shawn farner|*feeding* the social web obsession

So, it seems we’re in a bit of trouble.

The Mu Chi chapter of Alpha Phi Omega is now, for all intensive purposes, broke.  We were sitting on a hefty sum of money at the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year, and we’re now in the red.  How did we get this way?  Reckless spending, failure to collect dues and little to no income from fundraising projects.

For the 2008-2009 year, there are new officers with totally different philosophies on how things should be done.  I am totally confident that each one realizes we’re in a bad situation at the moment and is doing their best to get us out of it.  In this post, I’m going to lay a little bit of my fundraising plan out.

1.  Ask Businesses for Donations

I am not above begging local businesses to donate to APO.  We do a lot of service projects in the community, probably the most out of any group on campus, and that is not cheap.  I have already drafted a letter I”ll send out which kindly asks for any donation, big or small.

2.  Sell Advertising

The Alpha Phi Omega web site is not even finished yet, but when it is, I plan on selling some ad spots to any business that will pay the price.  Paying for an ad might be more of a goodwill gesture by a business at the start, since we won’t have much traffic.  It will at least give a business something in return for contributing to us.

3.  Find a Sponsor for Everything We Do

I mean everything.  I will look into getting a sponsor for homecoming t-shirts, date auctions or whatever other ideas we come up with.  I want to spend as little of our own money as possible and I’m going to try my hardest to spend zero of it.

As we get closer to the beginning of the semester, things will begin to take shape.  By then, the web site should be complete and I will have hopefully heard from businesses regarding donations and advertising.  At that point, I’ll be able to judge how successful these tactics are going to be for the coming year.

Have ideas?  Drop me an email or leave a comment.

Guess who’s back?

I’ve scrapped my earlier plans of taking a course on campus at IUP in favor of taking an online class and coming home early.  Not only does this mean I get to enjoy nightly volleyball, I also get to start work immediately on my various projects.  I’ll get to start posting more heavily for WebpageFX and I’ll also get to work on (re)launching Be of Service.  Even more, I’ll get to roam about Harrisburg, eat sushi with cool people, Tweet-up with my fellow Central PA Twitterfolk and write more about this area.

Sweet.

By the way, is anyone looking to hit up Blogworld in September?  Las Vegas?  Let me know.

For my Major American Authors course (ENGL 436), our final exam format is this: we’ve been given a sheet with five questions on it and told to choose three. Today at 2:45 PM, we will walk into the classroom, sit down and write the answers. On top of that, we are allowed to use one page of notes and the actual books we’ll be writing about. Why was this not a take home exam?!

I could have this done already.  I could walk in today, hand it in and leave.  It would be so much easier.

On top of that, I also have a paper due tomorrow for the same class.  This paper was not anywhere to be found on the syllabus but made a surprise showing at the end of the semester.  It’s kind of like a large woman who’s pregnant but you can’t really tell, and then one day WHOA, she’s carrying a baby.  I also have to finish my story for Bible as Lit (an apocalyptic thriller, I’ll post it when I’m done) and also find some pictures for the rest of my scripture-folio.

I’ll end with this awesome paper I wish I could turn in.

In my first encounter with Google Notebook, I’ve compiled a list of links for almost all the plays we’ve covered in class.  There are also some of the time periods and genres thrown in for good measure.  The links all point to a plot summary of some kind, so you can do what I’m going to do and give them all one more lookover before the test.

Without further ado, the glorious link to ENGL 217 final exam nirvana.

So, I’m thinking tonight I’ll be pulling an all-nighter.

I want to get a quick update in here before I start researching and writing my first blog post for WebPageFX.  I got an email from the big cheese there asking me to write about a specific topic (social networking for traditional businesses), so there’s a sneak peek at what to look forward to.  It’ll actually be nice to get that written and posted since it’ll get me on payroll for the week.  Keep an eye out for that post to be published sometime tomorrow.

Now, to answer the question you’ve probably had since you started reading this post - why will this weekend own my soul?  I’m booked SOLID.  I have to write a paper for African American literature.  Unfortunately, my weekend is also jammed full of Alpha Phi Omega activities (a fundraising project, walkout, Relay for Life and the initiation of our pledges).  Next week I’ll get a bit of a breather (four days) until I have another final.  Not sure how my schedule worked out that way, it just did.

I hit the $10 mark on CashCrate for the month, which is sweet.  Next month I’ll get a check for whatever amount I end up making by April 30.  Right now it’s at $10.25.  Pretty cool for not really doing much.

I’m still trying to figure out what to do with a lot of the web property I’ve staked my claim to.  I suppose this summer I’ll have more time to figure that out, but I really feel like I’m neglecting a lot of sites I was really excited about when I first launched them.  I’m thinking I might just do complete relaunches and keep myself on a schedule to juggle them all - maybe two or three posts a week for each.  We’ll see.

Okay, I should get started on paid work! :-P  Until next time, keep your tech glasses on.

Hmm… not quite what I had in mind.  Summer is fast approaching, though, so I think it’s probably a good idea that I get things figured out as soon as possible.

I’ve already decided I’ll be hanging out here in Indiana a bit longer than I should; May 12-May 30, so I can take some LBST class about Iraq.  At the least, it’ll make my Fall semester much easier.  After that, though, things start to become foggy.  I’d like to go on at least one trip this summer, that is for sure.  At the same time, I need the money to fund such a trip.

Enter job!  One of the perks of this blog is that people can find me pretty easily.  One of my former employers (one of the sweetest jobs I’ve ever had) came across my site and asked me if I’d be interested in doing more work.  Fo ’sho.  Well, maybe.  If I can’t get placed in an easy job that pays better this summer, I’ll take it.  I should be okay on that front.  I only plan on working from June 1 til August 1, though, so whoever hires me needs to respect my authoritah.

What about my spare time?  Well, I’ve recently applied to intern for a small NYC start-up that has launched a service similar to Last.FM.  So we’ll see where that goes.  I also plan to (re)start a little project of my own.  Last semester I created Be of Service, which was going to be a blog about community service.  I’ve since decided to relaunch the site with a different focus - to organize service projects in the Harrisburg area and get interest volunteers in the area to help out.  I’ve submitted the idea to ideablob to see if it catches on, but who knows ;).  Vote for me if you want.

I’m leaving the month of August (until the 21st or 22nd, when I’ll be forced to return to IUP) for relaxing and vacationing.  If anyone has any suggestions, I’m open to them!  I’m now going to return to apartment cleaning and Last.FM-listening.  Have a great night.

To do what? In this case, remove a registration hold on my university account. The hold was placed there due to a parking ticket I’ve since paid, but yet the hold remains. Why it is still there is a mystery of epic proportions; why it takes 24 hours for it to vanish is even more mind-boggling. Call me a cynic, but “It will take 24 hours for the hold to be taken off” sounds a lot like “We’re going to give ourselves 24 hours to take your hold off because we want to flex what little muscle we have here in the Parking Services Office.”

We’re in a digital age, people. While much of the university is still a slow moving bureaucracy, the ticketing and registration systems are both ELECTRONIC. How hard is it to go in and remove someone’s hold immediately when they come pay their ticket? It’s a process that would probably take ten seconds, yet the person working at the desk just throws your money into the cash drawer and returns to doing absolutely nothing. Not even a call in afterwards will do any good. I can’t even bust on a student worker in this case - it was a campus police officer who both accepted my payment and answered the phone when I called later. I feel as though I have a right to complain in this case, because for as many tickets as I’ve paid, I’ve probably staffed at least one full time officer. True story.

I paid my fine off at 7:21am this morning. I’ll keep you updated as to when they actually remove the hold.