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Showing posts with label Clay County. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clay County. Show all posts

Friday, May 6, 2016

Arts Education and School Time Field Trips for 2016-2017



Super Scientific Circus, October 11th
Reserve space for your group now.

The Thrasher-Horne Center’s popular School Time Series offers entertaining, educational and engaging performances for students. Through these educational programs, the Thrasher-Horne Center continues its commitment to enrich the lives of the students it serves. There are five exciting performances scheduled for the coming school year.

Super Scientific Circus, October 11th

Parsons Dance, October 14th

Choosy Suzy’s Bully Prevention Show, November 2nd

Seussical The Musical, February 1st

Steve Trash: Ecology Is Awesome, April 28th

For detailed information about each of the performances, check out the flyer.

Parsons Dance, October 14th
With the current school year winding down, many teachers are already planning field trips for the 2016-2017 school year. Group reservations for performances in the School Time Series can be made now. To qualify as a school group, reservations must be for 12 or more tickets. For every 12 paid tickets, the group will receive 1 ticket free. Payments will be due a month before the performances.
Clay County schools designated as Title One may inquire about the Thrasher-Horne Center Title One ticket subsidy, which is made available through the Roger and Gail Arrowsmith Fund and Thrasher-Horne Center season members. To learn more about this special fund Click Here.
Teachers who are planning their field trips for 2016-2017 can make sure their students will be able to take advantage of these excellent educational opportunities by calling the Thrasher-Horne Center Box Office at 904-276-6815.


Arts Education provides positive benefits to a community

"I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his/her vision wherever it takes him/her." John F. Kennedy

"Every child is an artist.” Pablo Picasso

Young children learn a lot by doing Art

"I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand." Confucius

Choosy Suzy’s Bully Prevention Show
November 2nd
School curricula in many parts of the United States have shifted toward an emphasis on reading and math and away from the arts. Some people now regard art education as a luxury. They ignore the fact that creative activities are the building blocks of child development. Education in the arts helps young children in each of the following areas.

Motor Skills: The National Institutes of Health has found that the motions involved in making art (holding a paintbrush, scribbling with a crayon, etc.) help young children to develop their fine motor skills.

Decision Making: Art education strengthens critical-thinking skills. The experience of making decisions and choices while creating art can carry over into other parts of a child’s life.

Visual Learning: Drawing, sculpting, and threading beads on a string help to develop visual-spatial skills. Those skills are becoming increasingly important.

Inventiveness: When kids create art, they develop a sense of innovation that will serve them well in their adult lives.

Arts Education

February 1st, 2017
“From dance and music to theatre and the visual arts, the arts give children a unique means of expression, capturing their passions and emotions, and allowing them to explore new ideas, subject matter, and cultures… Arts education not only enhances students' understanding of the world around them, but it also broadens their perspective on traditional academics.”
Dr. Terry Bergeson, former Superintendent of Public Instruction in Washington State

“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys of learning." Plato

According to Americans for the Arts, Art Education provides the following benefits.

  • Students who participate in the arts, both in school and after school, demonstrate improved academic performance and lower dropout rates. Despite including the arts as being one of the ten core academic subjects, the No Child Left Behind law has helped to push arts classes to the side. Schools, especially those struggling, can retain their best teachers by becoming incubators for creativity and innovation; places where students want to learn and teachers want to teach.
  • Students with an education rich in the arts have better grade point averages, score better on standardized tests in reading and math, and have lower dropout rates—findings that cut across all socioeconomic categories. The arts can "level the playing field" for youngsters from disadvantaged circumstances. 
  • Data from The College Board shows that students who take four years of arts and music classes while in high school score 98 points better on their SATs than students who took only one-half year or less.

What can students learn from the arts?

"Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life." Henry Miller

Ecology is Awesome
April 28th, 2017
Lisa Phillips, an arts and leadership educator and the author of The Artistic Edge, wrote a blog post about Ten Skills Students Can Learn from the Arts. Here’s a summary.

1. Creativity – Being able to think on your feet, approach tasks from different perspectives and think ‘outside of the box’ can help children to find fulfillment.

2. Confidence –Theater training enables children to step out of their comfort zone, make mistakes, and learn from them. That process gives children the confidence to perform in front of audiences.

