Building your RHA Chapter from the Ground Up Melissa Turkington and M’Liss DeWald The Evergreen State College

Agenda   Purposing   Research   Institutional support   Advisor resources   Marketing campaign   Training   Other things to keep in mind

Assess Challenges of your Current Structure  Determine your purpose  Two phases of restructuring:  Institutional- what value does the institution place on your RHA?  Organizational- purposing exercises with the group

Do your Research  Foundational Documents  Draft or revise your constitution  GO Constitution GO Constitution GO Constitution  Glean from other RHA chapters other RHA chaptersother RHA chapters  Resources  What are they?  Space  Budget  Time and energy  Campus networking  Where is your support coming from?

Institutional Support  Administrative  Make sure your supervisor knows enough about what you do to support your needs  Budget  Where is your budget coming from? Student fees?  Know state laws around budgets  Know how to supplement your budget  How to break up your budget  Make friends with everyone involved with money handling!  Informational interviews  Ask lots of questions  Know their busy times

Advisor Resources Don’t re-invent the wheel 1.“Advice for Advisers”: your new best friend 2.Articles 1.The Wave/Soundings/Talking Stick 2.The Chronicle/Academic Publications 3.Theories 1.Leadership Development 2.Group Development 4.Network with other advisors

Get your Name Out BrandingLogo  Banners  Balloons  Co-sponsorship Marketing MarketingActive  Campaign (Canvas, Table, Mailboxes, Take-aways)  Host events (Greener Spirit Night)  Start at Orientation Passive  Facebook  Website  Agendas/minutes  s

Training  Train your Executive Board  Retreat – if you can’t retreat, do it somewhere on campus  Show retreat schedule

Training Schedule FRIDAY   Travel to location leave at 3pm?   2 hours   Hiring paperwork/contract (1 hour)   Go over hiring paper work and have them fill it out   Read the contract out loud and have them sign it   Team builder (1 hour)   Name game – with chickens   Amazon river and love turtle game   Ground rules and expectations for training (1 hour)   Set ground rules as a team   Give them advisors expectations   Put both of them on the wall   DINNER (1 hour)   Personality profile (30 min)   Success signals/true colors   How to communicate (based on profiles) (30 min)   Interpreting your style and working with the group   Read through GO Handbooks

Saturday   BREAKFAST (30 minutes)   Team Builder/Energizer (30 minutes)   Lumberjack ninja’s   Officer positional training (2 hours)   We go around individually train the officers on their positions   Set individual goals- share those goals with us in one on one’s or with the group   Set meeting time   Housing Arbitration Panel Training (30 minutes)   Go over HAP responsibilities and set meetings   Basic meeting protocols (30 min)   Run down of what meetings look like this year   Constitution (30 min)   LUNCH   Programming nuts and bolts (publicity, learning themes) (30 minutes)   Go over handouts and large scale programming   Attitude (FISH) (1 hour)   Recruitment and Motivation (1 hour)   Read article   Talk about the article   Activity   Group development and relational leadership (60-90 min)   DINNER   Storyboarding goal activity (2ish hours)   Mission statement   Post-it activity with goals   Step by step planning of activities   Night activities (it’s a secret, don’t tell anyone)

Training Schedule Sunday   Breakfast (30 min)   Assessing group dynamics activity (30 min)   Clean up and load car (30 min)   Wrap up (30 min)   Touch someone who…   Drive home (2 hours)

Other Things to Consider  Involve RAs  Continue training throughout the year  Create a 2-year plan  Schedule restructure times  Integrate other programs and groups

2 Year Plan Greener Organization 2-year Plan ( ) Goals   Affiliate with NACURH by Spring 2009   Create NHRR chapter by Winter 2010   50% active member retention by Fall 2009   Relative autonomy (Advisor does not make most of project/scheduling decisions)   Represent Evergreen at PACURH by Spring 2009   Initiate Of-The-Month Awards by Winter 2009   Absorb the HAP and Free Store by Winter 2009   Have a GO-centered marketing plan by Winter 2010   Attend PACURH, no-frills and NACURH by Spring 2010 Purpose, Duties of the Officers, Active Members’ Duties, Membership, Conferences, GO-Sponsored Councils, General Structure, and Meeting Structure

Questions?