Budget Request
Ashley and I worked together to form our Budget Request for the “People First” day of our awareness week. In order for us to achieve the mission of our event, which is to have students and faculty become aware of the “People First” language and pledge to eliminate the negative use of the word retard, or the “r-word,” we made a list of specific supplies to be purchased./
The specific supplies that we are requesting are banners, stickers and posters. The banner will be ordered from the “Spread the Word to End the Word” website and will cost us $25.00. The stickers will also be ordered from the website in a roll of 100 costing $28.00. We expect to spend about $202.00 on posters for our quotes, facts, and statistics to be posted the day of the event in the SUB. The total amount of money we requested was $255.00. We are requesting the majority of this money through AS&F and will receive the remainder through the Multicultural Club budget. We feel confident of attaining enough money to sufficiently fund our event.
Executive Report #3
These past few weeks have proved difficult with getting in touch with some of the art Figums. Hopefully the next few weeks will prove more successful.
The balloon popping/t-shirt decorating activity may be on hold for quite some time due to the weather. We’re also getting them excited about the holidays so we’re planning events that center around those. This weekend we will be carving pumpkins and hopefully doing some face painting. I have a confirmed yes from 3 students and have not heard from 2 of them for this event. I am still trying to find the most effective way of getting in touch with them.
Reflecting on our last activity at the Alligator Farm, I found that everyone got along very well. The group naturally clicks well together and I felt that with events like these, it would still be good to start of with team building activities. This weekend we will incorporate a fun team building game to tie into the pumpkin carving festivities. That way everyone will loosen up and keep getting to know the people in our group and in the other that we will be combining with again.
This weekend I will also be having them sign up for the Fig program for next sememster. If I don’t see all of my Figs signing up this weekend, then I will do my best to find them one on one to make sure that they are able to sign up.
I was able to meet with one of my Fig professors this past week and found that two of the Figs need extra attention. One is struggling with her housing situation and the other has been less than enthusiastic about her schoolwork. This led me to wonder if meeting with them one on one would also be helpful. In addition to twice a month meetings, I will attempt to meet with two focus Figums a month. Hopefully this will help me better gain their trust, and I will be demonstrating better leadership skills by showing my Figums that I am truly invested in helping them have a positive and successful experience at Adams State.
I need to do more brainstorming about how to help them have more of a desire to be involved with these events. Right now we have it planned to do an event once a month. I feel that it could be more effective to do one major event a month and then do one smaller event later on in the month. That way I don’t lose touch with them and if I can plan a set schedule for it, they would be able to better plan in advance to be at the events. Goal for this next week, make a set schedule of twice a week meetings.
Socializing the Figums has still been going well. I often see them hanging out together outside of events. But, I still need to plan an activity that will help them get to know staff members better who can help them with their educational journey here. Resources that will help them succeed. I know Daisy Valdez pretty well, and she has helped me many times figure out how I was going to afford my education when I thought there was no way. A meeting with her and the figums could be very effective. I will brainstorm ideas of how to make the meeting exciting for my students and what other points we would like to touch on during that meeting.
To be completely honest, fall break and work had a definite impact on my dedication to the Fig program these past few weeks. I am recommitting though and will strive to do better at magnifying my responsibilities as these students’ mentor. I really do love these kids and want them to have success as they keep attending this school.
Event Critique
Adams State Improv Show was a full house this past Saturday night. People were even standing along the edges of the wall in order to watch. I was among the spectators in the crowded “Experimental Box” and thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the actors perform that night. Advertisement and incorporation of relational leadership skills helped this event become a success while their lack of planning and possible lack of review of previous shows effected the measure of that success.
The show had obviously been well advertised. Through word of mouth and specific publicizing ideas, people were made aware of the upcoming Improv Performance at Adams State University. The actors had posted flyers, posted the event on the school website, and had it advertised on the billboard outside of the theater department that faces major highway 285. It was evidenced through the crowded room that the advertising was a success for them. It had also been a consistent event from at least one week prior and because the event one week prior was a success, they were able to unintentionally benefit from the free advertisement that naturally happened through word of mouth. The group may have also used other advertising methods that I wasn’t aware of, but whatever the avenue of publicity they used, it was extremely effective.
