Welcome Ladybugs!

Welcome Ladybugs!
Home Sweet Towers

Sunday, October 3, 2010

October?!

Hello lovely ladybugs!

We are entering the begining of October...WOW, time flies! Bulletin boards are due Monday at 11:59pm. Don't forget to update you flyers, take down old ones, and maintain all your bulletin boards. Remember, you have 48 hours to redo a board if it is damaged.

It makes me happy to see everyone supporting each other by attending staff's floor events and helping with questions! We are a wonderful team!!!

Don't forget to get your duty feedback and such to your staff MRA by Monday at 5pm. We want your opinion heard.

I hope classes are going well!


Yours,

Lor

Saturday, August 14, 2010

T minus 3 days!

Hello lovely ladybugs!

I hope you are in the final stages of prep work. I know many of you are moved in and already working on your bulletin boards. Kudos! I was told rosters were up and we could start our door decs! Woohoo! The address is www.udel.edu/housingadmin.

PS Does anyone know how to work the blog google calendar or slideshow? I can't seem to find a website to work it and would like everyone to be able to post their events on the calendar as well. I am technologically impaired and need some help lol.

Can't wait to see you all!

Lor

Monday, August 9, 2010

Get Pumped!

Hello Wonderful Towers Staff!

We are about a week away from the start of training and I hope you are compiling your things and preparing for training! I strongly suggest you buy/make your door decs and prepare/print your bulletin boards before the start of training. Once training is over for the day you do not want to go back to your apartment and work on bulletin boards and door decs. I am planning on having my floors' bulletin boards done by Monday at the latest and have my door decs ready for names once we get the rosters. Don't forget to get your theme/bulletin board ideas approved by your Hall Director!

In the newsletter from Ivet she mentioned camp. For those of you who are new, the entire ResLife Department goes on a retreat to the Sandy Hill Camp for a weekend of staff bonding. They have a website (which I don't have handy, I apologize) so go ahead and check out all they have to offer. For camp you will need the following items:
- water bottle
- sleeping bag/bedding
- pillow
- bug spray
- sunscreen
- toiletries
- sneakers
If I missed anything please feel free to add! During camp there is a good deal of cheering to get pumped up. Every complex and section (north, east, west, and central) all have cheers for themselves. I have a list of all our previous chants and can email them out in order for everyone to look over them before we review them. If you have any ideas for new cheers write them down so we can have some new ones!

I hope you are all getting pumped for training and meeting your residents! I'm planning on having a pizza party the last night of check in to meet all my residents. The earlier you start to meet your residents and host events the better. It gets harder and harder to form relationships once the school year gets in full swing.


See you all soon!

Lor

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Boards

Hey All!

I hope you are still having a fantastic summer and have started thinking about coming back to school. It's nearing the end of July so I hope you are preparing your things and getting ready for training and the start of the year! Training is long, intense, and getting everything you can done before the start of training will greatly behoove you later on down the line.


Boards: I am working on getting the measurements of each board for all the floors so you have an idea of the size of the boards you will need to decorate. There are 2 boards on each floor and usually one small board by the elevator and RA room door. All boards must be backed with paper or fabric and a border.

- One big board is usually an FYI board with flyers of upcoming events, programs and organizations on campus, safety info, etc. All these flyers can be obtained at Trabant throughout the year as well as given to you by your HD to post. There is an information workshop we always attend for information about all organizations on campus and we get a plethora of posters, flyers, and handouts for our floors.

- The second big board is the board to be changed every month with your own ideas of what to put up. I have seen boards on sustainability tips, study habits, corny pick up lines, etc. Have fun with it, but always check with your Hall Director before starting on it. I suggest having your board ready for printing before coming back to campus. Remember though that our goal in the Towers is to be sustainable so think creatively to save ink and paper because we run through it very fast!

- One small board by the elevator is for our RSO, our fabulous CRAB! They will usually upkeep the board, but we have to back and border it.

- The last small board by your room is your "Where are you and Who's on Duty board." An email will go out with the form for the Who's on Duty portion, but it's nice for your residents to know where you are such as home, class, out and about. You will also need to ways to mark who's on duty and where you are such as a tac with a picture glued to the top so it is easily visible and movable.

For the first month or so it is nice to have a "Get to know your RA" board. It doesn't have to be an entire board but just a page or two about you. Name, home state/city, major, picture(s), hobbies, etc. Last year I put mine on an extra board we have on the floor.

Don't forget that boards need to be constantly monitored and updated. Flyers from past events need to be taken down and if your boards are damaged they need to be fixed.

Get pumped for a fantastic year!! I will update with training information soon!

- Lor

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Getting to know one another

Hello all!

Lorin here. I want to get to know each other in a very fun way. I created a survey for everyone to fill out. We will use this information as an activity at one of our in complex times during training. ;-)

The survey is only 5 questions so please take the time to answer them. It should only take about 5-10 minutes and the activity will be lots of fun!

Click here to take survey

More to come!!

Lorin

Welcome!

Welcome to the Towers Community!!

In August you will make your way to the Towers to start training. It will be a very busy and intense time and I want to prepare you all so you won’t be so overwhelmed. Feel free to comment, ask questions, and give ideas and feedback!

Here are a few things to think about before you come back to campus:

1. What are your goals and expectation for your floors, small staff, and large staff?
2. Why did you become an RA and what do you hope to get out of being an RA for this year?
3. Start thinking about what you would like to do for door decorations and bulletin boards. It may even be good to have these things ready to put up because of the small amount of time given for this.
- Door decorations are decals you make for each resident to post on their door as a sort of welcome gift for them. Last year I did puzzle pieces with each resident's name and room number. Some choose to put birthdays on there as well. These can be purchased at the dollar store and all teaching stores such as Beckers on Kirkwood Highway and the Learning Station on Main Street. Don't forget to keep all receipts we usually have a small budget for opening and may be able to get reimbursed if you hand in your receipts! We usually do not get the roster until late so just having these ready to be written up will be one less thing to worry about during training.

Here is a list of resources for bulletin boards and door decorations:
• http://www.residentassistant.com/one/index.php
• http://www.reslife.net/html/bboard.html
• http://www.rahelper.com/Bulletin%20Boards/Bulletin_Health.php

The following websites should be bookmarked because you will use them frequently with the job:
• http://www.udel.edu/webforms
• http://www.udel.edu/reslife
• http://www.udel.edu/reslife/staff/phonelists.html
• http://www.facilities.udel.edu/

Now that you have you website resources covered here are a few things I found useful to bring to help do the RA job:
• Stapler with plenty of extra staples
• Staple remover
• Backing paper for bulletin boards (to enhance pictures and such)
• Extra sticky tac to post flyers in strategic locations (next to the elevator button!)
• Scissors and even fancy scissors to spice up bulletin boards!

Please feel free to add to all my lists. I want to help make your transition as easy as possible and this blog is here for you. It is going to be a fabulous year and I am extremely excited to start it off right. Don’t hesitate to call, text, or email me with questions or comments, but I’m sure others have the same questions so post them and we can get you your answers. :)

Lorin Walls
lwalls@udel.edu
302-530-9780