On Monday, May 14th, 2012 I began my internship with UWF’s Homecoming 2012 where I met and interacted with the Executive Board as well as two of the Graduate Students (GAs) and our professional staff Ben Stubbs. Prior to meeting with everyone, Ben and I had sat down a couple of times to discuss goals with marketing and advertisement that will overall enhance Homecoming’s presence to the UWF / Pensacola population. With this being said, the E-Board, GAs, Ben, and I are going to make Homecoming known throughout the residing area, and potentially beyond. Banners, cardboard cutouts of the E-Board, and social media will allow for an on-going presence to be established from May until the conclusion of Homecoming on Saturday, October 6th.
Throughout our Homecoming Summer Kick-Off that occurred yesterday (the 14th) we participated in a variety of ice-breakers, team-building activities, and strategies to make Homecoming 2012 the best Homecoming the University of West Florida has ever seen! To begin, it has been stated that the proposed Homecoming committee members meeting is to occur on Mondays at 10:00am with an allotted time of two hours, in order to address as much as we can. The first ice-breaker we participated in was: if you could give yourself an award based on a variety of components from the past Homecoming year, what would it be. If I am not mistaken, I indicated that I would have “Most likely to respond to e-mails at 5:00am”, taking into account that I am indeed a Millennial and live by my Google Calendar and E-Mail. Also, during this time, I expressed to the committee that I will be creating a weekly Homecoming spreadsheet that will explain some of the step-by-step processes that go into making Homecoming happen each-and-every-year.
The next notion of business was presented by Missy Grace, the Director of Alumni Relations, who also acts as a member of Homecoming’s Steering Committee. As of now Ms. Grace has stated that we are working on acquiring an enhanced budget for Homecoming from Dr. Bailey, UWF’s Vice President for Student Affairs. With more money, as you can imagine, allows for more opportunity to do greater things for our campus as well as the residing Pensacola area. She also expressed acquiring an updated roster of student positions around campus (RAs, Fitness Monitors, Group Fitness Instructors, etc.) so that we, as an organization, can reach out to them and explain that we could really use everyone’s buy-in to what Homecoming offers.
Marketing for Homecoming 2012 is to be expected some time in the early to middle part of June, which happens to be only two weeks from now. Our goal with marketing is to utilize social media to reach out to our Alumni and get them pumped about how UWF has progressed and will continue to progress for years to come. Additionally, despite our Homecoming game focusing around soccer, we would like for the other athletic teams to come on board and represent their university as a whole! We are also seeking out a singer for the National Anthem at the soccer game, so if you know anyone who would do an amazing job, let us know (haha)!
Some of the potential activities that we are conversing about that could occur throughout the week of Homecoming are Spirit Challenges within the different departments on campus (i.e Student Activities, Communication Arts, Science and Engineering, etc.). These may include, but are not limited to, door decoration competitions, most decked out Faculty/Staff member, etc. These events would essentially allow for those who help make UWF what it is represent that they are Argos just as much as their students.
The second ice-breaker that the Homecoming committee and I participated in is called “The Perfect…“. We were broken up into groups of four with one GA and were given the task to describe the perfect set-up, meeting, event break-down, and management. My group was assigned the task of establishing the perfect event break-down and management. We discussed such components as knowing your specific role within the organization, maintaining a sense of organization, being structured (depending on the circumstances), and how to go about approaching an event when the “big day” has arrived.
Working with the Homecoming 2012 committee is going to be a wonderful experience. I foresee great things to come throughout this summer and into the Fall 2012 semester.
The Legend Lives On!
-Wayne G.
Facebook: facebook.com/UWFHomecoming
Twitter: @UWFHomecoming
GO ARGOS
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