208 lines
10 KiB
XML
208 lines
10 KiB
XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
|
|
<chapter>
|
|
<title>Vice President</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>This chapter covers various useful notes for the CSC vice president,
|
|
ranging from who to call for room bookings to how to promote your events.</para>
|
|
|
|
<sect1>
|
|
<title>Planning events</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>So, you're the CSC Vice President and you want to (hopefully)
|
|
have the CSC host some really cool events this term. This chapter should
|
|
help you get started with that.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>For starters, the most important thing to remember is this:
|
|
<emphasis>plan your events early!</emphasis>. I recommend about 2 to 3
|
|
weeks in advance. This rough timeline should help:</para>
|
|
|
|
<itemizedlist>
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>2-3 weeks in advance: Get a title and abstract for the event
|
|
from the speaker as well as a date and time.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>2 weeks in advance: Book the room and any necessary equipment
|
|
(projectors etc). Make posters for the event. Make initial
|
|
announcements on Usenet and possibly by e-mail.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>2 Days in advance: E-mail <email>credmond@uwaterloo.ca</email>
|
|
to get the event into the Daily Bulletin. Include a short
|
|
(one-paragraph) description.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Day of the event: Try to be at the event, or find someone who
|
|
will be to make sure things go smoothly. Remember to get the projector
|
|
if necessary. If there are people in the room you booked, ask them to
|
|
leave politely. Mention that you have the room booked. Get
|
|
refreshments to the room as necessary. Introduce the speaker.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>After the event: Thank the speaker in front of the audience and
|
|
applaud. Offer to take the speaker out for dinner. Clean up the room
|
|
and return any loaned equipment. Write him or her a cheque for any
|
|
expenses if necessary. For out-of-town speakers a small gift might be
|
|
nice.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
</itemizedlist>
|
|
|
|
<para>The rest of this chapter will outline various tips that should be
|
|
useful when running events and suggest some events that you might want to
|
|
run.</para>
|
|
|
|
<sect2>
|
|
<title>Getting ideas and speakers for events</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>Obviously you will have to start your planning by coming up with
|
|
an event. Here are some types of events you might want to hold:</para>
|
|
|
|
<itemizedlist>
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Talks held by CSC members. Ask around, there are probably a
|
|
few members who have interesting things to give talks on. In the
|
|
past CSC members have given talks about programming languages they
|
|
like, Operating Systems, research projects, etc.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Talks held by Faculty: Simply ask your CS profs, or get other
|
|
exec to ask their profs or interesting faculty. Approaching faculty
|
|
in person might get you better results than e-mailing, but be sure
|
|
to follow up with an e-mail so that you have something written to
|
|
remind them.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Out-of-town speakers. The <ulink
|
|
url="http://www.acm.org/chapters/stu/">ACM student chapter website</ulink>
|
|
has a section called "Lectureship series" where you can find
|
|
information on getting an ACM Distinguished Lecturer. You can also
|
|
simply approach interesting people (in Academia, Industry or the
|
|
Free Software scene) by e-mail and ask them if they'd like to
|
|
come and give a talk (or a few talks). Don't be afraid to ask
|
|
high-profile people, the worst you can get is a "no." Be
|
|
sure to have the treasurer budget money to pay for the guest
|
|
speaker's expenses. If you can, try to pay for travel expenses
|
|
(unless the speaker offers), but at the very least arrange for meals
|
|
and accomodation as well as transport from the airport or bus/train
|
|
station if necessary.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Special events. In the past we've had an event called
|
|
"Pints with Profs" where we invited the CS faculty (<email>cs-faculty@cs.uwaterloo.ca</email>)
|
|
and any interested CS students to come out to a pub. The Bomber is a
|
|
convenient location but we've found their catering to be
|
|
expensive. Weaver's Arms (in WCRI) might be a good alternative.
|
|
Be sure to budget this with Mathsoc, so you can pay for free food.
