Homecoming Week

September 28 to October 3 is Homecoming Week!

A list of the various events happening throughout the week.

The Homecoming Coordinators, Megan Smith and Carolyn Borsch, and I have been planning this series of events since the beginning of the year. It's been a long journey, filled with piles of email, meetings with key people to collaborate with, and to-do lists. We've learned a lot throughout this experience, planning out a week long event instead of just a dance.

Here are some highlights:

HC COORDINATORS: Having two coordinators is awesome! Communication is very important to keep everyone on the same page, but it can be done. Carolyn and Megan have been working closely together to put on the series of events, and it's been great to have both of them because they both have great ideas to integrate together. Great job ladies! :)

HOMECOMING WEEK: In high school, I was accustomed to seeing Homecoming being a pretty big deal. The hype surrounding it definitely was a couple weeks, leading up to the big Homecoming football game and dance. It was your traditional Homecoming scene with the football players, marching band, cheerleaders, royalty court, parade floats, etc.

Then I came to UP, where the Homecoming tradition seemed to have died somewhere before Fall 2006.

I didn't go to Homecoming my freshman year because I had a previous family arrangement; however, I did go sophomore year. There was only a Homecoming Dance that year. What happened to the game? Where were all the festivities leading up to the event? Oh sure, there was the Alcohol Education Speaker on Monday but does that really count? Something was missing...

Last year, the Homecoming Coordinators, Jacki Kritsis and Jessica Majerus, and I worked together to change how Homecoming works. Unfortunately for us, we were unable to put together their last minute plans in time. Even so, we initiated some new traditions, such as giving away door prizes during the halftime show and at the dance. It was a great way to get students more stoked about the events.

Knowing that, Carolyn and Megan started early with the planning process. I was checking some old emails the other day, and I found out that what we had originally planned in April was exactly what we have planned this week. Plus, everything has been turning out fantastic (updates on those specific events later).

MEETINGS: So with our goal of making Homecoming bigger and better than anything current UP students have seen, we decided that we needed to get some co-sponsorships rolling. Homecoming just isn't the same without a game to attend, so we initially contacted Athletics for some collaborative efforts. When we saw them in April, things looked really hopeful. Carolyn and Megan continued to meet with them over the summer, making sure everyone was on the same page throughout this process. Soon it was a couple weeks before the event, and we scheduled another meeting to make sure we're still all together on this. As tedious as these meetings were, it was really helpful to troubleshoot before the events started.

HC COMMITTEE: Committees were also ousted before I became CPB Director, but I decided to bring them back this year in hopes that it would retain more members. So far, the Homecoming Committee has done a great job signing up and helping out with the events this week. I'm really impressed with how well it's been. I just hope that it carries over to the rest of the committees.

COMMUNICATION: Email is definitely the best way to get in contact with everyone, but my mailbox is so full of Homecoming emails, I have no idea what to do with them all. I definitely need to go back and delete some of them. Either way, it's great. I would suggest making a Gmail account though, since Gmail groups conversations together, which is easier than having a ton of emails corresponding to the same email lineage. I hear UP is switching over the Gmail one of these days, so hopefully *crosses fingers*!

Those are the key things that went into the preparation of this week. Highlights of the events coming soon! :)