comm update!

Hello everyone!

Hope you are all enjoying this lovely month of Movember and the wonderful staches that are a-growin'! Here is a little update from the Communications office!

This weekend Wylder and I attended COCA East and Nova Scotia Music Week (NSMW) in Liverpool, NS. For those of you who missed my post about COCA in the summer, COCA stands for the Canadian Organization of Campus Activities. It is an organization that The U is a member of, and it provides opportunities for collaboration, block-booking and professional development for its members. We attended COCA National in Montreal in June, and this weekend at COCA East we were able to meet with all the Atlantic member schools. We paired these meetings with Nova Scotia Music Week where we attended as Buyers so that we could have the added value of attending showcases and developing relationships with artists and managers! 

The weekend was great  - on Friday and Saturday we attended "5-minute pitch sessions" in which artists had 5 mins to pitch why we should book them for shows. This was great because we were able to see a lot of artists in a short-period of time. Following these sessions we moved into meetings with COCA East. We touched on a lot of topics including recaps of our respective Frosh Weeks (what worked, what didn't work), year-long communication strategy, upcoming small-scale programming, Frost Week plans and block-booking opportunities for second semester. Talking with the others schools is what is most beneficial about these conferences - the discussions we have about what worked and didn't work is a great learning experience and something we can take back to our schools. As well, block-booking can greatly reduce our costs when it comes to bringing in artists for away as we usually get a deal on travel costs. Overall, lots of great discussions were had and I learned a lot!

In the evenings we attended showcases of different artists. I was very excited to see Willie Stratton showcase which gave us a taste for his show this Saturday at The Inn - let me tell you, HE IS UNREAL. You do not want to miss this show! We also attended a songwriters circle and are currently working with a few other East Coast schools to coordinate a songwriter circle for second semester! We'll update you on this project as it progresses! There is a lot of amazing talent in Nova Scotia, and it was great to be a part of the weekend!

Other projects I've been working on have been updates to theu.ca - over the summer we upgraded from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 with the new design of the website. Unfortunately during this upgrade a few glitches have occurred with the site. It has been a long process but I FINALLY have almost all executive and sub-executives, councillors and senators up in the people section of theu.ca. There is still a few adjustments and updates to be made, but hopefully this will help a bit with people trying to find contact information. As well, the fall office hours for the executive have been posted in their profiles! I will be working over the next two weeks to get the office hours for all councillors and sub-executive posted as well, so that this information is easier for students to find!

This post is already quite lengthy so I'll save the discussion of Movember for another day. For now, be sure to like our Facebook page to stay up to date on the campaign! See you all The Inn this Friday for Vilify (GOING TO BE SO GOOD - she's the coolest person I've ever met)

To Infinity and Beyond,

Kaleigh