3. Problem Solving –Students who participate in the arts are challenged to solve problems. This develops children’s reasoning skills.

4. Perseverance – In a competitive world where people are being asked to continually develop new skills, perseverance is essential to achieving success. Learning about the arts teaches students this important principle.

5. Focus – Research has shown that participation in the arts improves children’s abilities to concentrate and focus on other parts of their lives.

6. Nonverbal Communication – Theater and dance education teaches children the mechanics of body language. They learn how movements communicate a variety of emotions.

7. Receiving Constructive Feedback – Constructive feedback about a performance or visual art piece is part of any instruction in the arts. Children learn that feedback is part of learning.

8. Collaboration – Many arts disciplines, like theater or band, are collaborative. Through the arts, children learn to interact with others and share responsibility as they work together to accomplish a common goal.

9. Dedication – When kids complete artistic endeavors, they associate dedication with their feeling of accomplishment. They develop habits like being on time for rehearsals and performances, respecting the contributions of others, and more.

10. Accountability – When children collaborate on an artistic project, they begin to understand how their actions can affect others.

Arts in a Community

The arts provide us with a universal language, and they have the capacity to breathe life into a community. The arts can bring a community together in a way that commerce, politics, and religion cannot.

Seeing the performing arts, either in a play or in a musical or dance performance, can make an enormous difference in the life of a child or young adult. Some are inspired to pursue careers in the arts themselves. Others take an active interest in the arts which nurtures them throughout their lives.

"Art is the signature of civilization." Beverly Sills

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In this article, I’ve written about the Thrasher-Horne Center’s School Time Series of performances for the 2016-2017 school year. I’ve also written about the impact of Arts Education to a community. From teaching motor skills to young children to teaching young adults about responsibility and perseverance, Arts Education plays an important role.

Tickets for concerts and other events and others are on sale now on the Thrasher-Horne Center’s website.

The Thrasher-Horne Center is one of the nicest venues of its type in Northeast Florida. From concerts by renowned artists, to live theater, to dance, to magic and other fantastic shows, you can see it all at the Thrasher Horne-Center! 

Spread the word about one of Northeast Florida’s best kept secrets! Tell your family and friends about the Thrasher-Horne Center. People will appreciate learning about what they have been missing.

We appreciate you taking the time to visit us. If you have a comment about this article, please leave it in the comments section below.

Monday, March 14, 2016

How to Hold a Successful Off-site Meeting

Company meetings held away from the office can be very motivating. An off-site meeting can revitalize employees, build team spirit, and get the creative juices flowing. An off-site meeting is one of the best ways to generate new enthusiasm, discuss new ideas, and build a renewed commitment to organizational goals.
Getting away from the dynamics of a workplace setting can give people the opportunity to communicate in ways that they might not back at the office. Specific issues can be addressed and focused on without the interruptions that routinely come up at the home office. In addition, people can engage in team-building activities and have the kind of fun that creates a lasting sense of unity and camaraderie.
Planning is Key
An off-site meeting should be more than a bonding experience. It should be an opportunity for solving problems, generating new ideas, and helping employees grow. Planning and preparation will improve the odds that an off-site meeting will achieve the desired objectives.
Answers to a few simple questions will help you to start planning. What needs to be presented and/ or discussed and why? Is it time for presenting big picture strategy or for making concrete decisions? The answers to these questions will help you to formulate objectives. The objectives will help in the development of the agenda.
Some of the most common objectives for off-site meetings include:
  • Review past performance to consider what the team has done well and areas in which performance could be improved.
  • Discuss and debate any challenges the organization is currently facing.
  • Develop strategic plans for the future.
  • Clarify roles and responsibilities.
  • Announce major changes in an organization
  • Team-building.
Develop an agenda which covers the topic areas you need to cover. Once the agenda has been produced, it should be fairly obvious who should attend. One mistake that planners sometimes make is having people at the meeting who really don’t need to be there. Make sure the list of attendees aligns with your objectives.
Plan the day carefully. Decide whether you want the day to be a working event, a laid-back retreat, or a program combining the two. Everyone needs a break at some point. As you plan, remember that it’s good to give people some time to think about the issues being addressed at the meeting. If possible, it’s also good to build some fun into the day.
In advance of the event, create a detailed schedule of what needs to happen and when so that everything will be ready on the day of the meeting. Work backwards from your event date. Plan ahead for lead time on the production of any printed materials, shipping times for any needed deliveries, and anything else that needs to be taken care of before the meeting day.
At the appropriate time, distribute a pre-retreat agenda to inform people of the objectives for the off-site meeting. If employees need to be familiar with a book or other material before the meeting, let them know so they can be up to speed on the day of the meeting.
Meeting Space
In addition to good planning, the meeting space is a key to success for an off-site meeting. Naturally, the location should be convenient. For a day meeting, it should be away from the office, but not too far away. As you check out potential meeting places, you’ll want to make certain that you get space which meets all of your requirements for a large auditorium as well as smaller rooms for breakout sessions. Here are some additional considerations.

