Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Spotlight Showcase Number Five!
The MC's were a mixed-gender, all vocal group from Los Angeles called SONOS. They were pretty cool and I really liked how it was both male and female. They even taught us how to beat box! (BOOTS CATS BOOTS CATS!) so cool. They did great covers of a Michael Jackson song and Aladdin!
I missed Carlos Andres Gomez and Step Afrika. I didn't hear much about Carlos, but Katelyn Rapoza said Step Afrika was pretty great!
Loomis and Lust is an "old school funk and R and B..in a catchy pop tune of today"..(book says: CRAZY TALK!) haha They were pretty entertaining! It was fun driving music, and the guitarist had some pretty sweet solos. They covered that song Electric Feel by MGMT and it was really different and catchy! They had a really cool song called Boogeyman and let Naca peeps dance on stage!
One of my favorite acts of the entire NACA experience was comedian Loni Love. I absolutely LOVEEE celebrity gossip and jokes and such, and she brought a whole lot of that! She was absolutely hilarious, and you could tell she was an experienced comedian. (no wonder why she's $4,000!) She is one of the comedians of Chelsea Lately (love her too!) and made some great jokes about college, and college kids ("If you can afford an xboz you can afford to take me to Panda Express!") She made some hilarious jokes about how she's going to hell, Octomom, Jon Gosselin, Pink, and how the disrespectful political leaders are the reason why Kanye snatched the mic out of T. Swift's hand! haha so funny!
I missed David Hall the Magician, but he performed at Orientation last year. He was ok..pretty entertaining, but there were other comedians whom I thought were better!
That's it for this blog. It was a good one :)
~Meg
Third Ed Session was a fail.
Made: I Want to be the Next Bob Barker Ed Session #2
- How To:
- Decide (which tv show?)
- Watch (look for the little things)
- Alter-Rules (what works, what doesn't?)
- Clever ads
- Prize Size (Does the prize fit the task?)
- Analyze Event (what will make it look authentic?)
- Spend Smart (what do you already have?)
- Make Supplies
- Label Supplies (reuse!!)
- Creativity (Will a certain space compliment the event?)
- Budget
- Get a couple clubs together
- Off-Campus Sponsors
- Fundraising
- Trivia (are you smarter than a professor?)
- Dating (roommate)
- Throwback (nickelodeon)
- Reality
- Youtube: Merrimack Survivor
- Gift Cards
- Donated
- Campus Prizes (!!! Parking Spots/ Free Meal Plan/ Gym Membership)
- Talk to food Services
- Black Friday Bingo or trivia - Give out lots of $10-$15 gift cars
- Time of the year prizes- Airline/ hotel
- Campus Prizes: Parking spot, Meal Plan, 1st place room selection
- Have a club sponsor, do an event about that club (auto club- make model cars)
- Buy game show equipment (clickers, softwear)
- Make a big wheel- that can double as a wheel of fortune game
- Prize should match challenge
- Look at hazing policy, get appropriate signatures
- Make all food challenges voluntary
Body Language Ed Session #1
Monday, November 16, 2009
PC AIM Screen Name!
I just created the Official Program Committee AIM Screen name! The screen name is....dunnn..dunnn...dunnnn....
PCBSC!
So original, I know :) But it's easy and hopefully a lot of people will add it and learn about our events!! So excited for this great new marketing tool!
If you want to sign onto it, it is PCBSC and the password is (going to be shared at e-board!!).
We can discuss how we will manage it at Eboard!
~Meg
The Final Showcase... We'll call it #6
Onsite Selection - Okay, so I really wanted 7K to preform, but you can't always get what you want... I guess (7K still rocks, especially for taking lots of pictures with us, congratulating us on our award, andddddd for our Starbucks breakfasti (yeah, it's a word, according to me)) But Article 19 won the onsite selection, so they performed instead. They were really fun & wicked energetic, I think they were local to Hartford (?), They played all original songs and you could definitely just rock out with them without knowing the songs. They had a very Maroon-5 Sound (which I'm probably going to say about a lot of them, because I'm terrible at describing music) Also, their guitarist had the. sexiest. arms. ever. Just ask Katie ;) She'll agree. NACA Price - ?
