UGA HEROs Date Auction

Hi,

Today I'm going to talk about an event that my UGA HEROs committee is putting on. As a member of the Executive Council for UGA HEROs, I have the responsibility of holding weekly meetings with the 23 individuals that make up my committee (Greek Affairs). At said meetings, our team plans out special fundraising events to generate donations towards UGA HEROs, which is a student-run organization that works to improve the quality of life of the 12,000 children affected by HIV/AIDS in the state of Georgia through mentoring programs (sorry for the run-on sentence).

Anyway, back to the original topic. The Greek Affairs committee will be hosting a date auction tonight (Oct. 25, 2010) at a bar downtown called Last Call, from 8-10:30 p.m. Representatives from nearly every fraternity and sorority at UGA will be present, as well as varsity athletes from several different teams and other campus celebrities. Attendees of the auction will have the opportunity to "buy" the people who are being put up for auction. This usually just means that friends show up to "buy" each other so the creepy guy in the corner doesn't get an opportunity to make a move. (Disclaimer: there actually won't be any creepy guys in any corners).

In past years, the date auction has made up to $10,000 for HEROs, so there are high expectations in reference to organizing and marketing the event well. My committee has secured a professional m.c. and a dj for the auction, and Last Call will be having great drink specials for those of age attending. Thus far, the planning that has gone into the auction has been executed quite smoothly and in a timely fashion. Each of my committee members were given the responsibility of getting a representative from their respective fraternity or sorority for the auction, as well as an additional athlete or other campus celebrity. My co-chair and I gathered all of the materials required for an auction, including bidding cards, sign-in sheets, biography cards for those being auctioned to fill in and promotional materials to be given away at Last Call to people in the crowd.

I am very excited to see all of the people there tonight, as it will certainly be a big crowd. Below is a link to the facebook page for the auction:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/LastCallAthens

Here are some pictures of the layout of Last Call:


The stage and entrance to the bar^


A view of the bar in its entirety^


A view of the bar from up on the stage,
where everyone will be auctioned off^

A "Fratty" PR Perspective

Hello all,

Welcome back to my memoir (of sorts), thanks for visiting.
Today I'd like to discuss the means in which public relations can be applied for the betterment of the Greek system at the University of Georgia. This may sound boring and a little too formal for the average blog reader, but I'll go ahead and write this anyways.

Firstly, I'd like to recognize the fact that the Greek system, especially in regards to fraternities, is undergoing immense should I say...structural...changes. In general, I believe that the public views fraternities in a negative light, in that when someone mentions a "FRAT," images of crazy parties, binge drinking and intense hazing come to mind. What most people are not aware of is that the Grade Point Average amongst Greek students is much higher than non-Greeks at the University of Georgia and the pledgeship processes that new members must complete to attain brotherly statuses are structured and delivered to build the character and enhance the skill sets of these men.

However, the UGA adminsitration has begun to capitalize on this negative public viewpoint and has taken measures in the last few years to slowly grind the Greek (specifically, fraternity) system down into one that is more organized, docile and under the authority of the university to be shut down at any time. To support this claim, I will point to the fraternity houses kicked off of their prime locations along Lumpkin Street and reinstated in newer houses in the "Greek Park," but with university employees living and watching the brothers there. There have also been a number of instances in the past few years in which several fraternities have been caught for very minor infractions and punished to a grater severity than the "forbidden" actions called for.

So, with this scenario in mind and being a public relations major, I propose some ideas to help improve the images of the fraternities here at the University of Georgia and thus increase public support of the Greek system overall. With this change in perspective, the UGA administration will (hopefully) encounter more resistance to the ludicrous mandates for restructuring that it has been giving several fraternities in the past few years.

