Event Planning During COVID-19

TJ McDowell Author

03/04/2021 Added

28 Plays

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For departments and organizations thinking about hosting in-person events this semester, it’s important that you keep up with Directed Health Measures to help promote a safe environment and keep within university compliance. Join Assistant Vice Chancellor TJ McDowell each Wednesday at 3 p.m. for a quick update on the latest policies and to get answers to your event planning questions in the age of COVID-19. (Zoom: go.unl.edu/eventplanning)

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[00:00:00.000]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): latest information about local directed health measures UNL event expectations and guidance and other information to help you plan, safe and successful events. So we're gonna keep our usual format. I'm going to give you, share some information about
[00:00:17.130]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): the risk dial and all that information. And then at the end, I want to direct you... I'm going to pull up the website so you can see the resource that the website is. If you haven't been there, it's a great resource for anyone who's planning events. So let's go ahead and get started.
[00:00:41.730]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): So the the risk dial continues to be in yellow. It's been at yellow since February 9.
[00:00:51.570]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): The positivity rate on campus for the week ended February 27 was actually 0.74% which is slightly up from 0.68%. But still very encouraged. Folks continue to do --
[00:01:05.880]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): wear the mask and to do the social distancing and to follow the protocols and guidelines. So we're very encouraged by that. Thank you to all of you for continuing to do that.
[00:01:16.140]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Also want to remind everyone to participate in the mandatory random testing that started on February 18. I was in the group that got tested that first week.
[00:01:26.010]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): So encourage you to continue to do that.
[00:01:28.950]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Here is the most recent directed health measures that went into effect on February 12. Again a reminder, if you're planning an event that has 500 or more participants, it requires
[00:01:40.530]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department approval, and that process is you get the paperwork in and then Debbie works with
[00:01:48.390]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Mike Zeleny who was then works with the health department to get that approval, get that reviewed and approved. So that is if you're planning more than 500, we need to do two layers of approval.
[00:01:59.190]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): For occupancy for both indoor and outdoor spaces we're now operating at 75%. That's been in that place for the last month.
[00:02:08.400]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Maximum eight people per table or group. We still require for any event with 50 or more attendees you still have to go through the university approval process.
[00:02:17.670]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): And travel is not permitted, that this time, outside of Lincoln. If you want to do travel outside of Lincoln, there is a process to go through the travel exemption process.
[00:02:29.490]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): I encourage you to do that. Again reminder face covers are required for all events indoors and outdoors and advisor or university employee is required to attend all events with 50
[00:02:40.800]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): or more participants. And request with 50 or more participants, and this is really important, we really want you to get that those approved seven days prior to the event.
[00:02:50.640]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): So if you wait till the last minute, sometimes a back and forth and making sure the safety protocols in place take longer, and so we want to make sure you start planning.
[00:02:58.440]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): several days in advance. Debbie told me already we have events that have been approved for May. So, it's not too early to start a approving those things, start that process.
[00:03:10.710]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Any questions about any of that to this point.
[00:03:16.800]Regina Flowers (she/her): Yes.
[00:03:17.730]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Yes, Regina.
[00:03:19.110]Regina Flowers (she/her): Hi, um, so I work for the University Libraries and we have building partners who host events in our shared spaces.
[00:03:28.890]Regina Flowers (she/her): As the the building owner when the approval goes through for a 50+ event and that's carried out by the program or events sponsor,
[00:03:39.990]Regina Flowers (she/her): is it possible to get a copy of that approval form? Or if if it's happening in our space, but we're not sponsoring or hosting the event, how do we get looped in on that?
[00:03:54.240]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Debbie, do you know the answer to that question?
[00:03:57.030]Debbie Hendricks: No, I don't. I know that a copy of it is sent to the organization that's hosting it, and and it very explicitly tells them that they have to, you know, follow the venue guidance and their protocol. I would hope that they would share it with you, but it's not part of our regular system.
[00:04:16.950]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): So maybe we can...
[00:04:18.480]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Maybe we can add that step and ask them to share it with the hosting venue -- somehow that copy.
[00:04:25.620]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): How many how many events are happening in your space Regina? How many are we talking about that will meet that criteria?
[00:04:31.410]Regina Flowers (she/her): Oh it's mostly
[00:04:35.340]Regina Flowers (she/her): at Dinsdale Family Learning Commons on East campus. We've had let's see we've had approval for two events and another one coming up.
[00:04:45.510]Regina Flowers (she/her): And so i've just done it, you know, working with them saying "Oh, is there going to be more than 50, you have to get approval" and then putting our reservations in as tentative until that comes through. So, i've just been hearing, yes, we got approval.
[00:04:59.460]Regina Flowers (she/her): Okay okay.
[00:05:01.170]Carrie Jackson: Ryan, I don't wanna,
[00:05:02.070]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): I don't wanna put you on the spot. Ryan or Carrie, but how does it work with the city unions?
[00:05:07.470]Carrie Jackson: So we require them to send us a copy of their approval and then we attach it to the reservation. And so that's what we've been doing. So if we don't get it, then they can't have the reservation.
[00:05:21.090]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): So Carrie for Regina, is there a step that she needs to do to make that happen?
[00:05:26.190]Carrie Jackson: We just talk to them when making the reservation with them. And then we do, send a reminder. So if we haven't received it when that's seven days out, you know follow actually it's usually a little bit earlier than that, we follow up with them and remind them that we need to get that form.
[00:05:42.480]Regina Flowers (she/her): Not a problem. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing a step in the process. Thank you.
[00:05:48.810]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Good. Good question.
[00:05:51.210]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Any other questions?
[00:05:55.020]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): OK, i'm gonna share my screen again showing you.
[00:06:03.630]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): So here is the
[00:06:07.350]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): website with all the event guidance and it.
[00:06:11.940]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Has the video.
