Whitman NSO        

IVCF staff at Whitman did various target events for freshmen, frosh and older students, and dorm based events. The freshmen events were a scavenger hunt, ultimate cabbage, and a first year overnighter with older students.  The dorm events were laser tag, scavenger hunt, and a taco truck event.

Pirates Vs. Ninjas Scavenger Hunt

• Audience: freshmen

• Description: Students were invited to dress like a pirate or ninja. We meet and divided up into teams based on costume. The groups were sent on a location based scavenger hunt around campus. At each site a student leader gave them their next clue after they completed the given assignment. All students returned to an ice cream feast. The event took 1. 5 hours including hang out time after words with ice-cream.

• Budget: $65

• What went well:

• Students did a fabulous job planning it, leading it, and advertising for it. The event was well attended—about 40 freshmen and 10 older students/leaders. The students that came had a lot of fun and leaders got to meet new students which paved the way to small group invitations.

• What we will do differently: We did not think through follow-up. We made the big mistake of not having students not fill out any sort of follow-up card. As the campus is small we still followed up with students we built relationships with but lost an opportunity to invite students that we didn’t get to know. Next year we need to think a lot more about follow up.

• We had very low turnout of fellowship members that aren’t leaders or freshmen.

Ultimate Cabbage and Popsicles

• Audience: freshmen

• Description: Ultimate Frisbee with cabbages. Popsicles were given out afterwards.  

• Budget: $20

• What went well: The signs students made were great. The idea was a fun one and drew students, mostly non-Christian students.

• What we will do differently:  Student leader buy-in was low which made invitations weak. We had it on a weekday. I think a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday would have been more effective. We did a pretty terrible job on follow-up. The team didn’t even advertise the event as affiliated with our fellowship.

First year Overnight

• Description: Chance for first-year student to get to know each other, staff, older students, and to gain vision for the year. We played lots of games, studied the mustard seed passage, and prayed together.

• Budget: $110

• What went well: We had a fairly decent turn-out with 10 freshmen and 7 older students attending. The students that came had a great time. I am still uncertain if we should have made it an overnight or just late into the night.

• What we will do differently: We had no freshmen guys come to this! This is partially because the 3 guys that have been the most involved were out of town with their sports programs. Major bummer. I also wonder if it sounded too much like a sleepover. We should also do a better job casting vision for it and inviting sooner in the year. Next year we should shoot for a goal of 15 freshmen.

Dorm based events:

Lyman Laser Tag:

• This was by far our most successful event. We borrowed laser tag guns from a local church that a student leader attends. The entire dorm got excited about the event through good invitations. It was also well planned and implemented.

Jewett Big or Better scavenger hunt:

• This event wasn’t well attended and because of this lacked momentum. I had a good time getting to know students but felt like it was a little forced. It was fun to get to know the students that came. The event was relatively well advertised but turned out not to really draw students. I’m unsure if this was timing or confusion.

Anderson Taco Truck:

• About an hour before this event it started to drench rain. It is hard to know if it was so poorly attended because of this, poor advertising and invites, or a general lack of interest. I know this group followed up with another event but I don’t know the logistics of it.

What went well in general:

-          We actually planned successful events for the student body. This is the first time in 5 years we’ve done this for NSO.

-          We know lots of freshmen! We’ve had about 40 students express interest in our fellowship and have followed up. We’ve had about 30-40 new students come to at least one IV sponsored spiritual event.

What we want to improve on in general:

--more time of vision and planning at Miqra next year. We realized that this needs to be at least a day and a half if not two days.

--concerted prayer! We need to plan for more times of prayer during NSO.

--casting vision for NSO and planning in late April rather than in late July.

--recruiting an NSO team that includes non-leaders.

Questions or Comments about this website can be directed to aubriewoods@multnomah.edu