Sunday, September 7, 2008

Good Ideas from Call Out Meeting

So we had our call out meeting last week for the Fall semester, and I was really excited about a lot of the ideas I heard. Here's the big list in case anyone missed it:

1)  make sellable favors for the CRU dance
2)  get a speaker to come to campus (liberated slave, human rights expert/scholar, Kevin Bales, etc...)
3)  nominate a slavery-related book as next year's freshman read
4)  use the Writing Center's bulletin board to post opportunities and contacts for writing legislators about slavery issues
5)  get restaurants to have a night where proceeds go to FTS (MAx and Ermas, Fazolis, IHOP, etc...)
6)  pass out lifesavers advertising FTS
7)  post messages on bulletin boards around campus
8)  advertise FTS and related issues using sidewalk chalk
9)  make a "freedom chain" in residence halls or on campus - people pay to put up a link
10)  have a charity concert in LaFollette field with local/campus bands
11)  sponsor a spaghetti dinner (w/ LaRosa's)
12)  do something to get people's attention at the scramble light and hand out information or collect change
13)  do tv channel interview with TCOM dept.
14)  use BSU radio station to advertise activities
15)  have a bake sale and distribute information
16)  have a Fair Trade bake sale and distribute information
17)  team up with Late Nite - have an activity and info booth
18)  have slave poetry readings at the MT Cup
19)  "Chains for Change"  - have someone "locked up" in chains somewhere and advertise, "we need $____ before he/she can go free!"
20)  show a slavery related video and get teachers to give extra credit for attending
21)  sell jewelry at a booth
22)  do a presentation at local schools
23)  get an article about FTS in the Daily News
24)  sent money and reps to Haiti or some other place to help grassroots groups
25)  set up a FTS facebook
26)  send FTS videos via facebook
27)  use resources on campus to raise money - SGA, RHA, 
28)  do some other fundraiser (carwash, etc...)
29)  have a FTS book list (w/ Amazon?)
30)  work with the Rafa house in Cambodia?
31)  wear clothes or paint depicting % of slaves in population compared to Ball State Campus

I think they all sound like great ideas, but here are my top favorites: 
big events/plans: get in touch with a restaurant and arrange a fundraiser, chains for change (Whitney had a cool idea about this involving the holidays), Daily News article (it would be awesome if we could get this before the next meeting to advertise the next meeting), and favors for the CRU formal.
mini projects: nominate a book for the freshman reader, sidewalk chalk (again it would be nice to do this before the next meeting so we can let people know when our next meeting is), wearing clothes to represent % of slavery. 

-Sarah Burns

3 comments:

Katrina said...

I really like the idea of making sellable favors (even cute little things like fake flower corsages?) and the freedom chain thing. I don't think it'd be hard to get RAs interested in bringing us in to do an informational program (or a skit!) and then we can do the chains as a fundraiser from that. Also, we could probably see if we could sell water or something with a little informational paper at Mud Volleyball (I think it's the first weekend in October, so if we want to do this, we should get on this).

chelsey said...

I like the idea of making favors for CRU, as well. I think this would benefit greatly considering there are so many people involved with CRU. I also like the freedom chain and "Chain for Change". And I think norminating a slavery-related book for the freshmen reader, posting messages on bulletin boards around campus,and sidewalk chalk are all great little things we can do. I think it would also be a good idea to get t-shirts made for our group to wear and raise awareness.

chelsey said...

Oh! Guess what guys?! I'm being recognized on the Free the Slaves website right now!

Here's the link:https://www.freetheslaves.net/NETCOMMUNITY/SSLPage.aspx?pid=464&srcid=381