Week of January 22nd-26th:
This week our team met at the FYE office for the first meeting of the Spring 2018 semester! We started the meeting off with an icebreaker that gave us all a chance to share how our winter break went and also something that we are excited for in this semester. We then went on to talk about new implementations that will start to be practiced in the FYE program. Some of these implementations discussed included the use of e-portfolios, weekly blogs (personal and team), group norms, and ways to efficiently track the work that we do. One of the reasons why the use of e-portfolios and weekly blogs are significant to the success of our program is because it creates a universal manual that allows us, or students who take over our position in the future, to be able to refer to in the case of confusion or an emergency. I think the most challenging thing this week in our group was collectively trying to come up with group norms. Group norms are super important because it is tremendously important to set rules and expectations that are familiar across a team or community. These norms will be enforced and revisited later on in the semester to assure that group work goes as smoothly as possible. It was super important to go over with the team why we need to start logging our work more closely because of the reason that we never really did it, so we have no evidence or proof of all of the hard work that we did! If I could go back in time and do something different, I would go over the correct way of writing the hours for our timesheets. I would revisit this because there have been situations in the past where the student employment department have had issues with our timesheets due to too many hours with not enough breaks, or the addition the hours being wrong. Some major accomplishments made by the team this week were brainstorming the group norms. I can't stress enough exactly how tough it was to get norms out of everyone! For some reason, there wasn't much participation on an overall spectrum throughout the team. Another accomplishment was that the whole team was able to start on their websites and got a little more familiar with how the specs worked on the websites. A goal that were set that everyone was to come back next week with some norms that they think were important to the team's success. Another goal that was set was to have each team member's "about me" page on their personal websites filled out. Overall, it was a great first week back to school and with the team!
This week our team met at the FYE office for the first meeting of the Spring 2018 semester! We started the meeting off with an icebreaker that gave us all a chance to share how our winter break went and also something that we are excited for in this semester. We then went on to talk about new implementations that will start to be practiced in the FYE program. Some of these implementations discussed included the use of e-portfolios, weekly blogs (personal and team), group norms, and ways to efficiently track the work that we do. One of the reasons why the use of e-portfolios and weekly blogs are significant to the success of our program is because it creates a universal manual that allows us, or students who take over our position in the future, to be able to refer to in the case of confusion or an emergency. I think the most challenging thing this week in our group was collectively trying to come up with group norms. Group norms are super important because it is tremendously important to set rules and expectations that are familiar across a team or community. These norms will be enforced and revisited later on in the semester to assure that group work goes as smoothly as possible. It was super important to go over with the team why we need to start logging our work more closely because of the reason that we never really did it, so we have no evidence or proof of all of the hard work that we did! If I could go back in time and do something different, I would go over the correct way of writing the hours for our timesheets. I would revisit this because there have been situations in the past where the student employment department have had issues with our timesheets due to too many hours with not enough breaks, or the addition the hours being wrong. Some major accomplishments made by the team this week were brainstorming the group norms. I can't stress enough exactly how tough it was to get norms out of everyone! For some reason, there wasn't much participation on an overall spectrum throughout the team. Another accomplishment was that the whole team was able to start on their websites and got a little more familiar with how the specs worked on the websites. A goal that were set that everyone was to come back next week with some norms that they think were important to the team's success. Another goal that was set was to have each team member's "about me" page on their personal websites filled out. Overall, it was a great first week back to school and with the team!
Here is a picture of the norms that we came up with for the first week.
Week of January 29th- February 2nd:
At our team meeting this week we continued creating norms for everybody to follow. On top of that, we solidified everybody's positions and what their work would look like. Everybody decided to remain in their same role as the last semester, so we will not have to train anybody to do something new. Getting right into things, our herder and hospitality team (Erik and Kirstin) jumped right into their work. They took inventory of our current signage and plotted out what they would need to do in the upcoming weeks. The tech team (Paul and Andrew) recalibrated their scanners and walkie-talkies. The rest of the team didn't have much to do so early in the semester so they are simply sitting idly until there is something to do. Adam is unable to work on recruiting until he finds out exactly what our volunteer setup is looking like this semester and Patrick can't get started until he receives the rosters in a few weeks. His work is based off the faculty involved in the event so he will likely be helping other people for the next couple weeks.
