Office of theVP Student Affairs

  • Pronghorn Cheering Challenge
  • 2 Years Eve
  • CAUS
  • PSVAC
  • Sexy Week
  • Dirty Bingo
  • Implications for the U of L of the Legalization of recreational Cannabis use

Pronghorn Cheering Challenge

The Pronghorn Cheering Challenge was a big success. We got about 14 Clubs to come out and cheer. According to Victor Lyilade Jr, it was the loudest crowd he had seen at a Pronghorn Basketball game. We had 75 pizza's from Aramarkfor all the clubs and free admission. The clubs loved it, especially since it was a really exciting game! I recommend that we make this a regular event every first month of a new semester. The sorority Kappa Beta Gamma won the Cheering Challenge and won gift cards for Coulee Brew.

A couple things could have been improved upon. First, the communication with all the clubs, have a bigger advertisement budget to promote the event. Second, the communication with the Pronghorn staff to make the entrance at the door easier for the clubs. Third, order less pizza. we had a little bit too much pizza. At the end we started to give away a full pizza to club members, which is definitely not the goal.

Other than that, It was an amazing event and I would love to see this happen again!

2 Years Eve Cab

This was our first time we did the 2 Years Eve Cabaret, a Great Gatsby themed party. There were multiple stages and aspects involved in this cabaret:

  • Initial planning phase
  • Marketing
  • Decorating
  • The event

There is a lot we learned from this event and things we can improve upon, which is reported below.

Initial planning phase

There was a lot of pressure to do well with this event, since this was going to be an event that has never been done before and therefore it needed to be done well. The thought behind 2 Years Eve Cab is that New Year’s Eve has happened, but we as students were not together to celebrate it. Therefore we will throw an event where we can celebrate the New Years Eve again, hence 2 Years Eve. We decided on a Great Gatsby theme since it is unique, well known, and beautiful party style with class. However, since we had never done this before we decided to use an external company, called X-infused, to give us the essential party decoration to create the best atmosphere.

X-infused gave us a quote of about $4,500 + flights. Although it is a lot of money, we decided to go for it since we wanted make this big. However, after emailing back and forward with X-infused, the total became a lot higher. Unfortunately they did not include tax and they brought two people from Toronto to Lethbridge, which totaled the price to $6,600. Since we had already passed the budget for them to come over here, we had decided to still go for it.

Marketing

To market the event we had multiple strategies. We let all the clubs know multiple times about the event. We created a Facebook event page and spent $70 towards boosting it. In addition, we used a Snapchat filter and Instagram posts. We reached about 8,000 students by using social media. To make sure that students would actually read the posters we decorated the SU-Building. We wrapped the concrete pillars in black wrapping paper and put the posters on them and gold ribbons and garlands around the poster. Since everyone loves Coffee-Co, we paid for a $100 gift card to pay for the students coffee and promote the event. And lastly we had a street team to go around and hand out flyers to students about the event.

Decoration

In my opinion the decoration was the most important part of making the event look amazing. Therefore I created decoration team leaders. This way I knew I had some consistent volunteers to help me out and also have their ideas and input. Together we planned for the decoration pieces and did all the decoration shopping. We filled up the ceiling with black, white, and gold balloons. It looked absolutely stunning at the end. X-infused added some light pillars and the backdrop for taking pictures. In the Zoo area we had some small decoration pieces and we covered the tables with black table cloths to make it extra fancy. It took about 3 to 4 hours to get blow up the balloons and hang them on the ceiling, although it looked really nice, with the amount of volunteers we had, it took a lot of time and effort. For next time, I recommend trying to get more volunteers to blow up balloons.

The Event

Then the night of. This was the moment of truth. After a month of planning and hours of blowing balloons, this was the time to enjoy the party. However, with all the effort we put in we unfortunately did not get the turnout we wanted. We had about 100 to 150 people show up. Although the spring events have never been very well attended, it was rather disappointing to see such a low turnout. But for the people that did show up, it was a beautiful and enjoyable night. We had appetizers to bring around, great music and good company.

I have learned that you always have to asked for the triple bottom line when getting a quote from a company. In addition, events are always more work than you think. Therefore, volunteers are essential and having a strong volunteer core is needed.Also, don’t have your expectations to high for events in the spring semester event. However, that doesn't mean we should not do our best to promote it. I wish I started promoting the event a little bit earlier, this could have resulted in a little bit more hype. These are all the things I have learned and I hope the next VP-Student Affairs will be able to build on that. I definitely recommend trying this event again next year.

CAUS Counterparts

CAUS counterparts happened from January 29th till January 30th to communicate with the other VP-students Affairs in the province. It was great to be in contact with them again, but I realize that my role as VP-Student Affairs is slightly different the other VP-SA's. However, we had a great discussion about helping survivors from sexual assault. I think prevent sexual assault and harassment is definitely an area we have to invest some more time in at the Student Union.

Where we also have to invest more time in is our mental health. It has become easier to deteriorate our mental health. I notice it personally that with the current technology we find less time to give our mind a break from everything. We are constantly looking for a quick impulse in this current society. I have noticed that I have to give myself better breaks and invest less time on social media or watching video's. This was what I had concluded from our mental health workshop session. Although this is something all students should be more aware off, I have noticed I have to start with myself. This is my main take away from our CAUS counterparts trip.

PSVAC

Whitney Balog, the Preventing Sexual Violence coordinator and educator, has been on Sexual Violence and Safe Space Policy for the University. They have been making some great progress. Once it's done it will be a document that we can reference to create our own policy in that regards.

Sexy Week

I also met with Whitney about Sexy week. I asked her to do the Sexy Talk and she is totally down to do it. She will be talking about consent and having safe sex. It falls perfectly in line with the event after, which is the date auction organized by the fraternity.

In addition, I had a quick meeting with Tasha to get speeding dating organized, which is happening on February 7th.

Dirty Bingo

I hosted my first Dirty Bingo with Riley Miller. I look forward to our next Dirty Bingo, which is coming up February 9th. Although this is not very significant in the grant scheme of things, it was significant to me personally because it went really well in my opinion.

Implications for the U of L of the Legalization of recreational Cannabis use

On January 15th myself and the University admin had a consultation/workshop with the with some experts on cannabis and its impact on society when legalized. I was informed with the difficulties that institutions will have to face when making policies in regards to the legalization of recreational marijuana. It is extremely hard to measure how much THC a person has taken in or is influenced by. Which will be a challenge to enforce any policy around the use of cannabis. It was mentioned that it is important to enforce the fit to work and learn policy. There is currently no knowledge on what the threshold is and what amount of THC will be recognized as impairment. There still needs to be a lot of research done to make proper policies, which will be the biggest struggle for the U of L.
Meetings for December

  • GA Meeting
  • Club Council
  • 3x EC
  • GLC
  • 2x PSVAC
  • AVP Leadership Meeting
  • Student Awards Committee Meeting
  • Implications for the U of L of the Legalization of recreational Cannabis use
  • Bio Club
  • 2 Years Eve Team meetings
  • Sexy Week (Tasha)
  • Sexy Week (Whitney Balog)
  • Spidey Meeting (Stephanie Croft)

Thank you for reading my report. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Cheers,

Daan Smit

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