Bob Fuhs

What To Do With Freshmen At A Cru Fall Retreat

It's been said that freshmen are the lifeblood of a campus movement.  I wholeheartedly believe that! Freshmen bring new life and excitement to your movement.  Freshmen are also very strategic in terms of building a movement that will reach the whole campus.  So, as a campus leader I did everything I could to do a better job year-after-year of reaching and involving freshmen.

One of the ways we did that was to pull together the freshmen for a meeting at our Fall Retreat each year.  We actually did what we called "class seminars" which were special meetings for students in each class. This helped to bond them as a class and it helped them see thier unique role in the movement.

Below is an article explaining what I did for that freshman time.  Feel free to copy it and send it along to anyone you think might find it helpful.

Fall Retreat Freshman Meeting Leader's Notes -

One Genius Fall Retreat Idea

Have the students bring snacks.

Seriously...I learned this when I spoke at a Fall Retreat for the University of Toledo a number of years ago. As students were registering, they each brought a snack item. Some brought a bag of chips, others brought cookies, some brought 2 liters of soda, etc... I learned from then Team Leader Nancy Bartolec that, part of the cost of coming to the retreat was to bring a snack item to share. So simple, so genius.

The previous year at our Fall Retreat, the camp foodservice was so miserable that we blew so much money trying to make up for it with various snack foods, so I was very excited to try something new.

And it worked great! It just wasn't a big deal for a student to pick up a bag of chips on their way to the camp and we had tons of great snacks all weekend. We asked a couple of students to serve as "snack wranglers" and set out some on Friday night and some on Saturday night to even things out.

I'm not sure why it worked out so well.  I guess that there's a principle in which people don't mind contributing in some way over and above the cost of the event.  But, it needs to be a small price and one they are willing to pay.  It can't be frustrating, like airlines charging for your bags. Bringing a snack is small and an easy way to contribute that really did keep the cost low for the retreat.