Hanging Flyers for Friends of Sligo Creek

Prepare the flyer

1. Work out content and design
   • Black-and-white or color
   • Make date and day very large
   • With 8-10 take-away tear-offs at the bottom, giving summary (for example, "April 20 for Sligo Creek") and phone and/or e-mail contact
   • Include contact info in the body of the flyer as well, for when all tear-offs are taken
   • Be good about including, even if in fine print, all the sponsors of the event (Council of Governments? Park and Planning? Forest Ecologist?)
   • Get it reviewed by someone with an editorial eye and approved by someone on the Board of Directors
2. Calculate quantity (see table below)
3. Make/print copies

Plan hanging-responsibility

1. Set the hang-up date--give a week's lead, including both Saturday and Sunday the week before the event
2. Recruit hang-up prepare-ers, hang-ers, and remove-ers (but unless hang-ers make great notes, they have to be removers)

Prepare hang-ups

1. Gather supplies:
   • zip-lock bags (gallon size) for outdoor flyers - bottom kept open for tear-off access
   • stapler, scissors
2. Crease the line at the top of the tear-offs to make it easier for people to tear it away from the flyer without ripping
3. Cut the lines between each of the tear-offs
4. Tear off one of the tear-offs to "prime the pump" and create visual interest
5. Put the flyer, head-first, into the bag and secure with two staples at the top

Gather supplies for posting hang-ups

1. Paper and pen for recording places flyers are hung, for later pickup
2. Twine of any kind and scissors or knife for cutting
3. Tape for affixing hang-ups to park signs (brown packing tape sticks great, doesn't come off signs very easily though) and for creating wrap-arounds for hanging on trees
4. Stapler or staple-gun for affixing to kiosks (not trees! - it hurts some people to see it, even if it doesn't hurt the trees)
5. Push-pins for affixing to bulletin boards at stores, libraries, golf clubhouse

Notes

• Posting within the park is very pleasant and convenient to do by bike-easier to reach the places on both sides of the creek, especially playgrounds. For one person working solo, this can take a couple hours (Dennis to Maple only).
• For places with nowhere to tape up or staple the hang-up - or just because it's eye-catching and fun - use a tree: cut a length of twine, tape it to the top of the hang-up, encircle the tree with the twine, tie and cut ends. Or snip off the "top" corners of the zip-lock and thread the twine through the top.
• It's important that Sligo Friends not litter-leaving out-dated flyers in the park.

Removing flyers

• Take the notes on where flyers were posted, and scissors/knife for cutting down the twine-tied ones
• Note learnings for later events, e.g., locations that were productive or unproductive

Pay-off

• For the April 20, 2002, event, about two-dozen flyers were hung, but only the Sunday afternoon before the Saturday event. From the 16 recovered flyers from within the park, there was an average tear-offs-taken rate of 3.75; two phone calls were received; no email inquiries. There was, alas, no record of how many people came to the event, nor how they heard of it. Presumably it would be most effective to have a full 8 days of flyer visibility before an event, i.e., catching the Saturday morning joggers the prior week for invitation to a Saturday afternoon event. In general in the Dennis-to-Whitehall section, there has been a good response from flyers: after all, they reach precisely the population that uses the park.

Where to put the flyers?

Number	Ideas for placement
~25	University to New Hampshire-- on park signs, trash barrels, kiosks, or trees near parking lots, playgrounds, bridges, intersections
?	New Hampshire south to confluence
1	Golf course club house
2	Grocery stores:Takoma Park Coop, Sniders
4	Libraries: Wheaton, Silver Spring, Long Branch, Takoma
1	Park headquarters (must get inside during office hours)

Other possibilities (untried, but possible):

• senior centers, community centers, boy-girls club, bus shelters, Giants/Safeways

Updates & improvements to this punchlist for Hanging Flyers: please contribute to Laura Mol (301) 681-9686 E-mail