While there may not be much work pertaining to our event yet, everybody was required to create their website and show it off to the rest of the group. Unsurprisingly, everybody's personalities really showed through their websites. No site looks remotely the same. We were a bit anxious on how everyone would create their sites, but so far it looks like a major success. Gina and Nate are excited to see how each individual's site blossoms, but that will take time. By the end of the semester, I believe every website will be a phenomenal work of art that really shows what our team is all about. Only time will tell.
Week of February 5th-9th:
As we embark on the path leading to the creation of the Chico Great Debate, our team accomplished the tasks of: Sign inventory (along with banner acquisition), walkie talkie & scanner calibration, outreach (regarding possible presenters for the CGD in the scientific field of health) and lastly article research. One major accomplishment (included in our update) was attending Chico’s Science museum’s presentation on “The Brain”. This particular presentation was instrumental to our team's mission because we are currently searching for presenters who can create open discussions in CDG as well as creating an atmosphere of open dialogue. According to our team members Paul Perez and Kirsten Joyce, the presentation went well with stories of scientific developments of the modern day and tragedies that make one second guess their next move in life. Moving on to our set goals, a set goal of the highest importance, mentioned in our team meeting, was the advancement in creation and manipulation of the master rosters (rosters that account for possible student, volunteer, and presenters attendance and participation). This particular goal is instrumental to our case because the rosters account for validation. Transitioning to the tasks that will be completed by our next meeting, our team will complete our e-portfolios and finish updating our individual Trello folders. These two tasks shape the creation of our professional image and scheduling which ultimately serve to accomplish further tasks in our respective sections of the CGD team; whether it be technology related or outreach, Trello and Weebly give us the helping hand we need.
In conclusion, life is not easy; but working as a team one can accomplish great tasks that contribute to a whole, that whole being, CGD.
At our team meeting this week we continued creating norms for everybody to follow. On top of that, we solidified everybody's positions and what their work would look like. Everybody decided to remain in their same role as the last semester, so we will not have to train anybody to do something new. Getting right into things, our herder and hospitality team (Erik and Kirstin) jumped right into their work. They took inventory of our current signage and plotted out what they would need to do in the upcoming weeks. The tech team (Paul and Andrew) recalibrated their scanners and walkie-talkies. The rest of the team didn't have much to do so early in the semester so they are simply sitting idly until there is something to do. Adam is unable to work on recruiting until he finds out exactly what our volunteer setup is looking like this semester and Patrick can't get started until he receives the rosters in a few weeks. His work is based off the faculty involved in the event so he will likely be helping other people for the next couple weeks.
While there may not be much work pertaining to our event yet, everybody was required to create their website and show it off to the rest of the group. Unsurprisingly, everybody's personalities really showed through their websites. No site looks remotely the same. We were a bit anxious on how everyone would create their sites, but so far it looks like a major success. Gina and Nate are excited to see how each individual's site blossoms, but that will take time. By the end of the semester, I believe every website will be a phenomenal work of art that really shows what our team is all about. Only time will tell.
Week of February 5th-9th:
As we embark on the path leading to the creation of the Chico Great Debate, our team accomplished the tasks of: Sign inventory (along with banner acquisition), walkie talkie & scanner calibration, outreach (regarding possible presenters for the CGD in the scientific field of health) and lastly article research. One major accomplishment (included in our update) was attending Chico’s Science museum’s presentation on “The Brain”. This particular presentation was instrumental to our team's mission because we are currently searching for presenters who can create open discussions in CDG as well as creating an atmosphere of open dialogue. According to our team members Paul Perez and Kirsten Joyce, the presentation went well with stories of scientific developments of the modern day and tragedies that make one second guess their next move in life. Moving on to our set goals, a set goal of the highest importance, mentioned in our team meeting, was the advancement in creation and manipulation of the master rosters (rosters that account for possible student, volunteer, and presenters attendance and participation). This particular goal is instrumental to our case because the rosters account for validation. Transitioning to the tasks that will be completed by our next meeting, our team will complete our e-portfolios and finish updating our individual Trello folders. These two tasks shape the creation of our professional image and scheduling which ultimately serve to accomplish further tasks in our respective sections of the CGD team; whether it be technology related or outreach, Trello and Weebly give us the helping hand we need.
