Shirley recruiting Event Organizers to OC

This week, Oct. 1-5, Oconee County Parks, Recreation and Tourism Director Phil Shirley is in Louisville, Kentucky, trying to recruit event organizers to the Golden Corner of South Carolina. At the Annual TEAMS Conference, Shirley hopes to meet with people looking to bring events in order to increase tourism in the county. “Another hat that I wear with the county is kind of the chief recruiter on the sports event side and I also serve on the state board of the South Carolina Sports Alliance. Once a year, we go to a conference together where anybody and everybody who owns or runs an event will be there and it is my chance to sit across the table and say here is why you should come to Oconee County to bring your fishing tournament, 5K, half-marathon, archery event, or etc. There are 19 of us from the state of South Carolina that are going to Louisville and we have a spectacular booth that we all just bought. We have a great partnership with the South Carolina Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department. They kind of match the members dues every year and help us create a pot where we can have some marketing money. So, we bought a brand new booth that has been shipped up there and we will end up having about 60 one-on-one interviews with different folks who have different events.” Shirley anticipates that several future events in the county will come from this conference.