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Emergency Preparedness webinars from the Performing Arts Readiness project

From the Performing Arts Readiness project –

The Performing Arts Readiness (PAR) project is offering the free emergency preparedness webinars listed below that are tailored to the needs of performing arts organizations during Sept.-Dec. The better prepared an organization is, the more quickly and effectively it can respond to emergencies and crises, re-open for performances and programs, and return to normal operations.

Also, the dPlan|ArtsReady online emergency preparedness and response tool for the arts and cultural heritage sectors guides users through risk assessments and preparedness actions and produces elements for your disaster plan. The dPlan|ArtsReady online tool can be found at: https://www.dplan.org/.

Webinars:
Disaster Response for Performing Arts Organizations: October 3, 2023.
Description: Emergency response can be a daunting prospect for performing arts organizations. This webinar will lay out the basic tenets of responding to an emergency including support organizations, working with vendors, and helpful resources for organization and planning. There will also be a brief introduction to the Incident Command System so that performing arts centers can work more seamlessly with their local first responders.
Instructor: Donia Conn

Fire Safety and Preparedness for Performing Arts Organizations: October 10, 2023.
Description: This webinar will provide fire safety considerations and introduce best practices from the fire protection industry, which offers a road map to achieve fire safety benchmarks. Participants will learn how the Life Safety Code and the Code for Protection of Cultural Resource Properties can help you protect your patrons, staff, and facility.
Instructor: Chris Soliz

Networking for Disaster Management in the Performing Arts: October 11, 2023
Description: This  2-hour webinar will demonstrate how working with multiple organizations in a network for disaster management can be accomplished. The history of networking for improved emergency preparedness in the cultural heritage, arts, and government sectors will be examined, with an exploration of existing networks. Case studies of the Pennsylvania Cultural Resilience Network and CultureAID in New York City will be presented to help guide you on how to start your own, or join an existing, cooperative disaster network. You will learn how to use the Cultural Placekeeping Guide to direct your networking efforts.
Instructors: Tom Clareson and Amy Schwartzman

Fire and Emergency Protection Plan Development: October 24, 2023
Description: Participants in this webinar will be presented with the components of a Protection Plan and the process to follow for the development of a plan following guidelines provided by the National Fire Protection Association’s Code for Protection of Cultural Resource Properties. Grounded in a vulnerability assessment, the planning process covers fire safety, security, construction considerations, prevention, special events, and recovery strategies. At the completion of this webinar, participants will have the tools needed to begin developing is a significant step towards a resilient organization.
Instructor: Chris Soliz

Crisis Communication and Reputation Management for Performing Arts Organizations: October 31, 2023
Description: A recent study found that 9 in 10 business leaders (94%) admit that the executives in their organizations need more training in core communication disciplines, such as reputation management and strategic communication. Are you prepared? This class reviews elements of strategic communication that are essential before, during and after crisis events. It examines how your organization can best prepare to respond to crisis and restore organizational reputation.
Instructor:  Kathleen Donohue Rennie

Safety and Security for the Performing Arts: November 1, 2023
Description: Safety and Security are more important now than ever and more questions will be asked of you and what plans you have in place. This class will help event organizers and venues establish the key elements for prevention and responding to incidents of any shape or size. It will provide a background of what happens when things don’t go as planned, and show that it doesn’t matter what size or type of event you have, the basic principles are the same. We will look at what you would do in certain scenarios, and how even small adjustments to your venue can keep your event safer.
Instructor: Emma Stuart

Business Continuity for Performing Arts Organizations: November 7, 2023
Description: This free webinar will equip your organization to take stock of your Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery plan to make sure that it is complete, usable, and audit-ready. Learn how to streamline the process of developing a plan so that a disaster does not become a complex recovery.
Instructor: Ellen Korpar

Cybersecurity Tips for Performing Arts Organizations: November 9, 2023
Description: We all know we should use good passwords, keep software updated, and follow other basic precautions online; however, understanding the reasons behind these rules is critical to help us convince ourselves and others that the extra work is indeed worth it. This session will cover securing your data, network, website, and computers. It will address security myths, passwords, tracking, malware, and will cover a range of tools and techniques, making this session ideal for small to mid-sized organizations.
Instructor: Blake Carver

Risk Assessment for Performing Arts Organizations: November 14, 2023
Description: Natural disasters, local emergencies, and other disruptive events can have devastating effects on all sizes of performing arts organizations. This webinar will focus on mitigating risks at institutions, to prevent disasters from happening and to reduce the impact of unavoidable disasters. The session will clarify the need for risk assessment as a part of an organization’s disaster preparedness strategy, provide basic information on risk assessment tools and practices, and address how risk assessment can benefit performing arts organizations. The instructors will also present case studies as a part of the session, so participants can learn from actual disasters in performing arts organizations.
Instructor: Tom Clareson

Protecting Your Assets: Managing Legacy Materials for Performing Arts Organizations:  Nov. 15, 2023
Description: Is your organization’s history in a basement, under water pipes, or next to the furnace and unorganized? Performing Arts Organizations often keep a variety of legacy materials, including business records, programs from performances, posters, props, and other artifacts. Using a series of case studies, this class will examine how to collect and organize both physical and digital arts-related materials so you can access these materials for future use. The class will give practical guidance that can be applied in any setting.
Instructor: Tom Clareson

Event Preparedness: Active Shooters and Hostile Activity at Your Venues: November 16, 2023
Description: In recent years we have seen an increase in hostile attacks across all sectors, including events. These attacks have come in a variety of methods. Performing Arts and Cultural Heritage organizations must be prepared for all scenarios and need to be able to react to all emergencies. This webinar will cover the types of attacks to prepare for, as well as the training you should consider for your venues and staff.
Instructor: Emma Stuart

Lessons Learned from the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival Shooting: December 7, 2023
Description: Kelly Hubbard was attending day 3 of the Route 91 Country Music Festival with her daughter and a few friends when someone opened fire on the crowd of 22,000 attendees. 58 attendees died that evening, with hundreds more severely injured, making that night the worst mass shooting to date in our Country’s history. Kelly speaks as a survivor, but also as an emergency manager on the events of that evening to help others in her profession and in the entertainment and hospitality industry to improve large event planning and mass casualty response. This session will reflect on lessons for all parties involved in large pop-up location event planning and mass casualty response. Learning outcomes will include: considerations for security and safety in pop-up venues, coordination concepts with local government partners, understanding the response and recovery process, considerations for integration of non-traditional response partners and trauma care for survivors and staff.
Instructor: Kelly Hubbard

The complete list of PAR webinars and recordings may be found here.