How Things Are Run

By Jay Warnick

Fifteen women and eight men sit scattered around an obscure conference room on the second floor of the Taylor building. All students, no teachers are present and things run smoothly. The meeting starts with an A Capella rendition of “Come, Come Ye Saints,” followed by a prayer and spiritual thought.

Becca, a young looking girl stands up and presents a spiritual thought about spiritual gifts, she asks what gifts we think we have and what ones we would like to have and what ones we would like to develop. She continues by saying that God has given us all spiritual gifts to serve one another and that we should develop our talents to help each other progress in life.

What are these young leaders gathered for? This is just the beginning of the weekly meeting that the Talent Activities Council holds each Wednesday evening. These dedicated individuals gather and discuss the progress that each event is making or has made over the semester.

Kelly and Becca (the girl who gave the thought) report on the event they managed last weekend: Grand Piano’s live. They review how well the event went, the good things that happened and the things that could have probably gone better. They implored the other managers present to focus on communication with other groups involved, like events management, who help with lights and sound.

These weekly meetings are not only to check up on each event but to train these student leaders to become better, and more efficient at what they do. They focus on what a good leader is and the qualities that they have and try to internalize them.
The next show that is happening is Acoustic Café. The manager of this event tried a new way of advertising this show to the student population. Instead of “chasing down people with fliers,” they wrote on clothes pins and randomly pinned them to student’s backpacks. When discovered the person learned about the time and place of Acoustic Café, and then was prompted to pass it on. Clever ideas such as this are spawned at meetings like this one.

Like a well oiled machine the group moves from topic, to topic, then to other concerns about the upcoming shows, like how much room should be provided for audience members to bring bean bags, and blankets to Acoustic Café.

Almost entirely student run, Talent activities is a model on how leaders progress, and set the standard for how student organizations should run.