  • Is the area where you’ll be having meals suitable?
  • Is the kitchen space adequate for your caterer to stage meals?
  • Are there enough bathrooms and are they well maintained?
  • Is there any outdoor space where people can get out for a breath of fresh air between sessions?
  • Is there ample convenient free parking? People who attend will really appreciate that.
  • Does the location have adequate technology to meet your requirements?

The Day of the Meeting
The following suggestions are from the Harvard Business Review.
Set the ground rules. An off-site meeting should be a safe space. Participants at the meeting should be confident that they can speak freely. There should be no fear of reprisal.  Participants should feel  confident that what is said at the off-site is for the team alone, and that there won’t be repercussions back at the office due to anything that may have been said.
Gather anonymous input and suggestions. Some team members may have great ideas that may be challenging to a colleague or leader. Soliciting anonymous suggestions can give them the opportunity to present those without pointing the finger at anyone. An outside facilitator can be helpful in this regard, since he or she can be objective in addressing sensitive issues.
End the meeting well. Near the end of the meeting, ask yourself and your team whether or not you have achieved the goals of the meeting. Here are a few sample questions.

  • Have we achieved our goals during this meeting?
  • Have we found ways to improve our processes and outcomes?
  • Did we create a more effective system for communication and collaboration?
  • Were the speakers and presentations effective?

After the Meeting
Schedule the follow-up. One common complaint about off-site meetings is that there is no follow-up, or the follow-up is insufficient. Scheduling a follow-up after the initial off-site meeting can help ensure that the team stays focused on whatever issues were addressed.
Check out The Conference Center at The Thrasher-Horne Center for your next off-site meeting.
Many of Northeast Florida’s leading organizations have held their off-site meetings at the Thrasher-Horne Center. The Conference Center has 6200 square feet of meeting space that can be configured in many different ways. Meeting space at the Conference Center is available for half-days as well as full days at very reasonable rates and non-profits are eligible for a discount. There’s ample free parking and a kitchen designed for the staging of meals by catering staff. And of course, the Conference Center is fully equipped with state-of-the-art technology to meet the requirements of any organization.
The Conference Center also has several features that other facilities do not have. There are beautiful grounds where meeting participants can take a walk without feeling unsafe the way they might at a downtown hotel. The Conference Center also has art galleries where people can walk around. Many people find art very stimulating for their thinking. Finally, the Conference Center has access to the Thrasher-Horne Center Cabaret Theatre complete with adjustable table-top seating. If your event is going to feature a comedian, hypnotist, live musicians, or other performer, the Cabaret would be perfect.  
In this article, I’ve written about The Conference Center at Thrasher-Horne Center. The Conference Center has excellent meeting spaces, ample free parking, and state-of-the-art technology. There are also beautiful grounds and art galleries for attendees to enjoy.
If you have any questions or would like to arrange a personal tour, please call (904) 276-6836.
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Please share this article with your friends and colleagues. The Google Plus button and other social media sharing buttons are below.
Tickets for events at Thrasher-Horne Center are on sale now on the Thrasher-Horne Center’s website.
The Thrasher-Horne Center is one of the nicest venues of its type in Northeast Florida. From concerts by renowned artists, to live theatre, to dance, to magic and other fantastic shows, you can see it all at the Thrasher Horne-Center! 
Spread the word about one of Northeast Florida’s best kept secrets! Tell your family and friends about the Thrasher-Horne Center. People will appreciate learning about what they have been missing.
We appreciate you taking the time to visit us. If you have a comment about this article, please leave it in the comments section below.