Firstly, I think that fraternities can utilize the local media to their advantage. Whenever these organizations participate in philanthropic events (which they do, as every chapter at UGA hosts philanthropic events at least once a year. E.G. 65% of UGA HEROs' fundraising comes from the Greek system), they should contact the local newspaper (Red & Black, Flagpole, Banner Herald) or television station (WNEG). This is an easy and effective means of spreading positive news about Greek life.

Another way to increase the public's good will is to apply for the awards that the University grants to student organizations on campus such as the Organization of The Year award or the Best Event Award. These awards mean a lot to the students who are involved in different clubs at UGA and if a fraternity were to win one, it would cast a very positive light on that organization.

If one were to get really serious about this subject, they could conduct focus groups to see what the general perception of Greek life amongst students at UGA is and what students thought fraternities could do to improve their images. Surveys could accomplish similar goals.

This is certainly an idealistic and perhaps unrealistic idea, but if a coalition of all of the fraternity presidents were to form, apart from the university-created IFC (Interfraternity Council), agree to approach the administration as a group and demand (or negotiate) that the university stop trying to, for a lack of a better word, domesticate the Greek system, there would be a lot of potential for at least some measures of success, which would be better than recent efforts to negotiate with UGA administration.

I apologize if this post seems a bit biased as it certainly is, considering I am myself in a fraternity. However, the issue I am discussing is very important to me and to the rest of the Greek community, I am sure.

Guess that's all I've got today.

Ryan

A lesson learned living in The Big City as a PR intern

Hello everyone. I never thought that I'd wind up becoming another blogger out there projecting my stories and opinions out to the universe, but voila! here I am. I'll christen Monahan's Memoir with a piece about my experience working and living in New York City as a PR and publicity intern in the communications department of the Bravo cable channel. So here goes, enjoy.

I have always known that I've wanted to live and work in New York City. I never thought I'd do so working for a cable channel primarily viewed by women and gay men. Before I knew it, I was living in a Marymount Manhattan College dorm with three other guys I had never met before. Two days after moving in, I started my internship at 3o Rockefeller Plaza, headquarters of General Electric and home to many of NBC Universal's cable channels.

My internship was eye-opening in so many ways. I learned how press releases were made, how to format and release press clips to the higher-ups of an organization like NBC, how publicists interact with their celebrity clientele and what the behind-the-curtain activities of celebrity interviews are like. While these are only a few of the many PR tools that my internship equipped me with, the coolest part by far was meeting the people. I'm not just referring to the popular TV icons that are affiliated with Bravo (if you are a girl and are reading this, yes, I did meet many of the Housewives and yes, they are pretty crazy) but also to the people that I worked with on a daily basis- the coordinators, publicists, directors and SVPs of Bravo Communications, Production and Development. Working with these people has not only taught me that public relations is far more than the constantly-evolving interaction between an organization and its key publics but also from whence the skills that make a PR practitioner a true master develop.

This monumental discovery seems pretty simplistic when laid out on a blog, but really hit home for me. After a few weeks of working in an environment that was extremely fast-paced and where multi-tasking was a necessity for survival, I came to realize that the basis of public relations is founded upon interpersonal communication. I was given a crash-course in crisis management on every level, whether it consisted of trying to fix the damned copier to print out a favorable article in People while striving to send out clips that were due 15 minutes before or observing a Bravo publicist manage the PR nightmares that were Teresa Giudice's bankruptcy scandal or Danielle Staub's sex tape release. After witnessing and experiencing these trials of communication, I became more aware of the fact that the manner in which a person interacts with their peers will carry over to the competency of that person to develop and maintain the relationships between organizations and target audiences that are essential to true public relations success.

While you may feel inclined to compare my observation to the intellectual capacity of one made by the Buddha or the Dalai Lama, I implore you, your praise is unneeded. I just hope that it makes as much sense to you as it does to me. To conclude the story of my summer in a very brief manner, it was the most fun I have ever had working as hard as I ever have and I intend to continue to explore and develop my skills in the amazing profession which is Public Relations.

Until next time,

Ryan.