I have been traveling throughout the KC Metro area this week; after meeting with a few different people and organizations, I’ve come to a few realizations about the Rock the Hill Campaign. Here they are:

(1) Even though I would like to think that the Change Agents are Super Stars, we aren’t enough of a super star to change or completely influence a college campus to schedule or reschedule a large scale music concert that occurs in less than three months. What is more, those same institutions, that we will be asking to work with, most likely begin their first day of classes towards the end of August - cutting the preparation time down to approx. 1 month.

(2) This being realized, we will be revamping our campaign. We will enourage college/university campuses that already have an event planned (music, comedian, etc) in the two weeks prior to Sept 27th, to co-sponsor their event with Be the Change, Inc and Service Nation. With a co-sponsoring of the event, we will work with the college campus to create a Rock the Hill Campaign event week around their pre-planned event.

(3) If a campus does not currently have an event planned within a two week period before Sept 27th, then we will encourage and work with the college campus to hold an event on Sept 27th. As many student life directors, concert & lecture committees, etc require a large amount of preplanning to host a large scale event; we will work with those people and bands and musicians within their areas to produce an event on their campus that is both affordable and realistic in the amount of time to prepare with.

(4) Within the Rock the Hill Campaign, we will also be hosting a fourth aspect of the event. We will encourage college/university presidents to sign a seperate support of the Declaration of National Service. This is an idea taken directly from the Save the AmeriCorps campaign that occurred in the early 2000s. This aspect of the Rock the Hill Campaign will be administered by the National Committee of the Service Nation project.

As an update to the Rock the Hill Campaign, both Agent Wing and myself will be presenting the Rock the Hill Campaign to the entire Change Agent program this afternoon and are currently working on the resolution to be used by the student governments.

BOWINKLE

As un update to the Rock the Hill Campaign:

(1) If a city or town contains more than one higher educational institution, we will be asking the institutions within each city/town to co-sponor one single music concert. In this way, more money can be focused in on a more well known musical group and the opportunity to receive a more well known guest speaker greatly increases as well.

(2) For the guest speakers, we will be branching out beyond the typical politicians and civic leaders to also include (with luck and lots of work) tv stars from channels such as Disney, Nick, etc as well as potential movie actors and actresses.

(3) For the State of Missouri - we will also be holding a Rock the Hill Campaign at the High School level. The event will be in the form of a one hour assembly at as many high schools as possible throughout the state. (We are hoping for a 90% participation amung Missouri high schools!) The Rock the Hill Assembly will consists of two or more guest speakers, live music or fun activities (pie in the face, obstacle course, etc) and a presentation of the Declaration of National Service along with the opportunity to sign the declaration. 

(4) A massive facebook / myspace campaign to gather high schoolers and college students together to organize further day of action events accross the state and nation!

AS ALWAYS!!

We NEED VOLUNTEERS!!

Please email me at jbowmaster@bethechangeinc.org if you would like to get your school involved!

BOWINKLE

Well hello all!

As I am getting all of the Missouri (or Mizzourah if you are like me) Steering Committee members together, I want to keep the bloggers updated on our largest undertaking here in Missouri for Be the Change, Inc. and Service Nation.

As our Change Agent Academy continued through day after day of teachings and networks, Karl Wing (Change Agent Director for the state of Alaska) and myself began to hash out a plan that would involve as many students across the nation as possible in supporting the Day of Action and Service Nation in general. Agent Wing is the current student body President for the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Bothhe and I, having been actively involved in leadership positions on our two campuses, began to encompass a plan to work with colleges and universities acrossthe nation (and more importantly our individual states) to actively involve students with the Service Nation idea, collect signatures for our Declaration of National Service and create realistic events that could take place on September 27th’s Day of Action!

Here is what we came up with:

(1) Within each of the fifty states in the United States of America, we will be creating a list of all higher educational facilities (both public and private colleges and universities).

(2) Once this list is created, both Agent Wing and myself will research each college/university and collect the contact information for [a] the student government association [b] the student life director and [c] the director of community service.

(3) After this information is collected, Agent Wing and myself will compose letters targeting the specific goals of Service Nation to the three listed positions above. These letters will address three key components of what I am coining “Rock the Hill” and how these componets will relate to the positions listed above. Once these letters have been written, we will forward the letters to the other Change Agents accross the Nation to be delivered to the higher educational facilities within their states.

The three key componets of “Rock the Hill” are:

[a] Student Government Association - Each Student Government Association (SGA) will be contacted and a representiveof each SGA will be actively sought out to form a stronger relationship with(1:1) by the Change Agent within that state. Once that relationship is developed, the Change Agent will present the SGA representative with information overviewing Be the Change, Inc and Service Nation as well as a SGA Resolution that Agent Wing and myself will create. This resolution will incorporate the Declaration of National Service and the committment of students across the nation who support it. Each Change Agent will actively seek withtheir SGA Representatives to have the Resolution adopted by each individual SGA. With the passing of the Resolution in each SGA, that college’s/university’s name will be added to the Resolution itself and be presented to other higher educational facilities for approval by their SGAs. The Change Agent will aslo explain to the SGA Representative how he/she (the Change Agent) is activily seeking out and working on implementing the other two positions into a cohesive Day of Action event plan.  

[b] the student life director - Each student life director will be contacted by the Change Agent within their state. After a contact is made, the Change Agent will attempt to build a better relationship with the student life director (1:1). The Change Agent will aslo explain to the student life director how he/she (the Change Agent) is activilyseeking out and working on implementing the other two positions into a cohesive Day of Action event plan.  Once a relationship is built, the Change Agent will work with the student life director to organize a music concert to take place on their campus on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 for the Day of Action. Music concerts where chosen specifically for three main reasons. {1} Each campus accross the United States, reguraly hosts concerts, comedians, etc to entertain their student bodies and has a pre approved budget to sponsor those events. {2} Music concerts will be more likely to bring in a larger amount of students and people within the community than for example, a comedian or guest speaker. {3} Music concerts would hopefully draw a parallel between operation “Rock the Hill” and Al Gore’s Live Earth global music concerts. Once a concert is organziedfor the Day of Action, the Change Agent will actively seek out a compromise with the student life director that allows for members of the community (outside of the the college/university) to attend the concert and to include within the admission price (whether the event has an admission price or not) a signature of support for the Declaration of National Service, before gaining addmittanceto the concert. The Change Agent will remain in contact with each individual student life director throughout the planning and implimation of each concert.

[c] the director of community service - Each director of community service will be contacted by the Change Agent within their state. After a contact is made, the Change Agent will attempt to build a better relationship with the director of community service (1:1). The Change Agent will aslo explain to the director or community service how he/she (the Change Agent) is activilyseeking out and working on implementing the other two positions into a cohesive Day of Action event plan.  Once a relationship is built, the Change Agent will work with the director of community service to organize a community service/service learning event to take place on their campus on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 for the Day of Action. The Change Agent will have preorganized suggestions compiled by their individual steering committees, but will actively seek out the advice of each director of community service first.

(4) Once each contact has been made, Agent Wing and myself will actively help each change agent to our best abilities in organizing and communicating between differing states and campuses the problems and solutions that face each campuses “Rock the Hill”.

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