The group of performers definitely led the crowd with relational leadership skills. Why did the crowd get so involved in the show? Because the performers set the tone for it to be that way. Right off the bat the “referee” jumped into the middle of the stage full energy and enthusiasm. He spoke with confidence and recognized that if this event was going to succeed, it all depended on the performance the actors would be giving them. Whatever problems he may have been having outside of the show, there was no evidence of them once he was on stage. A true leader does not allow his or her personal problems prevent them from inspiring others. The rest of the performers, with the exception of one, all did the same thing. The one performer who was struggling, for whatever reason, became a great distraction. It was obvious that something was affecting her performance and because she wasn’t able to let it go, her lack of enthusiasm and personal conviction in regards to the event, made it difficult for the audience to likewise get excited about her performance. The other actors definitely had to “carry” her through the show. Over all though, they did a fantastic job of involving everyone there, and making a quality show through their relational leadership skills. These skills may have helped compensate for what appeared to be a lack of preparation.
Being an improve show, it’s understandable that minimal planning would be involved, but there is a necessity for at least some planning in order to keep things rolling. There were parts of the show that would hit lulls and the audience would start to detach themselves from the actors. From my observation, it seemed like the cause of this was a lack of planned events. They would occasionally switch from one improv activity to another which would keep things moving and interesting for the audience. But when there was a lull, I found myself looking at the other performers who weren’t in that skit, waiting for them to step in, or start another event, and several times it took way longer than needed for someone to pick up the ball. I talked to a couple other spectators after the show, and they agreed that something should have been planned better to fix the points in the show where the perfomers had struggled. If they had had more events planned to use throughout the show, the audience would have had a better experience. This problem could even potentially have gone back to not an effective enough review of their previous shows. It would be surprising to think that this was their first performance where a problem like this occurred. If they had been more effective in their review, they would have been able to trouble shoot this particular problem.
The show made me laugh almost the whole time and while maybe there were the few exceptions, I saw nearly the entire audience enjoying themselves as well. Effective advertisement and great demonstration of relational leadership skills helped this event be a success. My observation is that if they are able to better review their previous shows and plan for their next, they will add to the number of pleased spectators walking away from their Improv Nights.
ART FIG VISION
Incoming Art Students will complete four full years of education through Adams State College.
Executive Report #2
A few more weeks into it and my first year Art Figums are doing great! This weekend will be our biggest event yet! Homemade Sushi and free Alligator observing! J We’re very excited.
We did better these past few weeks of keeping in touch with each other. I think the Figums are more unified amongst each other and hopefully with some encouragement, they’ll feel even more confident getting involved with people outside of the art realm. Outside of meetings, we’ve been able to connect more! I was very excited when a week ago I bumped into all five of my figums chillin’ outside of the art building. When we started talking about our upcoming event, it was great to see them encouraging each other to come to it. Group goal of socializing the Figums is well under way.
I applied the relational mode of leadership that I studied in class this past week and it proved successful! I really enjoyed Aaron pointing out that the skills we’re learning in class are ones that we naturally already have, but that by identifying them, we can better develop them. Naturally I love getting people excited and pumped for a great idea, but through the specifics of the “purposeful” relational leadership skill, I was able to fine tune my ability and sell my plan to my Figums. I made sure that we all met together in person to present all the Sushi/Alligator Farm event. As I presented it, I made sure that I was enthusiastic and optimistic and explained that because we’ll be combining with another Fig group they’ll be able to meet more people AND that they’ll be getting to know better the town in which they live by going to Alligator Farm. Not to mention that some of them haven’t tried sushi yet. My enthusiasm worked! All of them are super excited for the event and I will be calling them personally to remind them about it for tomorrow.
Most pressing goal for this upcoming month: organizing a balloon popping/t-shirt decorating activity to prepare for a larger trip. I need to meet with one of my Art FIG professor’s to find resources for the balloon popping event and make sure that I have the right amount of funding for it. The event should be a blast though! We’ll be filling balloons with paint, and pinning them up on our t-shirts that will be tacked to a large board. Hopefully I can approve us launching darts at the paint balloons to make awesomely decorated t-shirts for us to wear! I want to get them involved in the Art sponsored Halloween Haunted House as well. And my last goal for the month of October is to successfully have all five Figums re-register for the program for next semester.
