Remember to Celebrate Your Project Milestones!
Is your city embarking on water or wastewater treatment plant upgrades? Perhaps your community is welcoming a new business to town, or your water district is installing pipelines to extend service to a new area. Projects like these can be labor intensive, whether it’s developing requests for proposals, advertising for bids, coordinating with contractors, or wooing industry representatives to select your town for their next endeavor. Every project has opportunities for celebration whether it’s at the beginning, middle, or end.
Why Celebrating Matters
It can be easy to get bogged down in the work of managing major infrastructure or economic development projects. Providing updates at city or board meetings, sharing updates on your website or social media, and sending news releases to the local news outlets are proactive first steps to share the good news with your community.
Going the extra mile by planning a celebration allows your board, council, or commission members, the public, and the media to participate in a tangible way.
Creative Ways to Celebrate
There are more options to consider beyond ribbon cuttings and golden shovel events. Here are some of the ways AE2S Communications has helped our clients celebrate their successful projects:
- Virtual reality technology showing what the Fargo-Moorhead Metro Area Flood Diversion would look like when constructed. Inexpensive Google cardboard glasses allowed attendees to “see” the future project while standing on a construction site.
- Signing a pipe or a beam can be a fun way to allow people to leave their mark on an infrastructure project. At a groundbreaking for the Red River Valley Water Supply Project, attendees signed the first stick of 72” pipe before it was installed in the ground during the groundbreaking ceremony. Similarly, a beam that will be installed in a building could be signed by decision makers at an event.
- Cheers to high-quality water. The City of Climax, Minn., brought folks together to commemorate the new drinking water connection to the East Central Regional Water District. Everyone was invited to enjoy a glass of H2O at the event.
- Turning the spigot on a new water supply is an interactive way to get people involved. The Western Area Water Supply Project honored its new connection to a rural water system by inviting dignitaries to turn a spigot to allow water to flow into a reservoir.
- Starting up a treatment plant is another way the Western Area Water Supply Project celebrated a major project milestone. North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple officially started up the expanded Williston Regional Water Treatment button by pushing a button on an iPad. The people gathered could hear and see the system begin working.
- Hosting a facility tour is a great way to educate the public and interested parties about the drinking water or wastewater treatment process. Central Iowa Water Works hosted an open house with facility tours at the Water Treatment Plant in Grimes, IA. Members of the public, legislators, regulatory staff, and city representatives from Central Iowa Water Works’ members attended.
- Celebrate growth with plants. Agristo, a Belgian potato processing company, gave away newly sprouted potato plants to attendees of an event to mark construction progress at the company’s first U.S. site. The gift served as a thank you to invitees and a symbol of Agristo putting down roots in Grand Forks, N.D.
When to Celebrate
Whether you schedule an event to celebrate the beginning, end, or even the halfway point of a project, it is important to make it a priority. Commemorating success keeps your community aware of the great things that are happening and reminds them of the services you provide.
We know how to host a memorable event! If you have questions or would like assistance planning an impactful celebration, we are ready to help! Reach out to AE2S Communications.