|
|
Try to get both meat and vegetarian alternatives (e.g. Wings and
|
|
Veggie Platters). Make sure you publicise this event very well, and
|
|
don't hesitate to ask the profs to announce it in class (giving
|
|
them overheads might be a good idea). This is definitely an event
|
|
you should try to hold. If you can think of any other special
|
|
events, go right ahead, be creative! Be sure to add them here.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Tutorials. Usually we hold a few UNIX tutorials at the
|
|
beginning of the term. These are quite popular and you can get
|
|
Faculty (especiall the first and second-year CS profs) to announce
|
|
them in class. Be sure to book a lab. If there are more than one or
|
|
two other people in the lab, politely ask them to leave - in our
|
|
experience, asking such groups to be quiet doesn't usually work
|
|
very well. Aside from UNIX you could have tutorials for LaTeX, some
|
|
programming language, some programming problem (e.g. "Writing a
|
|
raytracer") or anything you think would be useful for people to
|
|
learn. </para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Contests. Programming contests can be a lot of fun and will
|
|
certainly raise interest in the club. Try to get nice prizes so that
|
|
you can attract a large group of contestants. Be sure to have the
|
|
rules and the environment set up early on. Game solving contests are
|
|
a good idea (this can range from writing programs to play
|
|
rock-paper-scissors to having programs compete at playing chess),
|
|
demo programming contests can also be fun or you might go for
|
|
something more useful. It's up to you - be creative!</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Anything else you can think of. Be imaginative and ask for
|
|
suggestions. The ACM website also has some good suggestions for
|
|
events. Don't limit yourself to computer-related events - a
|
|
volleyball match against the Pure Math Club might be fun.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
</itemizedlist>
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
|
|
<sect2>
|
|
<title>Announcing the event: Posters and Posts</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>Once you have the abstract and the room booked you should get the
|
|
word out. For starters you should send an announcement to the uw.csc
|
|
newsgroup and possibly to the members by e-mail (try to reserve the
|
|
latter for special events, although an update with upcoming events every
|
|
now and then might be a good idea).</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>You'll also want to make printed posters. Simon Law made a
|
|
<filename>cscposter.cls</filename> file for LaTeX which can be used to
|
|
generate nice-looking posters in letter format. Try to not have too much
|
|
text on the posters so that they grab more attention. Getting posters
|
|
out earlier rather than later is definitely beneficial. To actually
|
|
distribute posters you should use several methods:</para>
|
|
|
|
<itemizedlist>
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Put up the posters on the CSC boards. There are 3 boards: a
|
|
small one right by the door of MC3036, a large one in the 3rd floor
|
|
hallway of the MC and another large one on the second floor of the
|
|
MC (directly below the third floor hallway).</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Give 6 posters to Mathsoc. Just drop by 6 posters in the
|
|
Mathsoc office and they'll put them up around the MC and DC.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem>
|
|
<para>Make use of the FEDS poster run. FEDS offers a (reasonably
|
|
cheap) poster run where they will distribute many posters around
|
|
campus. Check the <ulink
|
|
url="http://www.feds.uwaterloo.ca/services/marketing.html">FEDS
|
|
marketing website</ulink> for pricing and information on how to use
|
|
it. While we aren't a FEDS club, we are part of MathSoc, so try
|
|
to get the "student society" price. Also, make sure you
|
|
budget for this from Mathsoc, you can probably get funds from them
|
|
to use this.</para>
|
|
</listitem>
|
|
</itemizedlist>
|
|
|
|
<para>There are other ways to get people to know about the event. If the
|
|
event is relevant to classes, try to convince profs to announce it in
|
|
class (giving them an overhead with the details is a good idea). Also,
|
|
have the event announced in the Daily Bulletin (a daily update on the UW
|
|
website about what's happening on campus). To do so, e-mail Chris
|
|
Redmond (<email>credmond@uwaterloo.ca</email>).</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Word of mouth is another important channel. Tell others in the CSC
|
|
(both executives and members) to tell their friends about events. Tell
|
|
your own friends and classmates about events that they might find
|
|
interesting. Word of mouth is often how events get most of their
|
|
publicity.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Lastly, you'll want to add the event to the website. Contact
|
|
the CSC webmaster (or if there is none, the sysadmin) to have him or her
|
|
do that for you, or find out how to do it yourself. This way others can
|
|
check for events on the website, and you can also conveniently point
|
|
people there if they ask, "What events is the CSC offering this
|
|
term?"</para>
|
|
</sect2>
|
|
</sect1>
|
|
|
|
</chapter> |