Today we’re excited to introduce our newly-redesigned web site for the Shippensburg Community Fair!  The new site is made for wider screens, is easier to navigate and is more “simplistic” overall.

Although we’ve worked hard and listed to your suggestions while creating the new web site, we’re not done yet.  There is still work to do in the coming weeks to complete some pages, improve some sections, and give the new web site the fit-and-finish it needs.

Here’s a quick list of pages that are not quite finished, but will be completed in the next several days and weeks:

• Fair Queen and Little Miss Pageant pages
• Event schedules, including exhibitor schedules
• Exhibitor department pages, including those for Home Products, Livestock, Dairy, and Horses
• 2008 fair exhibit results
• Many more images and design elements will be added to existing pages

In the coming weeks, we will be releasing information, schedules, premium books, entry forms, and more for the 2009.  Please continue to check back for updates posted to this blog.

As always, if you have any comments or suggestions for the new web site, please contact us and let us know!

Several officers from the Shippensburg Community Fair attended the semi-annual Zone 4 Meeting held at the Kutztown Grange Hall on Wednesday, October 29.  The zone meetings are organized by the Pennsylvania State Association of County Fairs (PSACF), which serves as the governing body for all 117 state fairs.

Members from our fair attend these meetings regularly.  The purpose of them is to collaborate and share ideas, learn about new state laws and budgetary issues, and to plan for changes in the upcoming year.  The PSACF also hosts an annual State Fair Convention held in Hershey, PA in January that features special seminars, roundtables, an open vendor floor, and state fair queen program.  The convention is a great resource that all fairs can use to improve.

Zone meetings usually begin with a wonderful, home-cooked meal and end with an association business meeting featuring committee reports, fair convention information, and special guests from the PA Department of Agriculture and other areas of interest.

A special thanks to the Kutztown Fair for hosting this meeting, and to everyone at Kutztown Grange Hall for their wonderful hospitality!

Welcome to the new Shippensburg Community Fair Blog, which we will use to post official news and announcements, as well as information and thoughts on offseason events and more!

So why the blog you may ask?  Well, creating news releases and announcements on the site wasn’t the easiest task up to this point.  We had to create a brand new page and find a way to efficiently and effectively link to that page.  Not only was this tedious for us, but visitors could not go back later and easily find this type of article once it got bumped off the homepage or wherever it was linked from.  The blog solves this problem since it allows us to organize posts into categories and also allows you, the visitor, to organize posts by date or by searching for them.

In addition, we’ve been looking for a place where we can post ideas and thoughts that aren’t really considered “press release worthy”.  For example, we’ll be posting information on how the fair operates in the off-season, meeting information, how you can contribute, etc. in the upcoming months and the blog is a great place to do this.

Although it can be difficult during the off-season, we’ll do our best to update the blog frequently with items that may be of interest.  Many people do not realize that the planning of each annual fair is a year-long process, so there are always things going on, even in the middle of winter.

As always, if you have an idea or suggestion, please drop us a line.  Whether, you see something that you like or don’t like, or if you want to see more of something, we always love to hear your feedback so we can make it even better.  Feel free to leave comments on posts as well so that your thoughts can be heard by others.

Thanks for reading!

Jamie Rhine
Asst. Secretary/Treasurer
Technology Coordinator