Involving the Involved

Greetings again!
Well, this has been a rather exciting and busy week. Even though myself and the other managers only had class Wednesday through Friday, it was still a big week for the Zone. My main task currently has been getting the word out about hosting events at the Zone.

So to do this, I took a ton of fliers and went to the Involvement Fair. Now, if you're not from Rutgers, you don't know our involvement fair. It is a pretty intense experience. We use a large, outdoor space and put up tables for (nearly) all 300 groups at Rutgers. There are thousands of people walking through thin aisles and it's all a very warm experience. Warm as in heat, not warm as in fuzzy feeling.

It was a daunting task to ensure that each group at the fair had at least one flier to take to their next meeting. This became especially evident when I added a one-minute speech to the flier process. It was really amazing to see just how many groups there are at Rutgers. This was my first Involvment Fair, as I missed the one last year. I couldn't believe how many people there were. I could barely move through the aisles, especially around the Greek organization area. It was quite a challenge to get to each Greek table. When I finally would get to a table, it was a fairly awkward experience to hand a flier to an organization, as the whole reason they were at the fair was to give out fliers of their own. This was a constant theme for the day. People didn't really seem to understand why I was speaking to them about somewhere they should use for a meeting on a day where they were trying to get people to attend said meetings. I'm hopeful that the organizations I spoke with understood the message I was trying to get across in all of the chaos. Unfortunately, I simply couldn't give a spoken message to all 300 organizations, so I had to simply give an officer a flier and hope that they would read it. I can't see my experience being a failure, as I counted as I went through and I believe that I hit every organization that was in attendance, save a few fraternities, who were all busy talking to possible New Members while I was passing.

I don't know much about marketing, but I do know quite a bit about campaigning. I worked on several political campaigns in high school, and even took a course my freshman year on how to be a better activist. I would say the skills I learned on flier distribution and canvassing definitely became useful during the Fair. Still, there were lessons to be learned from this experience. I learned that having a conversation with a person while handing them a flier is much more affective than just putting one on their table. I learned that people don't want to be interrupted while working on their own mission, and in that situation, it's best to just put a flier in their hand and walk away. Finally, I learned that it's easiest to hit 300ish organizations when you aren't alone. I coerced my roommate into helping me distribute fliers, so thanks to him for his help.

Hopefully, many organizations will utilize the information I gave them that day and take the opportunity to set-up an event at the Zone. I hope to be fully booked by the time November rolls around.

Until next time,
Adam