The Florida Federation of Fairs Summer Workshop was held August 13^th  and 14th in Ft. Pierce, FL. The event was hosted by the St. Lucie County Fair in honor of Jeanne Keaton, the current President of the Florida Federation.

Twenty-four Fairs with 107 Fair folks attended the two day event which included a welcome reception and dinner on Friday night and a full day of educational sessions on Saturday.  Saturday’s workshop featured three separate workshop tracks which included:  Agro-Terrorism; Competitive Exhibits, and Fair Business Management. 

The Agro-Terrorism Workshop was focused on increasing awareness about the potential targets and the impacts of agro-terrorism.  By creating new alliances among traditional first responders and the agricultural industry, communities can begin to develop plans to prevent and mitigate acts of agro-terrorism.  The course raised awareness about the need to identify and defend against pathogens, chemical and biological contaminants, and other hazards that affect the safety of the foods we eat.  The course stressed the importance of responding to incidents of intentional contamination as well as natural disasters using the “all hazards” approach.  As many county fairs have a great opportunity to cultivate good local relationships among agricultural producers, fair officials need to be aware of the vulnerabilities that exist in our agriculture and food animal industries. 

The Competitive Exhibit Workshop featured special workshops, speakers, and brainstorming sessions on all aspects of Competitive Exhibit programs from finding judges, training judges, display ideas, etc.

The Fair  Business Workshop featured speakers on preparing your books for an annual audit, budgeting for both Fair and non-Fair; policies and procedures to comply with 990, and many others.

After a great lunch, the afternoon was spent rotating through various table topics.

The event sponsors were:  St. Lucie County Fair; Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition, First America Bank,  Don and Kim Coker, the Firefighters’ Indian River Fair, the Florida State Fair, the Florida Strawberry Festival, the Northeast Florida Fair, and the South Florida Fair.  The support of these sponsors helps make such events possible for the Federation.