Page 5 - kids ebook

Check your own skill set

Of course, I encourage all educators to pick up this book and run with it! However, if you are marketing yourself
as a bee expert, make sure this is true. Do you feel confident that you can correctly answer questions and provide
the right information? Do you keep up to date on bee issues and research through a beekeeping association or
club, industry magazines, and conferences? Consider a “Master Beekeeping” program to keep your skills sharp.
Working with a mentor, at any level, will also continue to improve your skills and knowledge base. Even if you
consider yourself an advanced beekeeper, take in a beginning class, or lecture. There is so much energy going in-
to beekeeping right now, and there are advancements made every day! There may be a new way of doing the ba-
sics that you missed a few years ago! I try and attend a basic lecture at every conference I go to, and always pick
up something new, or a new way to express a basic idea to kids!

Funding your program

To charge, or not to charge, that is the question! This is a very controversial subject in the bee education world.
One school of thought is to offer programs for free, to relive stress on school budgets. The other school of thought
is to charge for the program, to cover your time and expenses.

I am with the later school of thought. Let me count the ways:

1. Bee education is a job. Without an income source coming from another career, family money, etc., I
wouldn’t be able to pay my bills without charging! This is the case with quite a few folks in the bee
education sector. Being compensated for your time and materials is necessary to keep you in
“buzzness”.
2. People place value on something they pay for. Time and time again, I have undervalued my education-
al services and given programs and talks for free, or asked for nearly nothing in compensation. In
these scenarios, my host was more often than not disrespectful and unorganized, and the program
went poorly. Once I raised my prices*, demand for my programs increased, and my hosts were much
keener to work with me to make sure I had what I needed to make the valued program a success.
3. There is money. If you are working with a school district that doesn’t have the money to hire you
through their classroom budget, suggest that the teacher work with the PTA, they often have extra
funds. Or suggest that the kids fundraise - then they really have buy-in to your program! A little over
$2 per student for an average classroom size will raise $75!

On the flipside of the honeycomb, there are always other scenarios. Say - you are planning an event that is al-
ready fully funded and has a budget for kids education, or you are working with a grant giver that wants to help
you provide kids education for free? That’s awesome!! If you are being supported to provide no-cost education,
that is great. Just make sure the participants know that this is a special event, and it is being provided for them
from “XYZ” funder, so to please value it.

What if you have family money, or a good retirement, and don’t need the extra cash? I still suggest asking for
some kind of a fee, and then you can donate it to you favorite bee-centered nonprofit or bee lab!

*Depending on materials, time, etc. involved, I charge between $75 - $150, plus travel, per classroom for pro-
grams.

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