Girl Comedian - Bernadette Pauley - Okay, so I have this thing about really not liking female comedians, regardless of how funny they are, so maybe you should YouTube this one to get a better description, if you feel like it. She started off with a creepy "cookie" joke, which, I didn't want to hear about (not the kind you eat or put in a jar, more like a sexual reference). I feel like her voice annoyed me and her jokes were mostly dumb, something about Sarah Palin, being Irish and bad TV. "All the guys want me - Ya, They also get turned on by donuts." And, Okay the Bathroom Signs were funny.. the first time, the second time, and even the 3rd time, but I swear she was the 6th comedian to make a joke about the enormous bathroom signs, and it was getting old, and her's weren't as good as everyone elses (to her (and their) credit, they didn't know everyone else was making the jokes about the bathroom signs too). NACA Price - $1000
Music - Curtis Peoples - They said it was "coffeeshoppe arena rock" and I have noooooooo idea what that means, do you? But basically, it was pop... I'd give them like a Jason Mraz meets U2 maybe? They had a guitar, drums and a bass. They did a cover of Last Dance with Mary-Jane. Check out their video "All I Want" on FB/YT, their record debuted this year, so props to them. Then they won me over with the simple question "who out there likes 80's rock?!" I rushed to the stage with Katie and Casey for some nice covers of 'Maniac' and 'Don't Stop Believing,' can't go wrong with those. NACA Price - $950
Music - Jer Coon - It was a typical 5-man-band but they sounded fun, different... very Pop-y and Upbeat Sounds like the All-American Rejects meets Maroon-5 (maybe?) Their songs play in Hollister (YT - 'Legs' to hear what they sound like). I really loved this band and I'm not sure why. Casey snagged one of their shirts, which was siiick. Idk, check them out! definitely worth the NACA Price - $900
Magician - Jay Mattioli - This guy meant business. He was on America's Got Talent, and was honestly one of those Magicians where you sit there and are like "WTF did he just do?!!?!?!?" He came out and said he "was here to Magish" which I thought was funny. Instead of doing magic tricks and telling you what he was doing, he had a finese to him, where he performed with 'BoomBoomPow' and 'Let It Rock' playing in the background, with some other songs too, which made it much more exciting to watch. He made a girl disappear, He made himself disappear, he made some girl float, and did some other trickys. 1 thing is for sure: this guy is legit... and his price shows it! NACA Price - $2,500
Music - Black Violin - They reminded me a lot of Bad News Brown (I think that was his name, he played last year, and did the same thing they do on hermonica) They played along to hip-hop songs on Violins. I'm not gonna lie, these guys were great... really great, I just don't really see this as something that would go over well with the BSC community, especially at the NACA Price of - $5,000 (w/o NACA Price they are $7,500!)
The Nighttime "Closing Night Special Event Showcase" - GrooveBoston - These guys were AWESOME. Now I'm usually not much of a dancer, but they made the environemnt so much fun (and I heard that they usually bring more props, screens and fun stuff like that when they come) . I think what really sold me on them was the fact that they played music that anyone could dance to, even the geeky white boys (ehmmmm DAYNE MY MAN, Meg and I danced with him for a bit) (see Fb for pictures of Dayne, loved him, he was awesome) instead of just playing crazy hip-hop. I feel like this would be a great end-of-the-year event, possibly for 'Here Comes The Sun' Yikes! NACA Price - $7,5000?
- Rachel
See you all tomorrow!
Education for You
Ed session numero dos was Retreat Planning & Officer Transition: A How-To Guide for Student Leaders and it was presented by 2 people from Lasell. It was really interesting because they utilized a December-December election process, whereas we do May-May. Also, their positions were elected by the student body, but then they changed the process to an application and then their "Matt Miller" reads & reviews them and decides who is selected for their EBoard. It was interesting to see the different officer transitions, but I like the way ours works! But I think I got a lot of tips and ideas on Retreat Planning, so I'm glad I went to that session. Overall, I think our retreat in February (tentatively on the 7th) will be a great success and hopefully we will be able to utilize some of the resources from this session (they are emailing out the presentation and a breakdown of their election and retreat process).
Here are the basic breakdown they gave of making sure you included everything in planning a retreat:
- Purpose (send out a pre-agenda to let them know what will be done)
- Criteria for success (what will be evaluated after retreat)
- Participants (why are they there?)
