Sandspur Goals Freshman

Because the Sandspur has no more issues this year, I want to now focus on the freshman class. I am going to be a peer mentor next year and my class subject is essentially about the history of writing. We go from Oral speech, to books, to Ipads. Well along with the campus media tours I will be doing for my class, I will speak to explorations about requiring a tour for all classes. This is to get their foot in the door and know that RTV, the Sandspur and WPRK do exist. Also when I was a freshman the class had an assignment each week where we have to read a newspaper and write a response or reflection to an article. We will be continuing this assignment and I will advocate that the students should use the Sandspur to get their articles from. This will at least make my students read the sandspur, after that I can encourage them to write for the sandspur and get them extra credit. Hopefully at least one or two of them will like the writing experience and continue to write for it.

College Media and Convergence

This was a very important reading in terms of the success of our college media. Convergence sums up what this class was meant to be, a meeting place for RTV. The Sandspur, and WPRK. It is promotes synergy between all three organizations. The average kid at Rollins wants to do whatever the next guy is doing. Most students are just trying to find their place and become “cool”. If campus media can unite and become a part of this campus instead of being almost invisible to the student body we can recruit bigger numbers and produce a better product. We do this by really making an impact in the fall and recruiting freshman. If we come out strong next semester and prove campus media’s relevance, purpose and benefits. We can grab many freshman before they become jaded like the average student.

VICNEt Reading 4.23

This article is about the different roles the internet plays in “community”. The internet is one of the biggest innovations man has created. The internet can establish a local community as well as connect one globally; these communities can be affected socially or economically. The author begins this article talking about his frequent “travels” to Australia through the internet. The internet provides a way for learning about different places and cultures like the author did, and it also can be used to meet new people. The internet can also be used to create new products as well selling products. VICNET created an online community that with its affordable access to computer networking. This gives the Victorian citizens a voice and further promotes the “community” feeling.

Sandspur & the Winter Park Day Nursery.

I just wrote an article in the Sandspur about my experiences with the Winter Park Day Nursery. The article stands as a public service announcement for students to go out and volunteer. Hopefully it will be printed in the Sandspur so I can bring it to the day nursery and complete half of my community outreach project. In this article I was giving my personal testimony about last semester’s events with. In this article I was giving my personal testimony about last semester’s events with WPDN. It is giving a student’s perspective on volunteering and it’s about how I bonded with the staff and the children of the Winter Park Day Nursery. It is giving a student’s perspective on volunteering and it’s about how I bonded with the staff and the children of the Winter Park Day Nursery. This is an article I am not writing as a requirement for the week, I wrote it to hopefully do some good for my friends at the Winter Park Day Nursery.

Outreaching to a community near you!! (Reading)

This week’s reading was about Community Outreach. The article points out 7 strategies for media to build customer loyalty and establish a brand within your community. This is very important in gaining consistent readership for the Sandspur and Consistent viewership for WPRK and RTV. All of these strategies seem simple enough and I have also seen these strategies used by different media outlets. When my group brainstorms and makes a plan on how we will outreach to the community this article will be used in thinking of ideas. I like the ideas of sponsoring a Community event and helping a charity because these things will get the community more involved with the Sandspur, RTV and WPRK

Outreaching to a community near you!! (Sandspur)

The next project we are working on is Community Outreach. This article we read had 7 different strategies to do this. These were all good strategies, but I saw two that I can actually do pretty easily. Since my Media Peace and Justice Course I have kept in contact with the Winter Park Day Nursery, this is a charitable organization. Because I go there often I can write an article about WPDN, and then bring a copy over to them. With the copy of the sandspur, they can then keep it next to their volunteer sign -up sheets and volunteers from the community will see the sandspur. This is doing things; it is putting more content in the sandspur, but is also beginning my community Outreach project.

