Identify team members to take on particular roles to ensure your team has a smooth and well-coordinated Sandcastle season. It’s best to assign these roles as soon as your team registers or as early as possible, so everyone’s roles and expectations are clear. Use the suggestions below as a guide to structuring your team:
TEAM CAPTAIN (1-2 people per team)
The Team Captain role is responsible for managing overall team performance and ensures team timeline goals are being met. The Team Captain will track team progress and convey important communication. This will be the go-to person at each company to answer any questions team members might have and will hold the other team roles accountable toward meeting their objectives. We recommend assigning this role early in the season for the greatest success.
ASSISTANT CAPTAIN (1-2 people per partner company)
Assistant Captains coordinate with the Team Captain and their company to ensure team timeline goals are being met. They will convey important communications to their company and engage colleagues to support the Sandcastle Classic.
SENIOR ADVOCATES (1 person per partner company)
Partner companies have the best experience in Sandcastle when participation takes place across the entire firm, and not just among a few isolated individuals. Looping in a senior leader at each partner company is a great way to strengthen the firm’s involvement on the team, and senior leaders aren’t required to have any specific responsibilities beyond advocating for their firm’s participation. Teams are asked to identify their team’s senior advocates in the registration form. Leap will follow up with these contacts with more information on how they can support their team this year.
COTENT CREATOR (1 person)
Assign one member of your team as your social media guru! With our event becoming ever more share-able, having one team focus on photography, video, and copywriting will help your team reach its fundraising online campaign goals, and will also help you capture moments in classroom workshops, fundraising events and beach day!.We will ask each team to submit digital content at the end of each season, that we will compile into a digital portfolio to share with your supporters!
FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE LEADS (1 -2 people)
Identify 1-2 people on your team to head up the fundraising committee. These people will keep track of your team’s overall fundraising goals and strategy. They will oversee a committee of representatives from the partner companies on your team to execute different fundraising initiatives like coordinating fundraising events, soliciting donations, procuring raffle or in-kind donations, etc. Be sure to have senior level members of your partner companies supporting these committee leads; as principals, directors, and senior level advocates will have the muscle to make bigger fundraising asks.
WEB MANAGER (1 person)
This person will be responsible for managing all edits and changes to your team’s fundraising page, including adding custom images and text like a team photo and bio. Please note: Leap must be notified about any changes to your team name, your fundraising goal, or team make-up (i.e. adding or removing company or school partners) before the Web Manager makes any changes.
The Web Manager will work closely with members of the Fundraising Committee to add logos and company names of donors to your team’s fundraising page. Work with the Fundraising Committee to determine your process for collecting these logos and to ensure all donors are listed, and utilize the giving levels included at the bottom of your team’s fundraising page to determine logo placement. We suggest adding the Web Manager’s email to the bottom of your donation solicitations (get a template here) with instructions for donors detailing how to send in their logos and specs.
PARTNER SCHOOL LIAISONS
- Team member role: (1 person)
Identify one person on your team who will be responsible for communicating plans and logistics with your partner school. This person will help answer any questions from the partner school or parents, work with the school liaison to coordinate the virtual classroom visits.
- Partner School Role: (2 representatives from your partner school)
Work with your partner school to identify 2 people at the school for this role. These two school representatives are generally a classroom teacher and the school’s principal, but could also consist of a parent, PTA representative or another school administrator. These two school representatives will communicate key information to the students and parents of students participating on your team. They will also help coordinate virtual classroom visits, and help distribute and collect permission forms on behalf of your team.
GRAPHICS COORDINATOR: (1 person)
This person will be responsible for coordinating logistics around your team’s graphic elements, used for publicizing your fundraising events. This person may do the graphic design themselves, or work with the design or marketing department at their office to complete the designs. At the start of the season, this person will work with the other team leads to decide on their team’s branding elements and create an ideal timeline for when graphic materials needs to be produced, to ensure deadlines are spaced out in a manageable way.
Beach Day Roles :
DAY-OF EVENT LOGISTICS: (3 people per team)
This group of people are responsible for helping the team captain keep track of all logistics during beach day. You may want to consider breaking this into different responsibilities per person: one person for coordinating all the supplies and tools that need to get to and from the beach, one person for everything involving the students (lunches, snacks, check-in, accountability), and one person to support the overall castle design. The person leading the design process should ideally be someone involved with the students during the classroom visits, who has a sense of the design vision. These logistics leads should be on-site on beach day for the entire day, and you may opt to cycle people in and out on a schedule so someone can be present in the tent at all times to answer questions, point people in the right direction, and keep an eye on the event schedule for the day.
SET-UP LEADS: (2-3 people per company)
Responsible for providing people power around getting the team site set up on beach day. Will work with Day-of Event Logistics Leads.
BREAK DOWN LEADS: (2-3 people per company)
Responsible for providing people power around breaking down, cleaning up, and loading out the team site at the end of beach day. Will work with Day-of Event Logistics Leads and Green Monster to make sure nothing is left behind on the beach.
SANDCASTLE BUILD LEADS (3-4 people per team)
These people are present on beach day, in the sand, digging and leading the building process with the students. These leads can typically be assigned morning of beach day, during the ‘group huddle’ with everyone before building starts. These roles are especially important in the last hour of building, when the final design details are being added.
Teams generally build their castles in stages, spread out across their 20×20 site. This allows everyone to be building without being on top of each other. Divide your site into sections (either 4 equal parts, or by element of your site) and have one adult help point the students in the right direction on how to build that section, the technique involved, how it fits in with the overall vision of the design. This allows the build work to be divided, organized and focused.
WATERGUARD (2+ people per team)
Due to the riptides, we require that each team designate at least one adult member who is solely responsible for keeping your team’s kids from swimming in the ocean. Please designate at least two people on your team well ahead of time so they can rotate and take breaks during beach day. Fatigue could cause the Lifeguard to lose vigilance. Waterguards will be asked to meet at approximately 10:45AM at the Registration Tent to pick up their Waterguard vest and receive final instructions. Waterguards will receive key information and materials during this meeting that they will be responsible for relaying back to the rest of their team on the beach.
GREEN MONSTER (1 person per team)
Each team must appoint a trash and recycling monitor—aka the“Green Monster.” This person will receive a Green Monster vest and will be in charge of their team’s trash and recycling removal. A meeting will be announced over the PA system at approximately 10:30 AM. Green Monsters will be asked to come to the Registration Tent to pick up their vest and receive final instructions.
At this meeting the “Green Monster” for each team will be REQUIRED to leave a license or credit card with the Leap Staff. This personal identification will be returned at the end of the day, once your site is inspected and Leap has verified that all trash has been removed. We are subject to rules and regulations from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the SF Recreation and Parks Department, who require that all teams FILL IN holes and smooth out the beach so that it is not hazardous to the public. We will provide you with a phone # to call when your site is ready to be reviewed.
We’ll provide cardboard bins for your team to dispose of your compost, recycling and trash for your convenience. However you MUST provide compostable bags and trash bags (40 gallon size) to put inside the bins otherwise they get soggy. Please also recruit volunteers to help your Green Monster manage your site. Please use “green” containers such as biodegradable bags and cardboard boxes.
STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE & CHAPERONE (1 student with a teacher or parent chaperone)
During the day, each team will need to send a student representative to the stage to discuss their team’s sandcastle. Please select a student and an adult chaperone (teacher or parent) to be the representative. The emcees will call your team to the stage in numerical order by beach number.