Those of us who facilitate students activities know that a
lot goes into brainstorming, planning, advertising/executing, and evaluating our
programs. We can spend days, weeks and sometimes even months going through the
process. Though these more sophisticated programs are a blast to plan and
execute, simple programs that require very little planning can also be
favorites and successes.
One of the things our office does to supplement our
programming calendar is to coordinate monthly Random Days of Fun such as
International Talk Like a Pirate Day (just for fun), Bubble Wrap Appreciation
Day (a great stress reliever), and Licorice Day (accompanied with the history),
just to name a few. These activities occur in the college center just outside
our office. We table for two hours, handing out items and using the theme of
the day to interact with our students. The days go largely unpublicized and
tend to grab the students by surprise – making it random fun!
Last year was our first time implementing these Random Days
of Fun. One gained so much popularity it has become the kick off to this year’s
RDF series. September 19th will mark our 2nd annual
International Talk like a Pirate Day celebration. Therefore,
we gunna once again celebrate by spendin' a pair o’ hours handin' out temporary
tattoos, eye patches, chocolate coins 'n other scurvy pirate booty. Additionally,
we gunna take pictures 'o students wit' scurvy pirate apparel.
Days like these have been very successful due to the buy in
from our colleagues. Administrators like our Vice President and our Director of
Residence Life get in the spirit by going by their Pirate Names http://www.froggynet.com/cgi-bin/pirate.cgi
for the day.
I encourage others to consider adding Random Days of Fun to your programming
calendar. Get started with International Talk like a Pirate Day http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html.
For more ideas, visit http://www.brownielocks.com/