Meeting with my FIG Supervisor is going well. I want the meetings to be more effective in that I come prepared with all of my event ideas for the rest of the year and get all necessary paperwork filled out well ahead of time. Communication is sometimes a struggle in our meetings as well, so I’ll be looking for concepts in class that I can apply to becoming a better communicator within these meetings.
Meeting Observation
Grizzly Activity Board was the meeting I chose to observe. The meeting lasted approximately 45 minutes with both effective and less effective uses of time and implementation of specific principles for a successful team meeting.
The meeting dove immediately into the items at hand. Perhaps there was no previous meeting, but a review of minutes would have been effective to ensure that follow up was conducted from the team’s last meeting. Also, I did not see an agenda. From my observation there was no strict order of items to be reviewed within the meeting. With that, there was still structure to the meeting through the leader’s conducting of it. She relayed information effectively and efficiently.
The majority of the meeting was used in reviewing excess amounts of paperwork. The paperwork reviewed was absolutely a necessity for all team members to understand and fill out, but time would have been more efficiently spent had the team been forwarded the paperwork previous to the time of their meeting, filled it out beforehand, and done a quick review in the meeting. Had this been implemented, the bulk of the meeting could have then been spent addressing action-oriented goals.
There were few goals discussed during this meeting and few assignments/action plans addressed. Towards the end of the meeting, when it was opened up to any questions with almost no meeting time left, there was one activity item discussed, but otherwise no assignments given. There was some follow up with previous assignments, and through the presentation of the new GAB “mission” one overall goal was discussed. But, other than this, I heard no serious discussion of individual or group assignments for team members. Because there were no assignments discussed, I was not able to evaluate whether this team had already determined each team member’s individual strengths and weaknesses. The feeling was that of people being tailored to a set system, rather than a system being developed around the individuals.
The new GAB mission statement presented a policy framework for their team. This mission statement was extremely effective and an improvement from the previous year’s. The mission statement shifted from being a list of “to do’s” to being an inspirational goal of “why”. When presented, the leader asked for general feedback to ensure that the team was on the same page. No objections were presented so the mission statement was promptly posted in a location for the team to see on a regular basis. Posting this mission statement in their meeting office will help create further unity within the team.
The team was united. While participation from group members was minimal with room for improvement through asking more specific questions directed to the team or individuals, the sense of unity was apparent. Team members did not talk over one another. All were respectful when a team member was talking. There was an obvious leader designated to conduct the meeting. When a question was asked, it was done so politely and the answer was also given professionally. Again addressing participation though, my attention was drawn to one particular team member who did not seem involved at all. My impression was that the items discussed within the meeting were not applicable to her. To be more effective, this meeting should have been tailored to all team members present. In general, the meeting was more to the masses than the individual excepting the last few minutes of open questions.
The lack of participation could have been remedied by discussion of individual goals. As opposed to simply presenting a mission statement, the team could have devoted more time to further discussing how each team member would contribute to achieving and maintaining the goal discussed within the mission statement. This would allow each team member to be held personally accountable for the success of the team as a whole. Again, this may have been addressed in a previous meeting already, but even reviewing these personal goals in each meeting and measuring the team’s success in achieving them would bring further unity and determination.
The meeting was able to check off the necessities of a meeting in overviewing information, but there was lack of inspiration. I do not see any of these individuals walking away from this meeting feeling any more motivated to accomplish work for their team than when they arrived. This would be addressed by, again, applying concepts such as goals (both team and individual), group discussion, an agenda applicable to all present, and an increase in enthusiasm by the leaders to set the example for others to follow.
GAB was able to accomplish specific items within their 45 minute slot of time, but could have accomplished more through the implementation of goals, follow up, assignments, planning, team involvement and further preparation. A vision was presented, but was the vision caught and internalized to ultimately convince all of the “why” of GAB?