- Location (is it good lighting, seating, heat/ac, will everyone be comfortable for the amount of time spent in the room)
- Equipment (does the room have it, does it need to be brought?)
- Time Spent (running retreat, organizing retreat -> gboard votes on date)
- Facillitator (who will be speaking/running the meeting, are other organizations involved?
- Budget (how much will be spent? spent on what)
- Minutes (recording what happened just like a normal meeting to keep everyone informed even if they didn't attend)
- Theme?
- Personal Commitment (is it required?)
After the retreat they have the gboard and eboard evaluate the retreat to make sure it was successful based on the pre-retreat purpose and criteria.
Love me some ed-seshs
-Rachel
Is his name. Brista. Co. DOES YOUR BEAR GET LOW?
-Casey Winner
PS twitter isnt as fun without you guys so keep tweeting
love,
Casey
back home!
NACA was so amazing. It was worth all my CPDC craziness and all the stress that I had. We all represented Bridgewater so well & I wish we could have taken EVERYONE with us. I can't wait to be able to apply again. We all took something very special out of NACA and it was truly an amazing experience. I hope everyone realizes how well Bridgewater was represented and is proud of the things we accomplished, I know I am. NACA Northeast, I will see you again.
peace, love, & excellence in ALL that we do. =)
yours truly,
Katelyn
Sunday, November 15, 2009
NACATTACK!
Finally back at Bridgewater, although it was really sad to leave CT. Now that i have my snazzy notebook I can write about my ed sessions!
On Friday, I learned about how to utilize student media. Looks like I'll be making some stops at the Comment and WBIM! Also, some schools have made commercials about their organizations to recruit new members and to promote their events...basically I think this is the greatest idea ever and I bet we could make a super awesome commercial! (Plus we could show it at orientation in the summer and put it up on facebook..i think it's an awesome idea!!) Camille, get your video camera ready.
From some of my marketing sessions, I learned some new marketing strategies! Here are some of my favorites:
-AIM screen name
-Marketing in the bathrooms
-Cardboard cut outs around campus
-Writing with food coloring in the snow on hills
-Using our mascot to promote events (taking a ride on the buses around campus!)
-GHOSTING
-Use the popcorn machine during info tables and write upcoming events on the bags
-Put labels on coffee cups (Starbucks, Dunkin, ECC, Bear's Den, Tilly) (WE HAVE TO DO THIS..SUCH AN EASY WAY TO ADVERTISE!!)
-For Casino Night, make giant cards and dice and wear them around campus
-Use big banners
-lollipops/candy with labels
-perform SKITS in Dining Halls!! (will get people's attention!)
-Advertise with delivery services (Chessmans)
-Write on dry erase boards in classrooms! (First I have to find out if this is allowed, but it is at MCLA!)
-Painting on windows
-Use GMAIL and set up a text messaging account for free (something like pc@gmail.com, we can send out texts from it to phones for free)..and looking into this!
-***Foam board with posters on it, attack helium balloons to it to make it float in the air!! (can't wait to try this!)
-Youstream.com, a live web stream, free! can show live footage from events
Can't wait to try some of these out! :) Let me know if you guys found any other cool marketing ideas!!
Oh, and look for the pictures I will be adding to facebook soon!!
-Meg
Creepah Alert '09
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Friday the 13th at NACA.. dun dun dun...
Next, I helped Matt, Kelly, and Rachel present and Ed Session on the points. This was really fun and we had about 100 people!! It was really fun to hear people's feedback on the points system and passes etc. I was very pleased with how well the presentation went and how much everyone got into the points we gave out.
At the marketplace, Kelly and I were getting Montreal Roadtrip t-shirts and free starbursts and ping pong balls, ya know getting ideas for Jun, and Matt Miller told us to move on......
