Pre-Event

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• We talked as a leadership group about the format of this year’s kickoff event, and whether it made sense to have it at a professor’s house (like last year), or to have it at a more central location, like an apartment complex. We ultimately decided that we would probably get a larger turnout at a more central location, and we ended up having it at the pool/grill area at my apartment complex in Chapel Hill.

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• We thought last year’s idea of grilling out was a good idea, and we thought that would provide a good way for people to mingle while the food was cooking.

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• The turnout for last year’s kickoff event was rather small, and we wanted to find a way to better promote it this year and to especially reach out to new first year students as well as second year students who previously had not been part of the club. We did a few key things which I think worked really well:

  • We included the date of the kickoff cookout event in our slide deck during our first club presentation at school and mentioned it during the event. 

  • We sent an Outlook invite out to all of the people on the C@KF list-serve letting them know the details of the event.

  • We asked everyone who could come to sign up on a Google spreadsheet we created (and to include if they were bringing a spouse or significant other with them), so that we could get an accurate count for food.

  • We followed up with some of the first year students prior to the event to let them know we were looking forward to hopefully seeing them there, and encouraged them to bring others who might be interested.

  • I reached out to a few of the second year students who I knew were interested in C@KF, but had not been able to come to any of the events last year. There was also a second year student who reached out to me to express his interest in the club. It was great in that we had three second year students who came to the kickoff event for the first time.

 

Event itself

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• We had a great turnout to the event, as we had over 25 people who attended (MBA students and spouses), which was in line with the number of people we expected from the Outlook RSVP’s and Google sign up spreadsheet.

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• The first year students seemed to really enjoy themselves, and the cookout provided a great way for the first and second year students to get to know each other better outside of school. Several people brought their spouse with them to the event (along with some children), and it was great in that the spouses had a chance to meet each other and talk at the event. This was one of our goals for this year, as it is often hard for the spouses of new MBA students to get connected to Christian community after moving, and we wanted to find a way to hopefully facilitate that.

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• I was able to talk with some of the new first year students about our upcoming Sunday night dinners as well as our lunch speaker series, which they seemed to be excited about. 

 

Evaluation / Follow-up details

• I think the event went really well, and I was really pleased by the number of people who came, and especially the interest from the new first year students. It was also encouraging that three second year students came to the event for the first time, and all three of them seemed to enjoy themselves. 

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• Other than talking with people about our upcoming events, we didn’t have a formal follow-up to the event. I believe that everyone who attended was already on the C@KF list-serve, although it probably would have been a good idea to have a sign-up sheet available there just in case. We will make sure to have a sign-up sheet at our lunch speaker events, as we hope that students who are not currently part of C@KF will attend those events, and that they might be interested in learning more about Christianity after hearing the speakers. 

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• We had one first year student who emailed saying that she couldn’t come to the event, but that she was looking forward to attending future events. I emailed her back letting her know that we look forward to hopefully seeing her at the upcoming events.

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• I think the venue (pool area at a local apartment complex) worked really well, as it was centrally located and was a relaxed environment for people to talk with each other.