NACURH Blog, Day 7: The Moment
Let me talk about the spirit award for a second. The spirit award for a conference, to me, is really the ultimate recognition. Depending on the conference the criteria can include:
-Unification of delegation: are they dressing the same, or have same costumes, etc. This can also include unified cheering.
-Including other delegations: in things like cheers, or greeting folks.
-Being helpful: helping with volunteer staff or other delegations, the more your delegation gives support the better it is.
-Participation in events: things like roll call, banner, display, etc. where you can show off your creative talents.
-Bidding: submitting a conference bid shows that you're looking to recognize others in your region.
-Philanthropy: there's always some type of project or service opportunity for delegations to be involved in.
-Programming: you can get points for submitting programs and get points if your program reaches the top 10/15/40.
-Random Events: there are some moments where a delegation just does something super unique and cool that it's difficult not to give them credit.
-Refraining from Rudeness: whether it's not swearing or doing an inappropriate cheer.
So, a lot of criteria. And, here's the kicker...regardless of the skill or ability or experience of your delegation, everyone's eligible. It's kinda like, everyone's on fair ground for this award. You don't need to be a fantastic bid writer, or know some cosmic secrets for what gets the best display.
You need to show up, be positive, have fun, work together, and be nice to others.
It's the ultimate teamwork award. It's the ultimate school spirit and pride award. To me it shows the conference staff that you're trying to make the most of all they have to offer.
I've always been impressed (and envious) of the schools that win the award. They're always happy. They're always excited. And they always have a really cool delegation theme that seems to beautifully tie in the conference theme as well as cause everyone to go: "what do I need to trade for that?"
In the 12 conferences I attended at UW Oshkosh as a student, we never won the spirit award. And each time, I swear we got closer. I do remember once I think there was a committee to vote on the award and my friend Scott was on it...the announced that we 'lost' by one and Scott tried to argue it...I think we lost more points.
So then I head to Arizona State. And as the RHA Advisor I bored to death the NCC Justin Davenport. The poor kid. Our meeting was a three hour meeting. I think he stopped taking notes after the first hour.
For my first conference at Arizona State, IACURH at BYU, I talked up the spirit award ridiculously. And shared war stories of previous conference where we were close but not close enough. The delegates really got into it. The apparrel was nuts. We had all these cheers planned. We got striped socks. It was non-stop.
I'm appreciative of what these delegates tried. They didn't do it for me, they did it for themselves. Only 6 of them had ever been to a conference before. But they were excited. And when we arrived, we had one of the best times ever!
I remember thinking, the night before the last day, that even if we didn't win the spirit award, we did something pretty cool. We brought a bunch of inexperienced people together, from a fairly large campus, and learned to respect the rules of the university and the conference, trying to bring out the best in others and ourselves.
There's that moment of contentedness which freezes in time. It's not that you don't want life to continue. It's not that the rest of life is not the best. It's that you're really happy with what's been done. You just want to take it in, soak it in, appreciate it all for just the space and atmosphere.
Tonight was a lot like that. So was Friday and Saturday. You just wanted to take a snapshot of over 2000 students hanging out in your home gym and cheering. You just wanted to listen to the noise. Watch the costumes. The bulk of this conference is over...we're all kind of lingering around in this strange afterglow of 360 days of work compacted into 5 days of craziness.
It's like an Oscars post-party.
I remember sitting at the IACURH 2000 awards ceremony. They decided to present the spirit award first. All of a sudden, ASU won it. They earned it. I cried. The elusive spirit award. Being recognized for being a good team involved with all that you can do with the conference. And it was there for the students who tried so hard.
pb
-Unification of delegation: are they dressing the same, or have same costumes, etc. This can also include unified cheering.
-Including other delegations: in things like cheers, or greeting folks.
-Being helpful: helping with volunteer staff or other delegations, the more your delegation gives support the better it is.
-Participation in events: things like roll call, banner, display, etc. where you can show off your creative talents.
-Bidding: submitting a conference bid shows that you're looking to recognize others in your region.
-Philanthropy: there's always some type of project or service opportunity for delegations to be involved in.
-Programming: you can get points for submitting programs and get points if your program reaches the top 10/15/40.
-Random Events: there are some moments where a delegation just does something super unique and cool that it's difficult not to give them credit.
-Refraining from Rudeness: whether it's not swearing or doing an inappropriate cheer.
So, a lot of criteria. And, here's the kicker...regardless of the skill or ability or experience of your delegation, everyone's eligible. It's kinda like, everyone's on fair ground for this award. You don't need to be a fantastic bid writer, or know some cosmic secrets for what gets the best display.
You need to show up, be positive, have fun, work together, and be nice to others.
It's the ultimate teamwork award. It's the ultimate school spirit and pride award. To me it shows the conference staff that you're trying to make the most of all they have to offer.
I've always been impressed (and envious) of the schools that win the award. They're always happy. They're always excited. And they always have a really cool delegation theme that seems to beautifully tie in the conference theme as well as cause everyone to go: "what do I need to trade for that?"
In the 12 conferences I attended at UW Oshkosh as a student, we never won the spirit award. And each time, I swear we got closer. I do remember once I think there was a committee to vote on the award and my friend Scott was on it...the announced that we 'lost' by one and Scott tried to argue it...I think we lost more points.
So then I head to Arizona State. And as the RHA Advisor I bored to death the NCC Justin Davenport. The poor kid. Our meeting was a three hour meeting. I think he stopped taking notes after the first hour.
For my first conference at Arizona State, IACURH at BYU, I talked up the spirit award ridiculously. And shared war stories of previous conference where we were close but not close enough. The delegates really got into it. The apparrel was nuts. We had all these cheers planned. We got striped socks. It was non-stop.
I'm appreciative of what these delegates tried. They didn't do it for me, they did it for themselves. Only 6 of them had ever been to a conference before. But they were excited. And when we arrived, we had one of the best times ever!
I remember thinking, the night before the last day, that even if we didn't win the spirit award, we did something pretty cool. We brought a bunch of inexperienced people together, from a fairly large campus, and learned to respect the rules of the university and the conference, trying to bring out the best in others and ourselves.
There's that moment of contentedness which freezes in time. It's not that you don't want life to continue. It's not that the rest of life is not the best. It's that you're really happy with what's been done. You just want to take it in, soak it in, appreciate it all for just the space and atmosphere.
Tonight was a lot like that. So was Friday and Saturday. You just wanted to take a snapshot of over 2000 students hanging out in your home gym and cheering. You just wanted to listen to the noise. Watch the costumes. The bulk of this conference is over...we're all kind of lingering around in this strange afterglow of 360 days of work compacted into 5 days of craziness.
It's like an Oscars post-party.
I remember sitting at the IACURH 2000 awards ceremony. They decided to present the spirit award first. All of a sudden, ASU won it. They earned it. I cried. The elusive spirit award. Being recognized for being a good team involved with all that you can do with the conference. And it was there for the students who tried so hard.
pb
posted by Peter Brooks at 2:48 AM
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