[00:06:14.010]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Usually, the most recent one, the most recent one hasn't been updated yet, but that's there so and this website is generally going to be updated.
[00:06:21.870]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): With the most current information, so you can always come to this site, and you can get all the information and share today, plus more information from this website. So the most recorded, the most recent webinar, you can also see the directed health measures spelled out there again.
[00:06:38.880]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): I think here we have a definition of event which I think is helpful for some groups that and it specifies it's both on campus and off campus.
[00:06:48.540]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): And that it's for university programs and associated entities, i.e. as in ourselves and other groups like that there's some general guidance
[00:06:59.910]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): that reinforces the other expectations. It also here provides a link to the travel exemption request. So for group that is wanting to do travel that needs to get be approved that request is right here.
[00:07:13.020]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): It also again the risk assessment approval process all those documents are here linked to. Also some key people who might be of assistance to you as you're working on planning an event.
[00:07:27.510]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): And then there's event planning expectations are really three areas that I want to call your attention to:
[00:07:33.060]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): The first is safety measures for all events, and then you see expectations by audience and then expectations by type. As you're planning an event, you may want to view all you know, make sure you're familiar with all three sections.
[00:07:46.590]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): But it when you click on the little arrow there's a drop down that tells you what's happening, so you can scroll through scroll through this.
[00:07:54.870]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): You can see that as of right now dances are not
[00:07:59.250]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): - Just our suspended. But there's event guidance about food,
[00:08:04.620]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): guest lectures and speakers. We've added some new expectations about sports activities. You can see that here.
[00:08:12.090]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): People in activities, all that. So if you have not been to the website, I encourage you to bookmark it, so I can check it frequently but it's there and it's available for you.
[00:08:25.680]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): So any questions about any of that so far?
[00:08:33.780]Regina Flowers (she/her): I have another question.
[00:08:34.800]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Yes, please Regina.
[00:08:35.940]Regina Flowers (she/her): Um, can you talk about the difference of events with shared equipment and that shared equipment being allowed but for tabling no shared equipment allowed.
[00:08:48.870]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Yeah, let's
[00:08:49.770]Regina Flowers (she/her): go back into that.
[00:08:55.410]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): So, what it says here...
[00:09:00.510]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): And Melissa, you might help explain that on the tabling part.
[00:09:08.550]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): So, I know when we talked about shared equipment, we were
[00:09:12.030]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): talking about, in particular in sports/sports clubs.
[00:09:17.100]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): I'm gonna stop the share so I can see you and stop the share so I can see you.
[00:09:21.150]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): I know that takes me to be able to be cleaned up. You can put stuff out for people to pick up on the table,
[00:09:28.860]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): but there's like we don't want you doing things where there's like multiple people coming and I forget the example but
[00:09:34.860]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): the spin games, or any of that kind of stuff for people. Going to multiple people come and touch it. But you can provide stuff on the table that people can come and pick up.
[00:09:43.290]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): For the other events, we need to be able to clean them in between
[00:09:47.790]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): and those kinds of things.
[00:09:51.330]Melissa Griffith Phelps: Yeah, I think one thing that
[00:09:54.150]Melissa Griffith Phelps: I think we discussed when we were talking about this is typically with the tabling when you have like
[00:09:58.230]Melissa Griffith Phelps: the bucket toss or spin the game, you also get congregating from people wanting to play all at once. And so, is it, I think this spirit was kind of reducing the congregating function that just happens a lot.
[00:10:15.540]Melissa Griffith Phelps: Thank you.
[00:10:18.540]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Good question.
[00:10:22.590]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Other questions or comments before we wrap up for today.
[00:10:31.290]Regina Flowers (she/her): Gosh, sorry, everyone with all my questions.
[00:10:36.180]Regina Flowers (she/her): You know, as we approach the end of the semester and people start thinking about NSE and return to campus in the fall, is there any thoughts on when we should start thinking about that? Or is it mostly a wait and see what happens with the directed health measures?
[00:10:54.810]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Regina, I can say there's already a group that's been started to work on that starting to think about that already.
[00:11:01.830]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): And you have a we have a group that's working on some additional expectations and maybe open it up some more events, yet this spring.
[00:11:10.260]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): But I was feeling so like we got through the year and then someone said okay, now we got to start talking about the summer to fall, and I was a little deflated.
[00:11:17.160]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): I just saw, but I do these webinars until next October that's my my my one hope, I think this one could be recorded and input and this, this will be the one to be on the website so if you want to see a webinar this would be the one.
[00:11:30.180]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): But we're going to continue to do them actually until until there's no more new information to update, but I know there is a group it's working right now on summer events.
[00:11:38.910]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): You know they're talking about things like conferences and all of that stuff.
[00:11:42.690]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): We're starting to talk about what is the welcome week look like. And so yeah there are several groups working on this, so we are thinking about it, and I know that there'll be some additional guidance that comes out soon.
[00:11:54.360]Regina Flowers (she/her): Great, thank you. I'll hold tight.
[00:11:58.500]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Okay.
[00:12:00.180]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Any other questions?
[00:12:02.970]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): anything to add from any of the other folks on today?
[00:12:09.810]T.J. McDowell (he/him/his): Okay, well, thank you all for tuning in we'll see you next week, at least for one more, one more weekly webinar. So we'll see you next week, Wednesday, at three o'clock.

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Event Planning During COVID-19

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