Small School? Small Budget? Small Problem!!

I spent four years at the State University of New York at Cobleskill in a village with less than 5000 people.  The college had around 2500 students of which approximately 500 are commuters. 

I know what it is like attending a small school in a small town.  In a small town you can have large turnouts to multiple events each week.  No you don’t have to reread that, I said we would get large turnouts and we would put on at least 2 events weekly.

Of course not all of our events turn out to be a hit, but you can’t let that get you down.  In a small campus environment with a minimal budget you have to learn to accept that some events aren’t going to draw the attendance you hoped for.

Now you might ask, how can I pack my schedule full of quality events without spending the entire clubs budget in the first month? 

Creativity and “homegrown” events have been the backbone of our activities board at SUNY Cobleskill.  Creating your own events such as game shows, and theme nights is a very affordable way to pack your schedule.  Put a lot of thought into your homegrown events, they won’t work if you throw them together at the last minute.

SUNY Cobleskill won a national award at the 2007 APCA Nationals in Atlanta Georgia for a homegrown event called “Big Man On Campus”.  This event was modeled after “The Apprentice”, and took many hours of just sitting down and talking out the details with other students, and our advisor.  I would say it was worth the time we put into it, we put on a quality event which won a national award, all for a fairly cheap price.

I would have to say one of our biggest budget saviors would have to be APCA, The Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities.  We get Most if not all of our stage shows from APCA.  For those of you who do not already know what APCA is, it is an organization that promotes quality yet affordable programming for campuses.

Don’t expect your numbers to jump up instantly, your activities board needs to build a reputation among your students.  Cheap promotion is another hurdle you may have to overcome before you have a successful calendar of events. 

With your budget you can’t exactly have sky writers promote your campuses events, so you have to come up with creative ways to get your name out there.  There are plenty of blogs out there that you can get cheap promotion ideas from

http://swiftkick.typepad.com/activities_affairs/marketing/index.html

It is not impossible to pack your house with whatever budget you have, you may just have to be a little more creative with the way you plan your events.