At the last showcase, I really loved the last performers, My Dear Disco. One of the band members is a world renowned Irish bagpipe player. He came in first in Ireland!! This performance blew my mind!!! They were very energetic and very very nice at the marketplace : )
School Swap: Setting up for school was very stressful , but fun. Meg became a marathoner in UGGS and we created an amazing table in just 45 minutes!! CASEY+ BRISTACO= AWESOMENESS!! Casey put on the Bristaco suit at about 10:45pm and refused to take it off until he was back in his room. He worked the room. High fiving everyone and running around with the rest of the mascots. Hopefully that will help us get in the running for that spirit stick. During the swap we quickly went around getting shirts adn swapping and getting rid of our shirts. It was craziness!!! But sooo much FUN! I can't wait to split up all of our swap goodies :)
- Okay, so here's a break down of our life here at NACA
1. I'm not really sure what day it is, Monday? Thursday? Sunday? When do we leave? When did we get here? I don't know, I just don't know anymore... NACA will do that to you.
2. Sleep... it's illusive, trust me on that one.
3. Lots of random new friends :)
SO. I went to a really rockin Ed. Sess. yesterday, it was called "From Backpack to Briefcase," I was about how to enter the job market that we are currently in, and tips for succeeding at the interview process. There were lots of good facts, I'll add them in later on account of me not having my notebook with me right now.
Today Kelly, Katelyn and I presented for Excellence In Programming. The room was fuller than I thought it would be, which was great because lots of school seemed interested in our PC and took lots of notes and asked some great questions... We presented for about 15 minutes.. hopefully it wasn't over the limit, but I really think we did a great job so let's hope for a win guys, tomorrow we'll know! Albertus Magnus College went after us, and they were great, but wow what a difference... they only have 500 students at their school! Craziness! I think UNH went after, but we had to leave for PRESENTATION #2, cause, ya, we're that good ;)
"Sustaining Your Membership" was with Kelly, Matt, Katie and myself. The room was PAAACCCCKKKEEEEDDDD! wowzas! There were people standing, advisors came too, it was really great. The best part was that we handed out points! (funny money, to make it easier) And gave out our great point-prizes. People seemed really receptive, a little skeptic, but overall I think everyone was interested in what we had to say. We played a fun "getting to know you NACA bingo," presented, group activity, and a Q&A. It was snazzyyy.
Today was also School Swap... I made an elephant and a duck.. out of construction paper and a pen and some glue. It was great, ask Katelyn Rapoza, she'll vouch for me. Also ran around like mad men gathering crazy gear, can't wait to sport it on campus. I'm willing to fight Katie for the FSC Bruins shirt... It was a battle to get it, and it will be a battle till the end.
Andddd... That's all for tonight folks, more to come tomorrow
peace&love&naca
OMG!
So I have so so so so so so so so so so much to say. where to begin...ah! yesterday morning.
We go to sleep in til about 10:30 which was nice, we went to starbucks & i got a Grande Java Chip Frappacino, delicious. Then we went to volunteer, we handed out flyers & water bottles, greeted everyone, practice playing WAH, and danced over and over again. When we went to the state orientation a girl shot me down...dialog went as follows:
Girl:What do you want to get out of NACA?
Me: To find new things to bring back to bsc.
Girl:Oh to find more environmentally friendly things
NOT what I said.
We listened to some fun people at a showcase sampler and also went to the CAMP, which is this HUGEEEEE marketplace of free stuff from all the people at NACA. we got shirts and flyers and all this fun stuff. Matt made us force volunteer and carry back Mexican for about 40 people, that was exciting, NAHT. BUT me, Meg Ryan, and Kelly got the best Caesar salad wrap, best day ever. I got to go to my first ed session about getting rid of stress in my life, ha. It was fun, we got to meditate and we were educated on how to notice someone is stress. I met this really cool band called 7K, i love them, they are BA. We went to dinner & had this funky salad, with butter that had the building's logo in it, crazy pants, the dessert was weird, but it's dessert so, I ate it, obvi. We watched a mascot spill a whole tray of water, and casey replied with "Paulie want a towel?!" bahaha, caseyyyyyy. We started a chant, Matt and Jenn ran away, I don't know why it was cool.
We got to watch Eric O'Shea who was HILARIOUS. He was the funniest guy everrrrr! he's does an elmo voice. Casey won first group into the Marketplace, best $1 Casey ever spent. One of the highlights of the day was when we were 5 rows from the stage, a man was performing and the dialog went as follows:
Meg Ryan: Is he cute close up?
Me:Meg Ryan, we are not that far away, you can see his face.
Our last stop of the day was the Organic Comedy Tour, oh jeepers.
Some of them were funny, some were bad, one older mother in particular was the QUITE awkward.
