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Suggestions for increasing club membership

Well, this started as a post to suggest that we update our club photo, but I decided I'd leave it open to other suggestions on how we can bring attention and new members to our club. Here are the suggestions I can think of at the moment.

-- Post info. about our club and our club activities in more places around campus.
-- Get the "computer help" project underway.
-- Possibly get involved with the UST websites or other computer related things (if we can).
-- Try to find speakers/activities that focus on computer science in combination with other fields (eg. computer science as it applies to marketing or engineering).

That's all I've got for now, everyone feel free to add to this list as well. The more attention we can bring to our club, the better (generally).

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oreo_masta's picture

My $0.02

Submitted by oreo_masta on Wed, 11/15/2006 - 03:42.

A photographer from the yearbook will be at our Thanksgiving club meeting to take our photo. I asked for a copy of that photo and I'm sure it'll serve as a nice updated photo for the website. It's coming :)

In response to a few of your suggestions...

"-- Post info. about our club and our club activities in more places around campus."

  • I know Dr. Heltne has us in the QMCS brochure now which gets handed to prospective students, which I think is a great start.
  • We have a club poster hanging by OSS 429. This needs to be updated to reflect our new club name, the club website, and slap the ust.csclub@gmail.com email address on there. Then it should be reprinted and placed in a more prominent location in OSS.
  • Do we want to set up a banner in MHC in January announcing the club for Spring semester?
  • I would like to create an appointed position for Publicity Director or something. As you all may have noticed I'm fairly last minute and "too little too late" when it comes to getting the word out to the general public regarding the club.

"-- Get the "computer help" project underway."

  • Some sort of project outline needs to be created first. It needs to have a tight definition before we commit ourselves to it.
  • I'm sure we can use the Open Source Lab space. I'd imagine the service could be an extension of the OSL.
  • I talked to a friend of mine (staff) in IRT and he thinks it's a great idea. IRT would like something like that seeing that Geek Squad has left campus and they really don't have any place to refer students. He said that ultimately, even if they do sign a waiver, the first time we screw up IRT will be blamed. People would make that association... regardless of what we tell them. Even if it's just because IRT referred them to us.
  • Also, there's the question of supervision. For something like this to get approved I'm guessing it would mandate faculty/staff supervision. I don't know if QMCS staff are up to that (nor should they be).
  • The success of this idea all depends on the scope of the proposal. I would say that if we do it... we should not try to involve referrals from IRT in any way.

"-- Possibly get involved with the UST websites or other computer related things (if we can)."

  • Why not get involved with the CS Club website? It can vary from simply being set up with "contributor" permissions in Drupal all the way to Unix admin experience with the webserver.
  • I work for Web and Media Services and I can say that the experience I've gained through working with csclub.stthomas.edu has been far more valuable than experience on the main UST site.
  • I don't know why we'd need to look outside the club for this. csclub.stthomas.edu will host all software development projects brought to us. It can be a great place for web development experience. We have hardware to play with in the OSL as well (or can request hardware). I think we have most of the main veins of computer science covered... and if you have some unique interest the OSS 429 space can be adjusted to accommodate that.
  • Dealing with outside organizations (or entities of UST) is more work than it's worth if you ask me. Why not focus on the club itself?

"-- Try to find speakers/activities that focus on computer science in combination with other fields (eg. computer science as it applies to marketing or engineering)."

  • I try to keep my eyes open for speakers and we've responded to all speakers that have contacted us. I like this idea.
  • Does anyone have a good starting point to springboard for these cross-disciplinary types of speakers?

Cheers!

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john's picture

Right.

Submitted by john on Wed, 11/15/2006 - 10:19.

I concur.

There is a need for someone to be PR/marketing person. They would get help from other members, and could get the word out early. Let's discuss if the position is to be an "officer" at the meeting. But anybody can help with publicity, that would be very welcome.

I'd like us to do a banner. Maybe even so big we have to do it by hand. Perhaps for the next big LAN.

Before the computer help project gets going (this thing so needs a name) we will need some kind of agreement people will sign beforehand. The idea is that although we try our best we are not liable for any damages. The usual standard disclaimer.

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PiTiger's picture

Reply: My $0.02

Submitted by PiTiger on Wed, 11/15/2006 - 16:39.

Well, first of all, I agree with some of your points and I see that you've already looked into a few of these things further than I knew. I also understand that some of the suggestions are beyond the scope of what we could do this year. However, I think it's a good idea to at least leave our ideas on the table so people can think about them.

Anyway, here are a few more comments/responses:

"Post info. about our club and our club activities in more places around campus."

  • You make some good points, and after thinking about it for a while, there seems to be little more we could do on this point.

"Get the "computer help" project underway."

  • I agree that it is probebly best to stay separate from IRT unless they ask to be connected to us in some way. The only problem is that it will be hard to get our name out there (which, ironically, we don't have yet). I can also see how the need for supervision could be a problem. Ultimately, I think it's something we should try to pin down more completely in our meetings.

"Possibly get involved with the UST websites or other computer related things (if we can)."

  • What I meant by this suggestion was that we might want to consider getting our club more closely associated with the university's websites, etc. This could bring attention not only to our club but to the department as well (which I think we all know could use more incoming students). IMO, we could become a useful recruitment tool for the department if we can come up with some clever ways to advertise ourselves to potental incoming students.

"Try to find speakers/activities that focus on computer science in combination with other fields (eg. computer science as it applies to marketing or engineering)."

  • Do we have any/many QMCS profs. that also work in other departments as well? I know Prof. Sturm works in QMCS and ENGR. Perhaps if we talk with some cross-department teachers about it we could get a few ideas. I really have no idea how successful this would be, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
  • I'm also not sure how many CS related groups there are in the Twin Cities, but perhaps there are some ways we could get more involved with some of them (again to get our names out there). They may also make good potential speakers.

Perhaps it is a good idea to appoint a Publicity Director or something. It may also be worth while to try to set up a meeting between the club and the QMCS administration so we can brainstorm more ways to encourage interest in the QMCS dept.

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