VICTORIA HARKES
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Event Management

I have cultivated an extensive skill set in event management, right from idea generation, to planning, procuring, sponsorship, marketing, and execution, through to post-event evaluation.  I have dealt with a wide range of events, varying in size, audience, and intention. Here is a sample of the events I have helped to make a reality.

Dream, Girl

Dream, Girl is an inspiring film about female entrepreneurs by Oprah SuperSoul100 winners Komal Minhas and Erin Bagwell. I had the fortune to connect with Komal for a different project and brought forward to my team the idea of having a screening of her film and the event launched from there.

We completed two very successful screenings of the documentary, one at the University of Waterloo and one at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Theatre in Toronto. Students, Staff, Faculty, Alumni, and friends of the university were invited to attend the screenings which were followed by a Q&A with Komal, and ended the evening with a reception.  
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Summer Streetfest

Over 30,000 people attend Summer Streetfest each year, with more than 30 musical acts, 175 vendors and artisans, numerous activities, and local shopping sales available to attendees.  I worked to manage bookings of all of these, as well as the day to day administrative tasks for this event, including copywriting, advertising, bookkeeping, making travel arrangements, and ensuring all vendors adhered to health and safety regulations.

The festival ran for the full four days and was attended by many individuals and families from across the region. There was a wide range of activities and entertainers over the course of the festival, including musicians, inflatables, fire eaters and jugglers, a petting zoo, a car show, a bikes and blues evening, and many wonderful vendors for shopping and food. 
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Jack Rosen Pitch Competition

Students from the Faculty of Environment are invited every year to pitch their innovative ideas for a product, process, program or service to prevent, mitigate or solve an environmental problem. My work for this event focused on the marketing and advertisement, as well as on-site aid.

Many individuals and teams pitched their innovative ideas during the 2016 competition, while hearing from several local entrepreneurs on ways to grow and improve moving forward. 
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International Celebrations Week

Every year the Federation of Students (Feds) shows appreciation for multiculturalism and diversity with International Celebrations Week. As the coordinator of the Diversity Education Team responsible for the planning and execution of the weeks events, I led my team in generating ideas, acquiring materials, booking space and rooms for the events, and seeing the events to their successful conclusions. 

International Celebrations Week brought together many cultural clubs and groups on campus to showcase their histories and traditions, from dances to foods. We also reached out to individuals from around the world to get photos from their homes and from their travels and displayed them throughout the week. The week of events ended with the Feds International Film Festival, for which I was directly responsible for the entirety of the event, acquiring appropriate films and television shows and showcasing them an appropriate venue.
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Mingling with Mocktails

Inviting students to meet together and find enjoyment without the use of alcohol. Mingling with Mocktails was put on by two of the teams that I managed at the University of Waterloo Health Services. I helped the teams to book their venue, acquire supplies, correctly complete and submit their food vendor forms, and advertise.  

The two teams, consisting of Undergraduate and Graduate students volunteering at Health Services, ran the event quite successfully, seeing numerous students attend and enjoy both their refreshments and games.
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Leadership Breakfast Series

Tasked with creating an event where students had the opportunity to learn from alumni, I was directly responsible for the inaugural Leadership Breakfast Series event.  This responsibility included choosing the theme, reaching out to, interviewing, and choosing alumni as mentors, booking venue and food, setting up registration and post-event evaluation sites, advertising, and the on-site execution of the event itself. 

The inaugural event saw approximately 40 students meeting with 10 alumni mentors from many different walks of life discussing, over a delicious breakfast, the theme of the event- Failing Successfully. 
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RAKK Origami: Krafty Kindness

After founding the Random Acts of Kindness Krew club on campus, one of our first events was Origami: Krafty Kindness. In my role as founder and president, I acquired supplies for the event and created the marketing campaign. 

As the purpose of the club was to do kind acts across campus and in the city, this event focussed on providing a fun activity for students and any other passers-by to complete- origami. Origami: Krafty Kindness saw over 200 individuals stop by to hear a kind word or take part in making origami.
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