Student Activities Blogs

Miguel Almodovar

NACA Nation 2008

From November 6th through the 9th I went to NACA (National Association for Campus Activities) Regional, which is like the National conference, which I wrote about last year, only with schools from the Northeast instead of from the whole country. It’s a smaller convention with about 80 schools represented but because of its smaller size there are a lot of extra events that go on. Like the National convention, it is non-stop from early morning to late at night so I think the best way to write about my experiences there is to go day by day.

Thursday November 6th:

This was the day we arrived at the Hartford Convention Center, as fellow SUBOG’ers Sandi, Amanda, Brian C. and I walked into the lobby of the Marriott we were greeted by the cheers of Caroline and Laura. They were being as loud and enthusiastic as possible since the theme was NACA Nation, like Red Sox Nation. They were so loud in fact that the hotel asked them to stop cheering. The rest of that day was devoted to getting oriented to the conference, this was important because only Brian M. and I had been to NACA before so it was fun for me to see the first timers excitement at all the cool things NACA had in store for them. We also went to our first showcase, where we saw some pretty cool musicians and the first of what seemed like a hundred jugglers. But the highlight of the day was the first Marketplace, having seen two other Marketplaces I knew what to expect. Although I was excited to see all the new stuff vendors had for us. My anticipation was nothing compared to the new NACA’ers; they had no idea what it was going to be like and were definitely surprised when they saw just how big it was. We all had fun there but Amanda made out with the most free things. It seems that being the Concert Chair of UConn means that bands will give you anything to try and get you to book them.

After all the craziness of the Marketplace and showcases we were tired but we couldn’t go to bed just yet, we had to practice for our “Excellence in Programming” presentation. We were scheduled to present the next morning at 10 so we had to be ready. In retrospect it would have been better to practice before leaving for the conference, that way we could get a good night’s rest before we presented. We didn’t though, so we stayed up until about 2am trying to get the presentation down.

Us at the opening banquet all decked out in our UConn gear

Friday November 7th:

Friday morning was rough - we were all tired, but we got to our presentation all of us alert and ready. I was nervous because we had won “Excellence in Programming” last year and I didn’t know how hard it was going to be to win it two years in a row. I think we presented really well. We even had a short skit in the beginning where Brian M. pitched me a baseball and I pretended to hit it, then he said “Wow Miguel you really knocked that program out of the park!” It was really corny but we thought it was funny. The rest of the presentations were good but I wasn’t too worried about them until the last group, Bridgewater State College went. They were so good and I knew that we had found our competition. Later on I talked with one of the Bridgewater State students and found out they had been practicing for weeks before NACA, so next year we’ll have to do the same.

That night we went out to dinner at Agave (a Mexican restaurant in downtown Hartford.) It was a fun place and the best part was they had football playing on a big screen right next to the table so I could watch football and eat Mexican food - it was fantastic! We had to leave there pretty quickly though because Caroline, Sandi, and I had to go back and set up for School Swap. This was so much fun and as an added bonus my parents stopped by and dropped off my winter coat, since our School Swap booth theme was Dog Sled racing. So, I got to see my family and my little puppy, Sofie! She was so surprised to see me since I haven’t been home in so long, she sprinted over to me and then rolled on her back so I could pet her belly.

School Swap is where schools get a chance to trade their extra gimmicks for other schools’ extra gimmicks. There are no rules about what can be traded for what, but T-Shirts are like gold there. Depending on how smooth a negotiator you are, you can clear out half a table for a couple T-Shirts. School Swap is kind of a madhouse, with everyone running up and down the aisles trying to get as much stuff as they can. It’s one of my favorite NACA Regional events because you get to see all the promotional gimmicks other schools have used and then decide which ones would work at UConn. Afterwards we went up to the hotel and divided up the gimmicks; it took quite a while given how many we had.

Saturday November 8th:

This is us at the closing banquet; we’re lifting up
Adam because he just won the M. Kevin Fahey Award!

This was the last day of NACA (so sad), but that didn’t mean it was any less jam packed than the other two. For me the weekend had been building to this point, because this was the day Liz Green (G.A. for Student Activities) and I were going to present our own Educational Session called “Becoming a Feedback Fan!” It was the first ed. session of the day and as the students filed into their seats they looked pretty worn out, but they were there which meant they were interested in what we had to say. The presentation went well, they were a bit shy at first but soon they were engaged and interacting with us a lot. We asked them why feedback was important, what they could learn from feedback, and then asked them to design a feedback system for their organization. The time flew by and we had to cut short some of last activities we had planned. All-in-all I think they enjoyed the presentation and I think most of them got something out of it. I’m not sure how many of them will go back to their schools and set up a feedback system like SUBOG has but if they go back and bring up feedback to their organization then our presentation was a success.

The rest of the day is a bit of blur, there were so many showcases that I only remember what each act was like from the notes I took during their performance. I was in the Marketplace so much that I had talked to almost every vendor - some of them two or three times. I continued to find ways to have fun though. Brian C. and I played on the inflatable wrecking ball for a while, I rode the mechanical bull with Sandi (she stayed on the longest of any girl at the conference), and then came the closing banquet. While it was sad to see another NACA go by it was a bit of a relief as well. We were all so tired from the intensity of NACA and were ready to go back to UConn and rest.