Meetings and Activities
Hosting strong meetings and successful events fulfills the mission of the Collegiate Ambassador Program by giving every member a foundation for academic and professional advancement. Combine engaging mixers with valuable content to keep members engaged, connected, and committed to your chapter.
Mixers
Click here for more information about how to integrate mixers with content in your meeting schedule.
Food
- Finger food and sparkling cider
- Potluck
- Movie night: popcorn and candy
- Tell Mom You’re Eating Healthy night: fruit and veggies
- Crock Pot Soups
- Commodity Spotlight: highlight beef/corn/apples/local commodity
- Farm to Table night: as a chapter, harvest, prepare, and cook a meal
Traditions
- Recognize outstanding members
- Highlight industry news stories
- Share news from other chapters
- Highlight career opportunities or internship openings
Prizes
- Get swag donated from the Cultivating Change Foundation, local businesses, or your college of agriculture
Activities
- Iconic Duos: Assign everyone one half of a famous duo. People move around the room talking with people until they find their other half.
- Guess Who: Everyone writes a fun fact on a piece of paper. The fun facts are drawn out of a hat. Everyone guesses which person matches each fact.
- Fun Fact Bingo: members submit a fun fact about themselves in advance. These facts are assembled onto a bingo board. Members mingle, attempting to match facts with people. The first person to complete a row or column on the bingo board wins.
- Bag of Nouns
ContenT
The following ideas can be used as part of chapter meetings or as stand-alone events to engage the campus community. Check out the Agenda and Scheduling Toolkit for more information about how to build a schedule of events that invests in your chapter and community.
1. Foundations
- Explore the mission and activity of the Cultivating Change Foundation.
- Create a chapter mission statement.
- Build personal and chapter definitions of “inclusion”.
- Personal foundations: personality test; time management; life balance; campus resources like diversity programs, counseling services, tutoring, etc.
- Skill building: peer edit résumés and cover letters; go over interview tips and practice interviews with each other
2. Community
- Invite chapter members to share their experiences as LGBTQ+ agriculturalists at a meeting.
- Fundraising opportunity: Grill hamburgers made from beef from the university farm at a central location on campus. Give away invitations to your next meeting/ info sheets about your chapter/ “did you know?” facts about agriculture with every burger sold.
- Partner with a minority club, like MANRRS, to host an event.
- Film a video featuring supportive students, faculty, and staff sharing how they’re cultivating change on campus.
- Host a campus wide discussion by encouraging passers-by to complete a sentence on a giant chalkboard. Prompts could include “Diversity matters because…” or “I am thankful for agriculture because…”
- Bring a petting zoo to campus—partner with the university farm, local farmers, or even the local Humane Society.
- Give away finals week stress relief kits with snacks, #2 pencils, worry stones, and invitations to your next meeting/ info sheets about your chapter/ “did you know?” facts about agriculture.
- Coffee & Questions: Give away coffee in the morning on campus and answer questions about the role of LGBTQ+ people in agriculture. Prompt discussion with a question on a chalkboard.
- Fundraising opportunity: Sell homemade baked goods on campus with info sheets about how and where the ingredients are grown and harvested.
3. Industry Engagement
For more information about how to build industry and community partnerships, click here.
- Invite a community or industry partner to be a guest speaker
- Donate labor to the university farm or another local farm
- Major exploration: discuss industry opportunities connected with different majors; brainstorm unique ways students in each major could cultivate change
- Tour local farms or agribusinesses