Society: How to Organise Freshers' Fair

Freshers' Fair takes lots of organising. It takes place in Exam Schools, at the end of Fresher's Week. The final day is Re-Freshers Fair, where we get a second (or third, or fourth) chance to entice current students to the society.

Here's what needs to be done:

In Trinity Term/In the Holidays

• It needs to be booked, and a table paid for.
  • We traditionally have a debate about whether to save money and get just one table, but we always seem to decide on two, to have more space for shiny things.
• The table is normally booked by the outgoing committee, at the end of Trinity Term.
• You can also apply to do a performance.
  • This is really cool, and in 2008 Veronica managed to get this organised for the first time ever (or at least as long as Ferny can remember). We should definitely try to book these again.
  • Ask for the performance time to be later than 11 (otherwise no-one will be there to see it).
  • In 2008, we did a show fight between two people, whilst everyone else held the crowds at bay and handed out leaflets. We also did some free fighting, and talked a bit about the society.

In the Holidays/Start of Fresher's Week

• A rota needs to be drawn up.
  • Two people man the desk at a time, with two shifts a day.
• A leaflet/flier/termcard needs to be made (see attached files, below), and lots of copies printed.
  • There is free printing in St Johns and Zoology, if the society has access to either of these colleges.
• Pieces of paper need to be organised for people to sign their names down.
  • Expect between 100 and 300 people to sign up.
• You'll also need a pen for people to sign their names with.
  • If you forget a pen, you can nick them from other stalls.
  • As an alternative to paper and pen, you can provide a laptop with a word/excel/appropriatesoftware spreadsheet so the freshers can sign their own names on and save the committee (or volunteers) typing them all up later. The catch is that sometime you're not near a plug. In this case, you must provide your own power source, so two laptops with long battery life would be needed, with a switch over at lunch time, and then recharge them both each night.
• Making a banner is a good idea.
  • Veronica has the banner from 2008 (white background, our name & the snakes in green).
  • There's another red banner with the Wychwood Snakes on somewhere, but it's probably not wide enough

The Day Before

• The day before the fair opens, you can go and set up the stall.
• The table needs to be decorated.
  • In 2008 we covered it with a flokati, then covered that with weapons and helmets.
  • In 2008 the front had shields resting on it. This looks cool.
• Banners can be held up by an h-frame made of bamboo.
  • You'll need a banner, 3 bits of bamboo (or more if they're short), gaffer tape and scissors.
• Alternatively, you could gaffer tape spears to the table legs (vertically) and suspend the banner between them.
• You get given your badges on this day.
  • Make sure you get them to one of the people who'll be manning the stall the next morning.
• If you've booked a performance, make sure you find the first aid kit and have it available for the start of Freshers Fair.

During the Fair

• If you're working there, you enter the Fair though the back door of Exam Schools (where people leave their finals).
• You need to have a badge to get in the door.
• Make sure everyone has their phones with them, to sort out hand-overs of badges at lunchtime!
• You're not allowed any food or drink except water. Don't forget to bring water.
• Make sure freshers print their name/college/email legibly, or else they might not get contacted.
  • One way around this is to make Freshers write their names, colleges AND email. This way you get all the info twice. It's still not readable, sometimes…