This was originally printed in the Indy on 3/17, just thought it could be good here too!
Hi, my name is Elise. I am one of your General Programming Coordinators (a species commonly known as ‘GPC’) along with Cameron Wisch. We are both pretty nice people and care about you, so I thought I would make up a guide on who we are and how to put on events at Purchase.
BUT LIKE WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
General Programming Coordinators are supposed to fill in the gap with events that aren’t already happening via clubs and services. It is a more objective position, and should represent the needs/dreams/desires of the student body as a whole. Because the position is a ‘coordinator’ after all, the GPC works with individual students and clubs by talking with them, developing, funding and providing an open forum for ideas.
BUT WHAT DO U ACTALLY DO, I MEAN GIVE ME SOME EXAMPLES OR SOMETHING
Zombie Prom, movie screenings, Roller Disco, a lot of concerts—some recent examples of things we have/will collaborate on include Vagina Monologues, Hip Hop Tribute, laser tag night (April 5th!), that Six Flags trip back in October, an interdisciplinary arts show in the Dining Hall (second week of April, keep your peepers open!), Queer Music Fest, India Night, silk-screened event posters, Untitled #1, lecturers.
OKAY BUT WHY DO YOU HAVE AN ARTICLE IN THE INDY
Because unlike some other folks, I believe that an apathetic and uninvolved student body is largely due to a severe lack of information. How is anyone going to get involved if they don’t know how to do it?
I also believe that one or two people can’t adequately represent a whole campus through events, which is why I wanted to include a step-by-step guide on how to hold your own event. Again, if you need any help or any funding at all, we are more than happy to give ya a hand! This is just to give you a nice start.
HOW TO PUT ON AN EVENT AT PURCHASE COLLEGE
So here I present to you a kinda comprehensive, definitely charming guide on event at Purchase.
- Come up with a good idea!
Do you want to organize a show? A lecture? Something else wild and great that I can’t think of?
- Find the right people to help you out with this.
This step might not be necessary depending on what you’re doing, but the truth is that there are a bunch of people all around campus who might be pretty familiar with what you’re interested in already. Every club on campus meets bi-weekly under the name Council of Clubs, Organizations and Services (CoCOaS). Maybe one of them could help you with your idea! If you’re not sure who to contact directly, you should get in touch with Ricky Gunzel (frederick.gunzel@purchase.edu). He is their coordinator and is the most knowledgeable person on all sorts of networking and budgeting within our clubs and services.
- Find funding
If whatever you’re doing costs money, don’t panic! There’s a little thing called the Mandatory Student Activities Fee, a small $100 tacked onto everyone’s tuition at the school. This money goes to fund all the events that happen here—and I mean all of them. It even helps the Student Center run! In any case, this is money that is devoted to funding student events. It is divided up between clubs and GPC and all that…again, find the group of people most appropriate for what you’re doing and work with them on this.
(A good example of collaboration is when junior Marianna Grady wanted to put on a laser tag event, she approached the Role Playing Gamers Alliance for some help and some funding. Does that kinda make sense?)
- If you have performers…
If your event has a band, solo artist, organization, lecturer, etc. coming through, you have to fill out a couple of contracts in order for them to play here. This is also the paperwork you need to fill out in order to get them paid. It’s no big deal, just head on over to the PSGA office in Campus Center North (attached to the Hub) to pick up the paperwork!
- Time and place!
Figure out which venue on campus works best for your event and when. When you have a time and place in mind, you have to reserve your space on the Room Management Service thing (RMS). Despite it being super archaic and tedious, this is how a ton of Purchase is run. Even classes are reserved on there. Anyway, bear with me:
1. Go to the Purchase College website.
2. Click on 'Faculty and Staff' on the upper bar.
3. Select 'Self Service.'
4. Select 'RMS Menu & Master Calendar' and log in with your student e-mail and e-mail password.
5. Select 'Create a New Event' on the upper panel.
6. Title your event and try to be clear with your description, because there is a separate manager of each venue who gets all kinds of requests like these. This will also be the information that appears on the master calendar when students go to look at that.
7. On the drop down menu on the next page, select the building and room you would like to rent. For example, if you want to rent the Cinema in the Student Center, you select 'Student Center' as your building, and to select the Cinema just select '1018 – Cinema.’
8. Go through the rest of the form and do your thing...double check everything to make sure the time slot is correct and whatnot.
9. Click 'create event'. You should get an e-mail confirming that you put in this RMS request. This does not mean that it is confirmed yet-- you will get a second e-mail telling you that your event was approved or rejected by whoever manages that space.
It probably will not be rejected, and if it is, it is only because your event might clash with another event booked for the same time slot in the same room. No reason you can't negotiate that with whoever is in charge of the event, though!
- Get some tech!
If you need sound or power or whatever, don’t worry. We have a whole Tech Services program run by students here who are there to help you out with your event. If you want your event to have tech, there is a calendar that you have to log all events with. When you do this, someone from tech services signs up for the event and is able to use all the equipment necessary. As a rule, you can't use tech services equipment unless you're an employee or officially assigned to the event, because these tech services folks get paid for their time and all of that. Only a couple of people have access to this calendar, so just let me (purchaseeventsbrigade@gmail.com) or Josh Warsaw (joshua.warshaw@purchase.edu), the Tech Services Coordinator, know which date and time slot you end up going with so we can put it on there for you.
- Promote it all up in everywhere
Make some posters and use up those extra printing dollars in your account and just blanket every available bulletin board with your flyer! Remember, if you’re getting funding from a club or anything under the PSGA, it has to say ‘Paid for by your mandatory student activities fee’ somewhere on there. If you want a campus-wide e-mail to go out, contact frederick.gunzel@purchase.edu or john.delate@purchase.edu .
- Have your event!
I don’t really have any advice past this point because I don’t have any clue what you’re doing. I’m sure it’ll be great.
I SERIOUSLY WOULD LOVE TO TALK TO YOU, HOW DO I DO THAT, HOW
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