Tuesday, April 21

After leaving class today, I was pretty pumped. Aside from the fact that today felt more like a meeting that ever, I had a new t-shirt, a new committee for kid friendly activities, and a tickets in my hand. I was a little upset to hear about Tom Matte, since I knew he was a big sports selling point and was assured that he would be 95%. I know I wasn't the only one on the event planning committee that was feeling the same way. Regardless, I was excited and ready to move forward; there was so much to get done and our event was really coming together.

Then there was an e-mail. I understand where Corey is coming from. I've tried to be understanding of his vision since the beginning. He was part of the original project team (during proposal development) and has not given up on that original idea. However, I do not believe that we should move the event. Regardless of the obvious (the fact that the proposed change would occur after the conclusion of classes and graduation), I do not feel as though it is fair to even suggest that we change the date. People have worked hard to invite community leaders, sports figures and other important people to the event. Advertisements have been printed. People have gone into the community, knocking on doors to tell people about the event. Tickets and t-shirts have been printed, date included. Because there is not a logistical problem, there is no reason to change the date. It would be foolish to change the date.

Agree with the e-mail Melanie sent out- it will make us look incompetent and we clearly are not. In addition, we will be throwing away effort and making our merchandise worthless. We should have known about the Tom Matte ahead of time but we will have other sports figures and everything else is in order. I'm sure we will be voting on Thursday but my vote is for no change.

For Last Week

Words cannot described how ready I am for this project to pick up speed. Between my individual meeting last week and the conclusion of Quadmania, I feel ready to bring my A-game.

Thursday was crazy trying to get the tickets printed in time for the Street Team on Sunday. If anyone knows Christopher Moss, give him a huge thank you. He works at Commonvision and personally printed and teared all of the tickets Thursday afternoon so we would have them. I'm assuming that everyone has seen them by now. I left off the logo so that we could fit all of our ticket prices and other information.

I was really disappointed that I wasn't able to Street Team with everyone on Sunday (I was at Quadmania for 56 hours between Friday, Saturday and Sunday, no lie!). Corey let me know today that we only sold three tickets. What happened? Were people not interested? Was it too much money? I know we can sell them to other people but how are we going to market to the community? I guess we'll be talking about that in class...

As far as attendees, I am inviting representatives from Legislative District 31 (where Club 4100 is located). I know Gerard invited Dutch and a few other federal reps so I'm working on local. I have the letter that I sent them. If anyone wants/ needs a copy, please let me know. With Political Science as original major, I find it completely necessary to have elected officials present at the event.

On a more exciting note: I'm waiting to hear back from face painters and balloon artists. I'm trying to find someone that will do it for free (or at least for cost). I have a friend that is willing to do so if she can get off work. More about that to come in this week's blog.

We'll be ordering raffle tickets and other supplies soon so we need to chat about all of that. If we're doing Bingo or other activities, we need to know ASAP.

That's all for now. Can't wait to see everyone tomorrow. I hope people don't feel defeated after only a small success on Sunday- we'll work it out!

Tickets!

I have finished the ticket design for our event! I will try to upload it as soon as possible. I'm having a little trouble.

I left off the ticket price after hearing about the class conversation on Thursday. Right now it only have the date, time, location and more information about the days activities.

I hoped to have them before street teaming on April 19 but that might not happen. We'll see...

Silver Linings and Such

It was a little too late to register our group as a student organization. We can only be considered for next semester.

The good news? Well, looking on the bright side...

1. There are Commonvision discounts for faculty members. There are not as great as those for student orgs but still a good deal.

2. We can probably still have a table at Quadmania.

Not a big deal but still disappointing.

On another note, I'm happy to see this project coming together. I'm looking forward to committee meeting tomorrow and I'm thrilled to start really pushing this thing. Everyone has put in a lot of hard work and it's really starting to show.

EXCITED!

I just saw the Club 4100 spotlight on myUMBC! I was just really excited...

Great job, Natalie!

Food

I did not want to call Club 4100 for two reasons:
1. I do not want to overwhelm the owner with so many contact people
2. I was not sure if someone else had already called

I think this has been a consistent theme this semester. We need to started properly delegating tasks and communicating more efficiently.

I did, however, look up the menu for the Club.

Appetizers range from $3.75- 10.95 per serving including everything from seafood to celery and olives. There is also something on the menu called "Poorman", I don't know what exactly that is but I'm pretty curious. Maybe it's the shrimp recipe I found on Google. I think it would also be good to provide salad for the guests.

Tomorrow, March 31, I think we should make sure that someone calls the Club and gets a feel for what kind of food they would like to serve for "free" and what kinds of deals they may be able to offer customers. We can't really make a decision without figuring out what they want. Then we can move from there.

In closing: If anyone has already contacted them, please let me know. And when we get ideas during our meetings, we need to make sure someone is assigned to the task and has enough information to do it.

Just slightly frustrated...mostly helpless.

Orioles FanFest

The Orioles FanFest on Saturday, April 4.

"The club will host an open workout and activities designed to celebrate the start of the 2009 season. Events planned for the day include autograph and question and answer sessions with current and former players and coaches, fan forums and interactive activities for families and children. "

Maybe we can look into having some advertisements there.

That date is quickly approaching but it would be a great place to get the word out.