In conclusion, life is not easy; but working as a team one can accomplish great tasks that contribute to a whole, that whole being, CGD.
My life through the lens as I work on this week's e-portfolio update.
Week of February 12th-16th:
The Great Debate Team had a productive fourth week of the semester! We were very happy to have University 202 students sit in and observe how our meetings work here at FYE. University 202 is essentially a training program for future U-course mentors, which work in another branch of our program. Unfortunately, one of our leads was unable to attend due to illness, but she made sure to call in and listen to everyone’s updates as well as provide us with some announcements. We started off with some introductions and icebreakers to get the University 202 students feeling more comfortable before moving on to the subjects of our meeting. As most of last week’s work is still being carried out, we focused a large portion of time on revisiting our group norms. In a shorty activity, we critiqued ourselves on how we feel we have followed our team’s norms and then added a few more, such as responding to work emails within 24 hours of receiving them. Our recruiter, Adam, also made a great point about asking for help whenever you need it, as sometimes we forget that we are essentially one team and our bond as a group is super important to our success. We decided that everyone should be on the lookout for possible volunteers for our event, since we agreed it would be better to get this done early rather than waiting until the last minute. We also shared and updated some of our articles on different aspects of the human brain, including trauma and addiction. In order to keep our website updated as efficiently as possible, we divided up some roles to determine who would be in charge of which features on our team website. Finally, we all attended our all-staff meeting on Friday to talk about theory and the assigned readings we went over in our wolfpack groups. Lately our program has focused on the values of giving and receiving constructive feedback, and this meeting was a great opportunity to dive into the topic while also providing a team bonding exercise.
The Great Debate Team had a productive fourth week of the semester! We were very happy to have University 202 students sit in and observe how our meetings work here at FYE. University 202 is essentially a training program for future U-course mentors, which work in another branch of our program. Unfortunately, one of our leads was unable to attend due to illness, but she made sure to call in and listen to everyone’s updates as well as provide us with some announcements. We started off with some introductions and icebreakers to get the University 202 students feeling more comfortable before moving on to the subjects of our meeting. As most of last week’s work is still being carried out, we focused a large portion of time on revisiting our group norms. In a shorty activity, we critiqued ourselves on how we feel we have followed our team’s norms and then added a few more, such as responding to work emails within 24 hours of receiving them. Our recruiter, Adam, also made a great point about asking for help whenever you need it, as sometimes we forget that we are essentially one team and our bond as a group is super important to our success. We decided that everyone should be on the lookout for possible volunteers for our event, since we agreed it would be better to get this done early rather than waiting until the last minute. We also shared and updated some of our articles on different aspects of the human brain, including trauma and addiction. In order to keep our website updated as efficiently as possible, we divided up some roles to determine who would be in charge of which features on our team website. Finally, we all attended our all-staff meeting on Friday to talk about theory and the assigned readings we went over in our wolfpack groups. Lately our program has focused on the values of giving and receiving constructive feedback, and this meeting was a great opportunity to dive into the topic while also providing a team bonding exercise.
Week of February 19th-23rd:
This week was quite the eventful one for our team. Rather than having our meeting in the office, as per usual, we decided to go to the city plaza where our event will be and survey the area. The purpose of this was to improve upon last semester's event, whether it be through providing better directions, adding a volunteer booth, or creating better signage. We split into three teams that each surveyed a separate part of the event site. When we came back together, a couple of ideas were pitched between members. The first new idea is that of painter's tape. In order to increase the effectiveness of signage, we decided that we should try to use painter's tape on the ground that leads from areas of high traffic to specific events. Each event will have its own color of tape, and the different colors will be deciphered by a legend that can be found on each of our four signs on the side of the event nearest to campus. The tape will lead from each sign to its specific event, hopefully eliminating a large portion of the confusion that comes with over one thousand students attending a public area. The second new idea was to have a volunteer's booth. Over the past couple semesters we have noticed that many volunteers don't realize that they have to check in. This poses a problem because if, let's say, a student volunteer were to work his hours but fail to sign in then he would get no credit for his work. Not only does a booth resolve this issue, but it also allows us to 'take attendance' on everyone included. With this, those who follow through with their volunteer hours will receive the credit they deserve.
