I spent about six hours on Thursday wearing a green foam Statue of Liberty hat. Because I have no shame, that's why.
I am an officer of one of more than 100 student groups that set up shop in the HUB-Robeson Center last week
in an effort to attract new members. The hat was a gimmick.
While manning a table for hours on end I learned a few lessons: recruitment is a tough business, bribes really can work and people who care deeply about their involvements are a lot of fun.
Each table had a tactic. Mine quickly became catching people as they walked by, as our blue "SPJ" sign (for Society of Professional Journalists) wasn't exactly drawing crowds.
My spiel went something like this: "Do you read newspapers or watch the news on TV? Of course you do. Well, are you are at all interested in journalism? No? Well that's OK, thanks for your time. Have a great day." Mine is a niche organization, so I couldn't expect everyone to have an interest. But, as someone from a neighboring table said, after the initial 20 rejections, it doesn't hurt anymore.
A handful of people signed up for my group's listserv. A few people took brochures for their friends or roommates. Some just took our fliers to make us feel better, but I didn't mind because we have plenty of extras.
My neighboring tables, Project Haiti and Alpha Phi Omega co-ed fraternity, are both service organizations. Each had very different tactics, and both got more e-mail list signups than my group. The Project Haiti folks sat quietly and let a descriptive poster and photos do the talking. A-Phi-O, as members call it, had brochures, a photo album, a colorful banner, candy and a crew of well-dressed, very outgoing members.
The service fraternity had a great opening line for people: "Are you interested in helping the community?" A near-impossible question to say "No" to, yet some of them were still told in non-printable language to bug off.
Hearing such rejections at an event designed for shameless recruitment, I could only imagine how difficult it must be to hand out fliers or man tables on the HUB's bustling first floor.
Some of the more successful groups gave out candy. But New Life Christian Student Fellowship took it a step further, giving out s'mores. Members had hooked up a toaster oven and they circled the room advertising the free goodies. Many volunteers from other student groups, when not dining on HUB grub (it was a good day for the eateries), stopped by to snag a s'more.
The Penn State Anime/Manga Organization started taping dollar bills to the floor with fliers attached to them. As I said, bribes and gimmicks can work. I had thought that sitting at the involvement fair all day was going to be a horribly dull experience. To my surprise, it turned out to be a lot of fun. One compatriot called those of us who stayed the entire time "six-hour warriors."
We got to meet our table "neighbors." We heard OutKast's "Hey Ya" almost one too many times from one group's speakers. We referred people to other tables if they seemed interested in a club whose members we had met.
We worked together because we were all in the same boat, and we had a lot of fun. Maybe that fun was increased by the sugar high from all the candy we munched, and perhaps it was punctuated by the ever-amusing Penn State Monty Python Society's regular re-enactments of favorite scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Picture two students galloping with coconut shells through Alumni Hall and it's hard not to laugh.
If you didn't make it to the Involvement Fair, you missed a good opportunity to meet cool clubs with energized members.
And even if you snubbed our booths, we still had a great time promoting the organizations we care about.
