find
Jenn Carson: interest groups and join them. So, like my partner, we were desperately needing some new chickens, because there may have been a mishap with a chicken at home, and we needed a replacement chicken. So one of the children did not notice their chicken had died, and so he just joined like a local chicken enthusiast Facebook group and was completely inundated with chicken-related interests and things on Facebook. And he had to get out of there because it was
crazy and so find groups on Facebook that are interested in the thing that you might want to teach
Jenn Carson: like. So join your local Yoga enthusiast group. If you want to teach a yoga class and find a yoga teacher join your local. I don't know. Mushroom Hunters group. You will find people who are super obsessed with mushrooms and mycology, and they will come in and they will talk incessantly about these topics. And so
Jenn Carson: I love Facebook groups for stuff like that, because you will find niche audiences. You can also find it like on Reddit and other places like that. But I just find Facebook is often local, like you can look up your town and the name of whatever it is you're looking for, and you can find a group on that.
Julie Edwards: So that actually leads into another question, which is, when you're approaching someone? Do you ask them to volunteer their time, or do you offer to pay them?
Jenn Carson: Do I have money. If I have money, I always offer to pay them if I don't have money. I say I'm sorry
Jenn Carson: I don't have any money. We are a nonprofit, and we so value your time, and I wish I could somehow pay you.
Jenn Carson: But could I interest you in doing this? And you can talk about your business, or you could gain a lot of experience like. For example, I'll use yoga because it's something I know a lot about yoga teachers in order to get so many hours. So if they're doing a 300 h program or 200 h, 500 h program, they have to have so many free teaching hours, and they have to. It's called Karma classes, and they have to go out and teach in their community for free
Jenn Carson: and record it and share it with their teacher in order to get their certification. So there's all kinds of Yoga teachers in your community looking to teach for free, and they don't necessarily know where, because Yoga studios might not always want them to teach for free, because they need to make money because they're business, but you don't need to make money, cause you're not a business. You're a nonprofit, and so they would love to have a free place to teach Yoga. So there's all kinds of people out there that are looking to
share their knowledge, and they might not want to get paid for it. And sometimes they're even sort of insulted when you say you'll pay them. They're just like
Jenn Carson: for free. You guys are awesome. So having a good relationship with people
Jenn Carson: and making sure that they know that they're valuable, and you're not taking advantage of them. You're not asking them to sign up
Jenn Carson: to teach forever, you know. It's just one class for an hour, though that will happen in time.
Jenn Carson: I have a woman who teaches ballroom dancing classes at our library, and she's been doing it for 8 years, and she loves it, and I know pay her anything. But at the end of the program, each time I buy her a big bouquet of flowers, and it might have cost me 30 bucks or 40 bucks, or whatever I take it, out of the petty cash, and she's so happy with that big, beautiful bouquet flowers. And we get a nice photo OP for Facebook, and you know, she feels like thought like that. We're being thoughtful, and she's appreciated.
Jenn Carson: and I didn't spend that much money, and I didn't pay her like an employee cause. Sometimes there's issues with that but you know, she feels like like, Oh, yeah, that was, that's nice, right? And and I feel nice that I can do that for her. So there's other ways besides just giving people cold, hard cash to make them feel appreciated.
Julie Edwards: I love it. And with that we are right at the top of the hour. Jen, thank you so much. You're getting a lot of cheers in the chat. People have come away with so many great ideas. Thank you all for sharing your ideas with each other. Jen. Thank you again for your time and expertise here.
Jenn Carson: You're so very welcome.
Julie Edwards: and thank all of you for attending. I will send out the slides, the recording, the Chat Transcript and the audio Transcript. All of that will be available on our blog. And you'll get an email from me when that is published, and I hope that we see you at our next webinars. Until then have a great week
Julie Edwards: bye. Everybody.