Today!
Besides getting killed by Matt Miller...the day started off quite scary.
Rachel, Kelly and I presented for the Excellence in Programming award... That was good. Our lunch was delicioussss! We had a bagged lunch with a pucumber as Meg Ryan calls it. That was delish. the cookie was goooood. We went to a Lecture Series which I will blog about at a later date since it it 2:21 in the morning. We listened to more artists included Ever so Klever who I LOVE LOVE LOVE. (oh, ps. yesterday I met CJ from the Real World. I love him.) We've almost perfected our "cheer" if that's whay you want to call it. For dinner we went to Quizno's, almost died when Matt instructed Casey to run diagonal across a very high traffic intersect but, do not fret, I am still here. After my delicious sandwich we got ready for school swap! My fellow colleagues made the BEST school swap table in 45 minutes, so fabulous. We went to a Showcase and then to a very relaxing Marketplace where I met Reed, a very, very drunk Musician, who loved cookies and also a man who sprayed things in our mouth... and swallowed sworn (also, he ate his own snots which was grosser than anything else he did.) After the Marketplace we went to get ready for school swap. BRISTACO, Bridgewater's fabulous mascot made QUITE the entrance and remained present during the whole section. I traded homecoming shirts like it was my job and felt like a car salesman. it was fun & now we have about 945325783475 t-shirts. (just an estimate) on our way back to the dorm, Matt Miller came in inches of kicking my face in after almost falling down the escalator. After successfully making our way to the room, Matt pointed out that we had lost bristaco in the crazed, overwhelming world of NACA northeast. Ut oh. I proceeded downstairs to find 23 new emails and 25 facebook messages & no time to check my cafe on cafe world, sad. day. Now I am sitting across from a boy who has been talking the whole time I've been trying to write this and now I am alone, I'm leaving. Goodnight!
Love,
Kate. (Katelyn for Matt)
Party in the N-A-C-A
Just Kidding this is the 3rd day update!
Today was amazing! I can't believe everything that happened today happened. We had so many things to do today. First Rachel, Katelyn and I presented for excellence in programming and I think it went well and it was interesting to see how other schools program ( I think we do it the best but maybe I'm biased). Second Rachel, Matt, Katie, and I presented our ed- session Sustaining Your Membership and it went really well we had a about 80-90 people I hope people got a lot out of it, they seemed really interested. Next we went to a showcase #2 and it was amazing Jason LaVasseur was the MC and he is awesome he came to campus two years ago and I loved him so I was so excited to see him again. We also had some great performers during the showcase as well, there were two big bands but one was rock and the other was more 50s (unfortunately they were missing their horn line) and were both really good. I think the next big project for BSC should be to make a stadium for concerts. There was also this one girl Vicci Martinez, this small little girl with converse sneakers and a ripped sweatshirt but had an amazing voice, I would really like to book her. There were also two comedians that were hilarious and were actually relatively cheap for a showcase event (hint hint). Next we had school swap which was insane but our table looked amazing Meg Ryan did an amazing job and Camille's CD bowls and newspaper basket and plastic bag table cloth were awesome! We got so much stuff for all of our things.
2nd Day update and 3rd day update!!
SCHOOL SWAP: DOMINATION.
My education session was about marketing, called "Marketing Magic" and I learned how to make a flyer..I really needed help with that so I'm glad I became informed on flyer making 101..(sarcasm :) ) but I DID realize that PC could use an awesome tagline! I also learned some great new marketing ideas and I was inspired to create a Program Committee Commercial! (I kind of can't wait for this!)
The Spotlights were pretty great today! I really enjoyed Jason Lavasseur, comedian Pete Lee, the band on the surface, and famale guitarist Vickie Martinez (SO GOOD!) I also loved the marketplaces today, especially the last marketplace. Kelly, Katelyn, and I all connected more with the performers and had some good laughs :) Good times.
School Swap was so intense, but I loved it! I was in the room for the entire 45 minutes and Katie, Kelly, and Camille switched in and out. I had to do wind sprints from the BSC table to the entrance to grab boxes..sprinting in my fake uggs...needless to say i was SWEATING! The table came out awesome though! I'm so proud of Bridgewater :)
Alright..that's all for tonight.
Goodnight, virtual world!
