Even if your sponsoring agency or institution doesn't require one, prepare an annual report with total numbers of participants and information on the year's highlights. The journal method is one way of collecting records and information as the year progresses. The journal, which is basically a scrap book, can include participation figures, copies of news releases, photographs from trips and complimentary letters from participants. At the end of the year, the annual report can be easily prepared by paging through the journal and picking out significant events. The journal, if left in a prominent place in the outdoor office, also serves as a good promotional tool.
People stopping the office invariably pick it up and page through it.
The smoky, sultry world of politics is probably the last arena in which an outdoor program director wants to get involved. But the political arena described here is not the sultry kind, nor is it kind that involves the surreptitious jockeying and power positioning that some times takes place within the bureaucracy of institutions. When you are in charge of an outdoor program, how tactful your approach often means the difference between good administrative support and poor administrative support. Or put more practically, it's the difference between a good budget and a poor budget. Artful politics involves the understanding of power structures within institutions.