In addition to our team meeting, a few of our members began working on their personal jobs. Paul began improving last semester's CSF forms, Patrick finally received his rosters and began working on those, and lastly, Eric and Kirstin met with our supervisor, Gina, to talk about a few new ideas for our event. One of these ideas is about a new Great Debate event video, which we will hopefully go over come the next meeting. Now that the event is only a month away, it is time to buckle down and complete our jobs to the fullest.
Week of February 26th - March 2nd
Unfortunately, this week began with bad news straight from the top. The Main Chambers, our headquarters during the event, will be undergoing renovation on the day of the event so we will be losing three important areas for speeches. While this may have been bad news, we were able to turn it on its head and look at it as an opportunity to make this event truly our own. In recent semesters, the Great Debate has been very structured and repetitive, with little room for change. With this new predicament we will be forced to change, and our team is looking forward with excitement. This event will be ours!
In other news, everyone has been working hard in their respective areas to make this event a success. Kirstin and Erik went to the city plaza to take measurements of our space so that Paul could create a to-scale map of the event. This will be very important for our various tent placements. Patrick was able to get in touch with April Kelly, the middle-woman from Butte College, and both receive and complete the rosters. With the changes to the buildings available, Adam had to begin restructuring his emails that he will be sending out to possible volunteers. Since everything is up in the air, he is unable to provide specific locations and specific amounts of volunteers required.
The final update we have is that positive feedback has begun. Patrick and Andrew received theirs at our meeting this week. The first week has been a success, as this process has flown in a smooth and structured manner. While the feedback has not been exceptionally substantial, this week was the trial run. This process of giving feedback will only improve as time moves forward.
Week of March 5th-9th
Compared to last week, this week was pretty uneventful. There were no surprises. Our members carried on with their normal work. Patrick worked on the Chico rosters, the tech team tackled the attendance system for Butte college, and the Herder & Hospitality team is ready to create new signage and laminations to match this semester's layout. Since we are moving into a new office at the end of the semester, a few of our members took it upon themselves to purge the closet of some of the supplies we no longer need. Old signage, laminations, and other documents were trashed so that we wouldn't get them confused with our current supplies. The two members who received positive feedback this week were Lauren and Kirstin, and, as expected, the process was more successful than last time. Points were much clearer and everyone got through what they had to say in a more timely matter. With the remainder of our meeting, we planned for what we will do in the upcoming weeks.
It was fortunate that there wasn't much to be done this week because for the first time this semester, our team got together and hung out outside of school. Lauren and Andrew, our team leads, organized a 'Taco Night' at Laurens house, where we would play card games and chat and whatnot while the leads made tacos for the rest of us. Oh they were delicious tacos let me tell you. Since it was a rare occasion for me (Patrick), I took advantage of the opportunity to eat great, free food and had four of them. Worth it. Anyway, this taco night ended up being a successful team bonding event for us. Hopefully we can take this and turn it into even greater teamwork in the upcoming weeks.
Week of March 12th-16th
The week before spring break is always a restless one. However, we had to continue what we do best and work to make the event as great as possible. Although everyone was ready for break, we had to go over logistics to make sure everything is in order for the event just two weeks after break ends. The topics we went over included:
Week of March 26th-30th
It is the week before the event; the calm before the storm. The culmination of everything we have worked for this semester is brought forth next Friday. All of our hard work will finally pay off in the form of a fulfilling event.
This final week of preparation was spent doing lots of work. Kirstin and Eric surveyed the event area and finalized sign positions and then went to pay for the drinks and cookies we'd be serving. Patrick completed his rosters and controlled the preliminary speech 'competition' to find out who was speaking at the event. The tech team was able to complete the CSF forms (our form of attendance tracking per person) and our leads continued to provide support wherever needed, which was extremely helpful in preventing our team from getting overwhelmed. Everyone worked on setting up station kits and organizing our supplies for the following week.
The most exciting part of this week was the CSF folding party. Here, our team got together and organized all 1,600 CSF forms, that the tech team created, alphabetically by last name. Unfortunately there was a hiccup in the digital organization of these forms, so our team had to individually sort each pile by the first four or so letters in each last name. This was an incredibly time consuming process to say the least, but our team really knows how to sit down and crank out work. Everything is finally coming to fruition.