Postman to Streetfeat

The article I read for today’s class talked about more of the role of the newspaper. The article began discussing “The Coast’s” attack on a profile in “The National Post”. A quote that really stood out to me was, “The paper is not a charity. It is a social and economic enterprise which generates income from both Sales and advertising. This is very true in my opinion. In another class, I am learning about propaganda. Neil Postman theorized that the news is now entertainment. Because of things like television and radio, news could now travel faster, but also travel more in a more entertaining way. Because of this, television, radio, and the newspaper all compete for ratings. The news that is distributed is handpicked more for entertainment value, not as much for relevance necessity. In the Sandspur we must find the balance between entertainment, and relevance. If we do not, then the paper will not be very successful. In conclusion, the Sandspur is not a charity, but we are always accepting donations!

Ol' Sandspur

This week I finished my article in the Sandspur, about Austen’s Café. Now I am working towards another article. On Friday I went to the alumni lunch and met many alumni from FSL Life and also from campus media, mainly WPRK. Throughout alumni weekend I was talking to many FSL alumni, mainly TKE’s. On Saturday we hosted a pig roast for TKE alumni, out behind the fraternity house and had a great turnout. I sat at a table with some guys and they were all swapping stories of the past, sharing past experiences with each other. I began to take notes on my phone, of the great stories shared. I would really like to write an article in the Sandspur encompassing these stories, and alumni weekend in general. I believe this would be a great way to cover a small aspect of alumni weekend and also fraternity life. I know the brothers in my chapter will pick up the issue this is in, and also it could be an interesting read for other people as well. This week I will brainstorm more story ideas and submit the alumni story on Friday for the paper. I also want to start getting the FSL profiles together for the paper so we can start doing that.

Volunteer Management Practices and Retention"

“We conducted telephone interviews with volunteer administrators or executive managers in most of these charities, asking them about their volunteer activities and management practices, and the challenges and benefits that volunteers bring to their operations. We learned that four out of five charities use volunteers in their activities, either in service to others or in helping to run the organization.” This is very important in terms of retention when recruiting for any organization. When you recruit the hardest part is to keep the volunteers interested and active. In order to do this you must find a balance in how much work you delegate to each volunteer. The hard part about this you can’t give the volunteer to less to do or there will become disinterested in the organization because they will not be pushed enough to care about it. On the other hand if you were to give the volunteer to much work, they may become overwhelmed and get out of the organization as soon as possible. Overall this reading was about the retention of volunteers. It displayed many case studies and examples to how volunteers can or should be used. “Charities that use volunteers to recruit other volunteers have higher retention rates. Having volunteers represent the charity implies trust, evidence of a positive organizational culture, and confidence that the charity provides a worthwhile experience for volunteers.” This is another great point made by this article. It makes sense to have your most engaging volunteers to recruit more volunteers. When potential members or volunteers see current volunteers really happy and excited about something it makes sense that they are more likely to join. I believe the Sandspur can use these tips to gain more retention. With higher retention of volunteers, there will be more regular writers so that it is a competition to be on the Sandspur.

Sandspur/WPRK/RTV Synergy

On Thursday's I have a hip hop radio show on WPRK, it is the most fun thing i do all week. Last week and this week i have put forth an effort to combine my radio show, the Sandspur, and RTV. I have a hip hop themed show; its focus is to play more underground hip hop, local talent and non-mainstream request. On Monday’s I go to Austen’s café, which regularly is a hipster type café but on Mondays it is totally different. On Mondays, Madd Illz the founder of Grind Time hosts a hip hop night. The theme of this night is to display local hip hop artist/fans/DJs through performances, or even just through freestyles. This place is really like a live version of my radio show, just with not as good of music. Since I am already involved with the Sandspur I thought it would be a great idea to write an article talking about Austen’s café and my experience there. This is a great story for the sandspur because it is a Rollins student’s account of a local coffee shop. Also I spoke to Tomas about doing a film a piece on Austen’s, thus completing the WPRK/Sandspur/RTV synergy.

Facebook is trending, Social Media is culture!

