Free community poster workshop for local events

Chestermere volunteer groups keep running into the same bottleneck: a good event on the calendar, and a poster that still looks like it was assembled at midnight in a word processor. This Saturday drop-in is meant for people who actually have to put something on a rec-centre bulletin board, a rink lobby, or the library window. Bring a phone photo of last year's Fall Fair booth, a blurry team picture, or just a handwritten list of times and sponsors. We will walk through a practical sequence that community groups here can repeat without hiring a designer: crop so faces and logos survive a colour printer, keep type large enough to read from a hallway, and leave a quiet margin so the rec centre's tape does not eat the date. We will also talk about what usually fails on local flyers. Dark photos of the lake at dusk go muddier on the cheap copier in the hallway. Busy backgrounds fight the event title. A QR code that looked fine on a phone screen becomes unreadable at 8.5 x 11. Those are solvable layout problems, not talent problems. If you already have a sketch, we can rebuild it as a printable sheet and a square version for the station's community board. If you do not, we will start from a plain Chestermere scene — the Recreation Centre entrance, Waterford Way Park, or the lake path — and build a poster around a real date and a real call to action. No software purchase is required. A laptop or tablet is useful; a phone is enough. The station's event listing is the public record, so please bring the exact start time, venue address, and whether the event is free. We will not sell tickets and we will not collect memberships. Coffee is BYO. People who already design for the Fall Fair, Light the Night, or school fundraisers are welcome to sit in and swap printer settings rather than sit through the basics. The useful outcome is a file you can print at Staples or on the library public printer before the weekend, not a lecture. One passing note for anyone assembling artwork from a photo: an ai image generator can fill a missing background or rebuild a washed-out team photo before you lock the type. Use it as a last layout step, not as the event itself. Please arrive a few minutes early if you need the accessible entrance on the west side of the Recreation Centre. We will pack up at 3:00 so the evening programs can set up.