Week of April 2nd-6th
When we think of problems in our work-life we assume that they have to deal with stress or actions brought on by others on to us and vise versa but what we do not think of is how the problems of work get solved and of the sheer valor in the worker's hearts that keeps them going through their perils. This week I, Paul Perez, bared witness to the sheer potential that our team holds. I saw our attendance system, tents, and main even all go down within a matter of minutes yet, with all that in mind, each and every employee kept a level head during the day of the event. I believe that we were able to do so because of our sheer stubbornness turned into will to not give up. Our main boss Nathaniel Millard was confronted with though choices that would make one contemplate on cancelling the Great Debate yet he and the leads opted to continue like an ox on a field plowing the land to plant the seeds for the future. Andrew, Laure, Gina, etc... Never gave up and that is what our team is about. Our community of practice was put to the test by problems and we tore the test up, shoved it in Destiny's face and made our own path. In short this update is no update but instead, a sheer testament of our ability to grow not just as workers but as members of a community of practice.
Week of April 9th-13th
The first week after an event is equivalent to a roller coaster coming to an end. There were ups and downs that everyone had to overcome until the end of the ride; the Great Debate. Now that we have all gotten off the ride, it is time to reflect on everything that has happened thus far. This last week, we spent our meeting debriefing the event and coming up with new ideas that could help better next semester. Plenty of new general ideas were given, such as making the civic expo a competition, adding a raffle for participant speakers, and possibly replacing and/or creating a new event to add to the big day. Not only did we come up with several new ideas, but multiple people had ideas on how to better our current events through efficiency or changes. All in all, this was a successful debrief. However, the debrief wasn't the only thing we did.
Several weeks ago, our group went through a positive feedback process where we gave select members positive feedback every week. Starting next week, we are taking the next step. The leads have just introduced constructive feedback to the rest of the group, and we are now going to be giving select people this feedback every week in hopes of bettering our team (next week is Erik and Patrick). This process is has strict rules though. Each person's feedback must follow an Oreo sandwich approach. Positive feedback, constructive feedback, then ending it on positive feedback once again. This is proven to be the best method in giving constructive criticism because the positives on both ends make the middle not-so-positive easier to receive. Not only are we following this structure, but everyone is required to write their feedback down and then read directly from their paper. This is mainly to prevent people from going off tangents or rambling. Personally, I am excited for this process. I can see this only bettering everybody on our team, and later, our event. The next few weeks are going to be great for our personal development!
Week of April 16th-20th
The first two members of our team, Erik and Patrick, received their feedback in our meeting. The process went better than expected as most people followed the guidelines set for giving feedback, but we can certainly improve for next week. Unfortunately, since this was our first time giving constructive criticism and we didn't have much practice, this took up the bulk of our meeting. The remainder was spent fine-tuning the guidelines for feedback and urging people to stick to them.
Besides our normal team meeting, we had our all-staff on Friday. Of all the staff meetings this semester, this one was certainly the most productive. We got into our respective teams and completely broke down the event in order to improve for next semester. Some of the categories we were looking at included: areas of improvement for the event itself, what we did well, how our teamwork could improve, and more. We then presented what we came up with to the rest of FYE. Our team was on the same page with most of our input. A few important points that were made were: that we need more of our team to show up to setup in the morning, that we need to be more prepared for possible weather issues and have a plan in our back pocket, and that all of us need to reach out more to our fellow members to help where needed. This meeting definitely opened our eyes to what we needed to do for the remainder of the semester and for those to come. It's time for our team to step up to the next level and make our next several events ones for the books!
Week of April 23rd-27th
This week has been a welcome reprieve from our normal work routines, which have been rather busy this past month. However, the event corridor is still underway, and our team helped staff town hall on Thursday. At our meeting, we went around the table and stated what we feel needs to be done on our specific parts of the job in the next couple weeks. Paul, our tech wizard, mentioned that he would like to revamp our system for curating CSF forms that would be a bit more user friendly. Erik and I need to send out thank you emails to our volunteers, and in general our team needs to clean out our inventory to make the move to our new office easier. We also went over a relatively new concept we have been working towards in FYE- giving and receiving constructive feedback. For the last few weeks of the semester we will, as a team, be giving each other constructive feedback to promote individual growth throughout our organization. Our directors, Nate and Gina, used our leads to give us examples of how to give feedback in a way that is both meaningful and valid to both parties involved in giving/receiving it. Next week will be our first attempt at this somewhat formal method of giving feedback, with Patrick and Erik being the first ones at our next meeting. We did not get a chance to debrief our event, but hope to do this at our next meeting once feedback is over.
