Reactivating Collegiate Chapter

[nafmeadmin]

The NAfME chapter at my school is being reactivated, so we are starting fresh with nominations, ideas, events, planning, etc. I was wondering if anybody has ideas about what we can do to get started or if anybody would like to share some successful things that have been done in other Collegiate NAfME chapters. I have a few things in mind, but I would like some input.
Thanks!

[nafmeadmin]

I’m an officer at my school’s fairly large chapter, so I may have a little bit of input.
One thing we do is at the beginning of every Fall and near the end of the Spring, we host a cookout for anyone involved with music at the school. It’s a getting-to-know-you event that gets the entire student body involved and comfortable around each other. It usually gets a pretty high showing, because honestly, who’s going to turn down free food, and it’s usually a lot of fun. It puts our organization in good regard with the student body.
Another (less fun) thing we do is have each of our 5 officers take a list of students, and become an “adviser” to these students- we keep checks on them, remind them about upcoming meetings, remind them to register, encourage them to go to conference. We are their direct link to the organization. It makes everything more personal.
At our meetings, we often invite guest speakers from the area to give lectures. Local music teachers are more often than not very excited to come in and talk to future teachers, and I highly recommend taking advantage of that resource. It draws in people, and often leaves them with a lot more information than what they’re likely to get in their classes.
Those are just a few things that we do over at Kent State, I hope they helped out.

[nafmeadmin]

Hello!!!
I have been the advisor for Michigan State’s chapter and am currently starting as the advisor to U of New Mexico – in both these situations, I was in the position to add a little fuel to the fire for the chapter. Things that I found to be helpful….
1. Get your executive board in place – President, Secretary, Treasurer, and a VP acting as social media. Also important to the board is making sure all areas are represented – band, choir, orchestra, piano/guitar, general music, and whatever other specialities in music education that your school offers. These can be named officers or officers at large.
2. Get the word out! Advertise in whatever what you have available to you – Paper, Bulletin boards, Event TVs, Social Media – whatever you have around you – let it be known!
3. One of the best opening events- is a social mixer, a music ed rally. Invite all the music ed majors and faculty – buy some food that you pass out for free – invite some of the faculty and students to speak and have a great time!
4. From there, you want to balance your events with music, professional development, and fundraisers. Invite speakers, but also have jam sessions. Raise some funds – but make sure those funds are being put to good use. This is a money in, money out organization. Money that you raise should be used!
5. Find and follow other collegiate NAfME groups on both twitter and facebook. You can get great ideas for events by seeing what other groups are doing! This is a list of the C-NAfME groups that I know of on twitter. https://twitter.com/robingiebes/nafme-collegiate/members
Good luck to your chapter! Let me know if you have other questions!

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