This week we had to read some articles for class. The “Just Facebook Me” article by Lori Brooks was very interesting and basically has been saying what I have been saying to my friends. Social media is here to stay. Although you can believe Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc, are trends, that may be true but Social media isn’t a trend, it is now a culture. Also when the author says "That’s what’s wrong with the newspaper industry [Newspaper} haven’t adapted to changing ways of communicating.” I believe this was true up until this year. I am now seeing this. Before, I believe the news industry tried to first adapt to the internet by creating a website, which was fine. But once online chatting became a trend, news websites began to lose some purpose and social media was born. Now trends later the big social media sites are Facebook and twitter. It now finally seems that newspapers and news shows are not just creating more interesting websites, but now creating profiles on all social media sites. This article stuck with me because it only enforces my campus outreach plan. The social media blast, well more of Facebook blast. If we have everybody in class start posting about one of the campus media outlets at the same time it will trend on Facebook, giving these sites more relevance. Also right now I believe in order to bring the sandspur back; we have to prove its relevance to the campus. I believe that we can start with Facebook.

Week 2/27 Update

This week I have been doing more work with WPRK and the Sandspur, I am also now a DJ for the WPRK on Thursdays. With the sandspur I was added to the ‘Sandspurians” group on Facebook. I will be contributing to the next issue after spring break. I hope to become a regular for the sandspur. Also I sent out the mass campus media email to all of the presidents of the student lead organizations. My group is also moving in the direction of campus outreach. Today in class we will propose our plans for this project. I hope we can accomplish synergy with the whole class and they will do the virtual tabling idea. I believe this can be a really helpful tactic in getting more students involved. Also I will be going up to Austen’s café yet again to get more local talent involved with WPRK and Thomas had the idea of shooting a feature about Austen’s café, for RTV, I’m sure they won’t mind the free publicity, so tonight I will try to get him to come up with me.

As far as recruitment goes, this past week I have talked to some groups interested in maybe writing for the Sandspur. This week I want to attend the Sandspur’s meeting about writing topics and find what they need fulfilled. Tomorrow I am going into the office of community engagement to get a contact list for all of the clubs presidents. Greek week is this week so this is a good time to talk to all of the Fraternities and Sororities about contributing to the Sandspur. A little off topic but last week I took on the position of Hip Hop Director for WPRK and it has been fantastic. I have been talking to local talent and even just today received a CD from one of my favorite new artist, ASAP Rocky. This week I intend on visiting Austen’s Coffee shop during Monday Night Raw to search for more local talent deserving of radio play.

Weekly Update! 2/13

One of my personal goals for the semester is to have a movie and or sports column. I am a huge movie fan, always on different websites reading or watching trailers. I am also a huge Basketball fan, and I believe I can cover the biggest national games of the week. Next week, I am going into an IFC (Fraternity Council) meeting and I will encourage all of the Fraternities to have their PR chair write something about their own fraternity, maybe highlighting events, or highlighting values. We could feature a different FSL group each week, because it’s good publicity for them and they would at least read the issue they are featured in. This will do the hardest part for newspaper; it will get the paper in their hands. Later this week I am going into the sandspur’s office to meet with them and see what they want me to do so I can coordinate my ideas with them, I am not trying to reinvent the wheel, just improve the mechanics. Once we all meet I can get a more concrete goal, with deadlines.

Sandspur Goals

Sandspur Goals

My first goal for the Sandspur is to gain more readers. I want the Sandspur to be the Rollins primary source for events, politics, movies, restaurants, etc. I think the Sandspurs website could have a lot more viewers if it were more publicized and more modern. I believe the Sandspurs website could be the alternative to instead of college kids now go on Barstool sports, worst previews and many other website, to see funny videos, read reviews on movie or just web surf, the Sandspur/ RTV’s websites can do this. When talking about the print edition of the Sandspur I would like to involve the students more with the creation of their paper. I believe we can turn the Sandspur into more of a community. My vision is to bring in the writers to write about community related things. So students can web surf, or read the times and learn about worldly and national issues, but the Sandspur would be a reflection of Rollins and the Winter Park community. Would should have people cover different restaurants, have a movie reviewer and even a sports guy. I did the newspaper in high schools, id actually love to cover the national sport and movie related topics. E could have athletes writing about games, theater kids writing about theater, etc. I believe with the recruitment plan if we can get more people on board and keep them their, then we could turn the Sandspur around.