Week of April 30th - May 4th
The final Great Debate meeting of the semester took place this week. After a few weeks of absence, highs and lows finally made their way into our lives again. Once we got our icebreaker our of the way, our final three members (Kirstin, Adam, and Andrew) received their constructive feedback from the rest of the team. Overall, the feedback was excellent and well spoken, so there will most definitely be some improvement among our members before next semester begins. After feedback came to its conclusion, the team began to reminisce about the semester and the event we all worked so hard on. Through good times and bad, everybody became closer than we were at the beginning of the year. Hopefully these relationships will remain going into the next school year, but only time will tell.
Since there was no work related to the Great Debate that had to be done, we spent most of the week preparing for the upcoming move next week. While some members are dreading this move, others are looking at it as a new opportunity to more closely help first year students. Regardless of how everybody feels about this, we got a lot of packing and cleaning done this week. Only six days until we say goodbye to our home. It's time to enjoy every minute left.
This week was quite the eventful one for our team. Rather than having our meeting in the office, as per usual, we decided to go to the city plaza where our event will be and survey the area. The purpose of this was to improve upon last semester's event, whether it be through providing better directions, adding a volunteer booth, or creating better signage. We split into three teams that each surveyed a separate part of the event site. When we came back together, a couple of ideas were pitched between members. The first new idea is that of painter's tape. In order to increase the effectiveness of signage, we decided that we should try to use painter's tape on the ground that leads from areas of high traffic to specific events. Each event will have its own color of tape, and the different colors will be deciphered by a legend that can be found on each of our four signs on the side of the event nearest to campus. The tape will lead from each sign to its specific event, hopefully eliminating a large portion of the confusion that comes with over one thousand students attending a public area. The second new idea was to have a volunteer's booth. Over the past couple semesters we have noticed that many volunteers don't realize that they have to check in. This poses a problem because if, let's say, a student volunteer were to work his hours but fail to sign in then he would get no credit for his work. Not only does a booth resolve this issue, but it also allows us to 'take attendance' on everyone included. With this, those who follow through with their volunteer hours will receive the credit they deserve.
In addition to our team meeting, a few of our members began working on their personal jobs. Paul began improving last semester's CSF forms, Patrick finally received his rosters and began working on those, and lastly, Eric and Kirstin met with our supervisor, Gina, to talk about a few new ideas for our event. One of these ideas is about a new Great Debate event video, which we will hopefully go over come the next meeting. Now that the event is only a month away, it is time to buckle down and complete our jobs to the fullest.
Week of February 26th - March 2nd
Unfortunately, this week began with bad news straight from the top. The Main Chambers, our headquarters during the event, will be undergoing renovation on the day of the event so we will be losing three important areas for speeches. While this may have been bad news, we were able to turn it on its head and look at it as an opportunity to make this event truly our own. In recent semesters, the Great Debate has been very structured and repetitive, with little room for change. With this new predicament we will be forced to change, and our team is looking forward with excitement. This event will be ours!
In other news, everyone has been working hard in their respective areas to make this event a success. Kirstin and Erik went to the city plaza to take measurements of our space so that Paul could create a to-scale map of the event. This will be very important for our various tent placements. Patrick was able to get in touch with April Kelly, the middle-woman from Butte College, and both receive and complete the rosters. With the changes to the buildings available, Adam had to begin restructuring his emails that he will be sending out to possible volunteers. Since everything is up in the air, he is unable to provide specific locations and specific amounts of volunteers required.
The final update we have is that positive feedback has begun. Patrick and Andrew received theirs at our meeting this week. The first week has been a success, as this process has flown in a smooth and structured manner. While the feedback has not been exceptionally substantial, this week was the trial run. This process of giving feedback will only improve as time moves forward.
