Ask the One With The Rose.....
Ever since I was a freshman experiencing my first ever UC Homecoming parade and football game, I’d looked up to the Women of CWEST. Cincinnati Women in Excellence and Spirit Together (CWEST) is the highest women’s spirit honorary at the University of Cincinnati, and it offers membership to undergraduate women who demonstrate leadership, scholarship, spirit, and sincerity. These women are confident, influential, considerate, and humble all at the same time, and I much admired them for all my time at UC. It was for these reasons that I was overwhelmingly excited that they came to band rehearsal on October 6th, 2016 to tap me into the Sisterhood. I’ve absolutely loved my time with CWEST, and it was fitting that I ended my time with the group by taking a leading role in our major combined initiative, the METRO/CWEST Talent Show.
The Talent Show is an annual event hosted by the Men of METRO and the Women of CWEST with all proceeds going towards the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Cincinnati. I served on a team with our VP and President of CWEST, as well as the Talent Show Chair for METRO and their President and VP. We collaborated weekly, starting in late January/early February, to plan for a well-attended event. After holding the event, there’s much to reflect on and note so future events can be more successful.
We started off our weekly meetings fairly well, successfully establishing a delegation of tasks among our team. I really enjoyed this process because we relied on our knowledge of our Sisters and Brothers to divide up tasks based on the strengths of each member. For instance, we delegated our social media tasks to our members that major within DAAP. I found it to be a really unique ability to work more efficiently as a team because we knew our team members on a very advanced level due to the nature of our organizations, which is an ability I wish were had in every group dynamic. I felt very confident at this point that our event would be a success, but as we drew closer to event time, I started to notice major flaws.
Primarily, we struggled most in our advertisement of the event. We focused mainly on the preparation (i.e. working with the BGCGC, gathering judges, and gathering donations) that we didn’t advertise the event itself to the university until it was almost too late. Very few people seemed to know about auditions, leading us to only have 3 acts at the end of the day (we normally perform with 10 acts) with only a few weeks until the event. We had to come together as a team to figure out ways to reach out to all of the student groups on campus to send us any acts they’d be willing to provide. It was hard for me to understand why we couldn’t get the interest this year, knowing how good of a cause this is, but I had to realize that not everyone is in the same mindset as me and that was an eye opener to spread awareness more effectively.
Ever since I was a freshman experiencing my first ever UC Homecoming parade and football game, I’d looked up to the Women of CWEST. Cincinnati Women in Excellence and Spirit Together (CWEST) is the highest women’s spirit honorary at the University of Cincinnati, and it offers membership to undergraduate women who demonstrate leadership, scholarship, spirit, and sincerity. These women are confident, influential, considerate, and humble all at the same time, and I much admired them for all my time at UC. It was for these reasons that I was overwhelmingly excited that they came to band rehearsal on October 6th, 2016 to tap me into the Sisterhood. I’ve absolutely loved my time with CWEST, and it was fitting that I ended my time with the group by taking a leading role in our major combined initiative, the METRO/CWEST Talent Show.
The Talent Show is an annual event hosted by the Men of METRO and the Women of CWEST with all proceeds going towards the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Cincinnati. I served on a team with our VP and President of CWEST, as well as the Talent Show Chair for METRO and their President and VP. We collaborated weekly, starting in late January/early February, to plan for a well-attended event. After holding the event, there’s much to reflect on and note so future events can be more successful.
We started off our weekly meetings fairly well, successfully establishing a delegation of tasks among our team. I really enjoyed this process because we relied on our knowledge of our Sisters and Brothers to divide up tasks based on the strengths of each member. For instance, we delegated our social media tasks to our members that major within DAAP. I found it to be a really unique ability to work more efficiently as a team because we knew our team members on a very advanced level due to the nature of our organizations, which is an ability I wish were had in every group dynamic. I felt very confident at this point that our event would be a success, but as we drew closer to event time, I started to notice major flaws.
Primarily, we struggled most in our advertisement of the event. We focused mainly on the preparation (i.e. working with the BGCGC, gathering judges, and gathering donations) that we didn’t advertise the event itself to the university until it was almost too late. Very few people seemed to know about auditions, leading us to only have 3 acts at the end of the day (we normally perform with 10 acts) with only a few weeks until the event. We had to come together as a team to figure out ways to reach out to all of the student groups on campus to send us any acts they’d be willing to provide. It was hard for me to understand why we couldn’t get the interest this year, knowing how good of a cause this is, but I had to realize that not everyone is in the same mindset as me and that was an eye opener to spread awareness more effectively.
We managed to gather a few more acts, but still were four short from the standard set. In addition, we had very low attendance, especially noticeable considering we switched our venue to Great Hall. Although this seems like a poor outcome, I couldn’t argue more for the opposite. The kids at the BGCGC came, ate pizza with us, and had an absolutely amazing time at the university. Many of our Sisters reported back that they made great connections with the kids, and heard countless times that all of the kids wanted to keep coming back. Personally, my highest priority was on the wellbeing of the kids with the Club. I’ve found throughout my entire time with CWEST that our greatest ability as young leaders is to inspire others and serve as positive role models. It was an absolute joy to bring happiness to kids who have very little in their lives, and I am so happy to have had a leading role in a young person’s happiness, even if it was just for one night. I personally fell short on many of the goals I set for myself, including going to freshmen LCs to invite more freshmen students. If I could do it over, I’d spend more time on this aspect of the project, being more willing to delegate other tasks to other members of the group so I could better use my passion to help others. Regardless, I still had an absolutely amazing time at the event and still feel continually blessed to be a Woman of CWEST.