With more and more events happening on the popular Raccoon River Valley Trail, several entities in Perry are working together to develop a handbook to assist organizers.

Bob Wilson with the Perry Chamber says the goal is to help all parties benefit from such events.

“These organizers sometimes don’t have all the resources necessary to communicate their needs or get everybody on board.  So what we’re going to try to do as a community is get on the front end of that.  Compile a list of resources, expectations, timelines, deadlines, certain permits you’re going to need to have if you’re going to have alcohol or if you’re going to close a street down, and basically make a guidebook.”

Wilson says it’s not their goal to make things harder for groups who want to have events here, but rather the opposite.

“(The goal is) not to deter events, but to encourage them to be the most successful that they can essentially.  We just don’t want to have any big surprises with these big events that all of the sudden from our end, maybe something wasn’t communicated and we drop the ball.  That’s bad (public relations) on our part.”

Wilson says this project is a joint effort between the Chamber, the parks and recreation and public works departments, business leaders and city officials.  He says once the guidebook is completed they plan to share it with other organizations in the area to assist them with similar situations.