Week of March 5th-9th
Compared to last week, this week was pretty uneventful. There were no surprises. Our members carried on with their normal work. Patrick worked on the Chico rosters, the tech team tackled the attendance system for Butte college, and the Herder & Hospitality team is ready to create new signage and laminations to match this semester's layout. Since we are moving into a new office at the end of the semester, a few of our members took it upon themselves to purge the closet of some of the supplies we no longer need. Old signage, laminations, and other documents were trashed so that we wouldn't get them confused with our current supplies. The two members who received positive feedback this week were Lauren and Kirstin, and, as expected, the process was more successful than last time. Points were much clearer and everyone got through what they had to say in a more timely matter. With the remainder of our meeting, we planned for what we will do in the upcoming weeks.
It was fortunate that there wasn't much to be done this week because for the first time this semester, our team got together and hung out outside of school. Lauren and Andrew, our team leads, organized a 'Taco Night' at Laurens house, where we would play card games and chat and whatnot while the leads made tacos for the rest of us. Oh they were delicious tacos let me tell you. Since it was a rare occasion for me (Patrick), I took advantage of the opportunity to eat great, free food and had four of them. Worth it. Anyway, this taco night ended up being a successful team bonding event for us. Hopefully we can take this and turn it into even greater teamwork in the upcoming weeks.
Week of March 12th-16th
The week before spring break is always a restless one. However, we had to continue what we do best and work to make the event as great as possible. Although everyone was ready for break, we had to go over logistics to make sure everything is in order for the event just two weeks after break ends. The topics we went over included:
- Beverage orders
- Tent orders
- Signage
- Table/chair orders
- Moderator emails sent out
- Volunteer emails sent out
- Chico State rosters
- Butte College rosters
- Prelims
- Tech- CSF forms
- Attendance system
Week of March 26th-30th
It is the week before the event; the calm before the storm. The culmination of everything we have worked for this semester is brought forth next Friday. All of our hard work will finally pay off in the form of a fulfilling event.
This final week of preparation was spent doing lots of work. Kirstin and Eric surveyed the event area and finalized sign positions and then went to pay for the drinks and cookies we'd be serving. Patrick completed his rosters and controlled the preliminary speech 'competition' to find out who was speaking at the event. The tech team was able to complete the CSF forms (our form of attendance tracking per person) and our leads continued to provide support wherever needed, which was extremely helpful in preventing our team from getting overwhelmed. Everyone worked on setting up station kits and organizing our supplies for the following week.
The most exciting part of this week was the CSF folding party. Here, our team got together and organized all 1,600 CSF forms, that the tech team created, alphabetically by last name. Unfortunately there was a hiccup in the digital organization of these forms, so our team had to individually sort each pile by the first four or so letters in each last name. This was an incredibly time consuming process to say the least, but our team really knows how to sit down and crank out work. Everything is finally coming to fruition.
Week of April 2nd-6th
When we think of problems in our work-life we assume that they have to deal with stress or actions brought on by others on to us and vise versa but what we do not think of is how the problems of work get solved and of the sheer valor in the worker's hearts that keeps them going through their perils. This week I, Paul Perez, bared witness to the sheer potential that our team holds. I saw our attendance system, tents, and main even all go down within a matter of minutes yet, with all that in mind, each and every employee kept a level head during the day of the event. I believe that we were able to do so because of our sheer stubbornness turned into will to not give up. Our main boss Nathaniel Millard was confronted with though choices that would make one contemplate on cancelling the Great Debate yet he and the leads opted to continue like an ox on a field plowing the land to plant the seeds for the future. Andrew, Laure, Gina, etc... Never gave up and that is what our team is about. Our community of practice was put to the test by problems and we tore the test up, shoved it in Destiny's face and made our own path. In short this update is no update but instead, a sheer testament of our ability to grow not just as workers but as members of a community of practice.
Week of April 9th-13th
The first week after an event is equivalent to a roller coaster coming to an end. There were ups and downs that everyone had to overcome until the end of the ride; the Great Debate. Now that we have all gotten off the ride, it is time to reflect on everything that has happened thus far. This last week, we spent our meeting debriefing the event and coming up with new ideas that could help better next semester. Plenty of new general ideas were given, such as making the civic expo a competition, adding a raffle for participant speakers, and possibly replacing and/or creating a new event to add to the big day. Not only did we come up with several new ideas, but multiple people had ideas on how to better our current events through efficiency or changes. All in all, this was a successful debrief. However, the debrief wasn't the only thing we did.
