Special Projects

My name is Matthew Ciuros and I am the director for Special Projects 2010-2011. I have been very privileged to serve the 2010-2011 term and have had the opportunity to see Special Project’s events make an impact amongst the Auburn community. My assistant directors, Erica Martin and Kaitie Gallahue, and I have delved into planning through the whole year. We set standards and responsibilities for our committee and tried to make sure that our committee members were working efficiently. We would like to encourage and welcome people to interview for the opportunity to serve for Special Projects.

As council members, we set deadlines for when things need to get done. We make a list of possible events and then  call representatives/ agents from outside resources to discuss costs, availability, and expectations for events. With these details we are able to narrow down the list of possible events and formulate the final list of events for UPC’s Special Projects.

After we know which events we are going to coordinate, we had to budget the events efficiently. After we meet the deadline for assembling a complete budget for the events, we had to be ready to coordinate the actual planning details. These deadlines for event preparation extend from April to the very last week. We have recognized that the opportunity of being selected as the leaders for our program, Special Projects, is demanding, however, we have enjoyed and been grateful for the opportunity to help foster the ideals creativity and imagination to the Auburn Community.

War Eagle!

Matt Ciuros, Director Special Projects

 

Speakers And Comedians

I meet with a graduate assistant and president once a week and discuss our goals for the coming week. I also meet with my committee members once a week and we also work on our goals. We are responsible for booking artists, which requires pricing, contacting the agents, filling out paper working involving event information and technical productions. On the day of events, I am in charge of coordinating arrival artists, announcing them at the event, crowd control, and making sure the event is an overall success.

Miranda Dollarhide, Director of Speaker and Comedians.

Volunteers

I am the Volunteers Director for UPC and my responsibilities are to plan block party during welcome week, work on the committee member application, set up the committee member interviews and choose the committee members for the upcoming year, we plan the committee member retreat and keep committee member retention. Obviously, you can see a pattern, my main responsibility is the committee members. Here is a little more detail on my responsibilities:

Block party is a great way to publicize UPC and get upcoming freshman and current students involved with UPC. We have member applications set out during this event as well during other events. Once we have all the applications, my assistants and I set up the schedule for interviews. After the interview process, we carefully select the members for each committee. Now we plan the committee retreat. It is a day long retreat and it has to be scheduled with team building exercises and fun activities. Once all of this is over, it is up to the director of each committee to keep their members in the loop. I then plan fun dinners and activities for the committee members and council to keep retention.

Sarah Early, Director of Volunteers

Public Relations

Public relations is a support committee that does a lot of behind the scenes work. We are responsible for putting the weekly announcements in this week @ AU as well as the plainsman. We make a monthly newsletter and are in charge of this blog. One of the things PR is more known for is hospitality. We set up green rooms for all the artists we bring in and make sure they have everything they need. As a director you have weekly meetings with the UPC president and adviser as well as the weekly council meeting on Monday. Public Relations isn’t as well recognized as other committees, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Alex Le, Director of Public Relations

Fine Arts

As fine arts director, I am in charge of overseeing the planning of events such as open mic night, dinner and dancing, arts and crafts day, painting on the plains, and various other events. As director, I am responsible for committee emails, planning the meetings, and given responsibilities to each assistant director. Also, as the director, you make decisions about ordering decorations, planning catering, and making sure every small detail of your event runs smoothly.

Glendinning Johnston, Director of Fine Arts

Tiger Nights

I am responsible for planning Auburn’s late-night programming event known as Tiger Nights. This event normally happens once per semester and features inflatable games, a main stage entertainment, and free food. Since this is such a large event logistics and planning starts a semester beforehand, as director you are in charge of delegating tasks to your assistants and getting committee involved.

-Anne Smead, Director of Tiger Nights

Films

As UPC Films Director, my assistant directors and I are in charge of planning and organizing the various film events that we have for Auburn students. While these duties can vary depending on the type of event, there are some basic things that we have to do for all events. First of all we decide what we want to show. We decide this based on what movies are popular or what we think that students would like to see. Then we determine what kind of event it will be. Sometimes we simply play the movies in the Haley Center, sometimes we have outdoor movies, and sometimes we do special events like Dinner and a Movie or a Drive-In movie. Then we organize everything to make sure that the event will go as smoothly as possible. This can include buying decorations, arranging for catering, reserving rooms for the films to be shown etc. As the event draws nearer we collaborate with Publicity to make sure that students are hearing about the event. Once the actual event arrives we make sure everything runs smoothly with our committee, ensuring that all our planning has paid off. Those are the basic duties of the UPC Films Director and it has been a great experience learning how to tackle these duties.

-Wilson Smith, Director of Films