<3 Meg
Friday, November 13, 2009
Day 2 : )
I went to an Ed Session where I learned a lot of great tips about how to make our meetings more effective. I can't wait to bring these awesome new ideas back to PC and hopefully make our meetings go a little smoother and shorter.
Next we went to Showcase 1. There were a lot of great performers and the MC, Eric O' Shea, was hilarious!! Eric had a few minutes in between each performer and came right out making the audience laugh every time. He had a great way to connect with the audience. He made me laugh so hard that I had tears coming down my face!! I think we should do definitely hav ehim for Springfest and CAsey went to talk to him and found out his availability so fingers crossed :)
And then there was MC TXT!! Matt Miller was famous during this performance. We got to text whatever we wanted and they would rap about it. MAtt Miller's name flashed on the screen about 4 times and bristaco's was up there too!! I think that this was an awesome performance, but I don't know how long they could entertain people.
Next was Lovesick Radio. This musical group was really great at entertaining the crowd and getting them involved. They sang a lot of songs that the audience knew and helped us get our swag on :) They had a great energy.
ROB O' REILLY!!! This comedian was hilarious! He had me laughing so hard it hurt. He talked about Twilight and about how he knows if a girl saw him glittering, they would not think it was sexy. "Edward Cullen's chest looks like Elton John's fanny pack." I also fought people off to get the last one of his awesome t-shirts. It's a double XL, but hey it's worth it, and he signed it for me : )
Among Criminals were very nice in person, but I don't think there performance would draw a good crowd. The same for Mika Cannon.
At the marketplace, I got to race Casey on toilet seats. I beat him by almost half a lap : ) This would be a good event, but oyu need closed toed shoes, so maybe a different inflatable that PartyVision offers, such as human bowling.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
60 Seconds or less!!!!
Second Day Update!

Sitting here handing out NACA booklets, water bottles, and pamphlets, there was a ray of shining light that came in the form of a highly skilled and speedy caricaturist by the name of ADAM PETE. He drew this highly detailed sketch of Rachel and I. Is this really what I look like? Sadly, yes
Everyone is starting to file into the convention center right now. VERY EXCITING. Still sure that Quinnipiacccc-whatever University wants to have a WHAAOFFF and they thought that they could intimidate us by playing loud and fast. Scared? We ain't never scared
We will keep you update throughout the day!
Wish you were all here,
Casey
First Day at NACA! :)
Everyone else pretty much covered everything I wanted to say, except for the fact that we have to document all the money that we spend with receipts. Katelyn and I were getting ready to unload the van, and we saw one of those bellhop wheelie cart things. We were going to ask if we could use one and then realized that it might cost money if we had to tip the bellhop man. We decided that we would tip him if he could give us a receipt!! HAHAHAHA :)
ALSO,
a bunch of us were stuffed in the elevator (with PC and random people) and i was the last one in and was facing the back of the elevator. I didn't want to turn and face the right way because I would have hit a man with my bag, so I continued to face the wrong way. Matt Miller goes "You should probably face the right way.." and I told him I couldn't. HAHA :) Then i began to tell him ab0ut the psychology social experiment I read about once..and that the elevator voice lady has a very seductive voice when she says "floor." It was a great elevator ride besides the ear poppin'! I don't think the non-PCers were very amused... :)
more stories to come, of course! :)
Keep it real,
Meg :)
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Day 1!
I hope people read this. :) So today was our first day we got amazing pizza with ghetto receipts but still, delicious. We sat at the beautiful pool for about 45 minutes. Katie and Kelly are planning to go to the gym tomorrow morning...good luck to them. We stuffed fun little booklets, got glue all over our hands, & we played wah. we're having a wah off with Quinnipiac. best. day. Our hotel is beautiful, starbucks is delicious. we got free pizza for dinner & we ate A LOT of snacks. We got a noise violation & we all watched glee. We're all wicked tired and sitting in starbucks' lounge area. goodbye everyone, please comment!
Love,
Kate. =)
NACA UPDATE: First Day at NACA
We are winding down now and plan on hitting the hay soon and catching some Z's (perhaps taking advantage of the Gym on the 22nd floor and by Gym I mean hanging out in the hot tub)
We will keep you updated BSC NATION
Wish you were here y'all
-Casey