Several weeks ago, our group went through a positive feedback process where we gave select members positive feedback every week. Starting next week, we are taking the next step. The leads have just introduced constructive feedback to the rest of the group, and we are now going to be giving select people this feedback every week in hopes of bettering our team (next week is Erik and Patrick). This process is has strict rules though. Each person's feedback must follow an Oreo sandwich approach. Positive feedback, constructive feedback, then ending it on positive feedback once again. This is proven to be the best method in giving constructive criticism because the positives on both ends make the middle not-so-positive easier to receive. Not only are we following this structure, but everyone is required to write their feedback down and then read directly from their paper. This is mainly to prevent people from going off tangents or rambling. Personally, I am excited for this process. I can see this only bettering everybody on our team, and later, our event. The next few weeks are going to be great for our personal development!
Week of April 16th-20th
The first two members of our team, Erik and Patrick, received their feedback in our meeting. The process went better than expected as most people followed the guidelines set for giving feedback, but we can certainly improve for next week. Unfortunately, since this was our first time giving constructive criticism and we didn't have much practice, this took up the bulk of our meeting. The remainder was spent fine-tuning the guidelines for feedback and urging people to stick to them.
Besides our normal team meeting, we had our all-staff on Friday. Of all the staff meetings this semester, this one was certainly the most productive. We got into our respective teams and completely broke down the event in order to improve for next semester. Some of the categories we were looking at included: areas of improvement for the event itself, what we did well, how our teamwork could improve, and more. We then presented what we came up with to the rest of FYE. Our team was on the same page with most of our input. A few important points that were made were: that we need more of our team to show up to setup in the morning, that we need to be more prepared for possible weather issues and have a plan in our back pocket, and that all of us need to reach out more to our fellow members to help where needed. This meeting definitely opened our eyes to what we needed to do for the remainder of the semester and for those to come. It's time for our team to step up to the next level and make our next several events ones for the books!
Week of April 23rd-27th
This week has been a welcome reprieve from our normal work routines, which have been rather busy this past month. However, the event corridor is still underway, and our team helped staff town hall on Thursday. At our meeting, we went around the table and stated what we feel needs to be done on our specific parts of the job in the next couple weeks. Paul, our tech wizard, mentioned that he would like to revamp our system for curating CSF forms that would be a bit more user friendly. Erik and I need to send out thank you emails to our volunteers, and in general our team needs to clean out our inventory to make the move to our new office easier. We also went over a relatively new concept we have been working towards in FYE- giving and receiving constructive feedback. For the last few weeks of the semester we will, as a team, be giving each other constructive feedback to promote individual growth throughout our organization. Our directors, Nate and Gina, used our leads to give us examples of how to give feedback in a way that is both meaningful and valid to both parties involved in giving/receiving it. Next week will be our first attempt at this somewhat formal method of giving feedback, with Patrick and Erik being the first ones at our next meeting. We did not get a chance to debrief our event, but hope to do this at our next meeting once feedback is over.
Week of April 30th - May 4th
The final Great Debate meeting of the semester took place this week. After a few weeks of absence, highs and lows finally made their way into our lives again. Once we got our icebreaker our of the way, our final three members (Kirstin, Adam, and Andrew) received their constructive feedback from the rest of the team. Overall, the feedback was excellent and well spoken, so there will most definitely be some improvement among our members before next semester begins. After feedback came to its conclusion, the team began to reminisce about the semester and the event we all worked so hard on. Through good times and bad, everybody became closer than we were at the beginning of the year. Hopefully these relationships will remain going into the next school year, but only time will tell.
Since there was no work related to the Great Debate that had to be done, we spent most of the week preparing for the upcoming move next week. While some members are dreading this move, others are looking at it as a new opportunity to more closely help first year students. Regardless of how everybody feels about this, we got a lot of packing and cleaning done this week. Only six days until we say goodbye to our home. It's time to enjoy every minute left.