Where do I Fit In?

The last couple of weeks I have been really working to stay focused on the tasks assigned to me for the upcoming Women and Careers Conference.  I have not connected with the Women's Resource Center before this service learning project and I am still unclear exactly what the WRC is all about.  I am working on the Conference which is an annual event of the WRC but I feel like the mission is not being presented clearly.  I am working on donations, yet I feel that this is all being done WAY TOO LATE!  I am not sure why it has fallen to the last few weeks to get cracking on this, but I just have to see if I can get donations of door prizes in this extremely short amount of time ( two weeks).  I just got the flyers on Friday and the go ahead to speak/connect with 5 different organizations to solicit for donations.  The event is on March 16 and does  promise to be a great way for women to discover/learn from the successes of the key speakers.  We are not meeting as a group again until March 9 which is only one week before the event.  Hope I can meet with on-campus groups and get the message out.  This is the 14th Annual Women and Careers Conference and it is the first time as a student I have heard of it.  I hope that the publicity gets out there.  I want this to be a successful event and feel that I contributed to that effort.  Leadership could be tweaked a bit to make this all run smoother for the student volunteers.  I'm hoping it all comes together.  

Women & Careers Conference

Today I met with the team that is coordinating the Conference.  The conference is a major event that is organized through the Women's Resource Center.  This free Conference is held annually in an attempt to help women achieve their career dreams Dr. Caveness coordinates this event and currently their are 5 volunteers, including myself, helping to plan this event.  Along with soliciting door prizes for this event I will be working a table from 11:00 to 1:00p.m. on February 22 in the Quad for the Student Services Festival.  At this time I will be giving out information for this free event and registering interested students. Our next meeting is Friday, Feb. 24 in the Women's Resource Center.  By the next meeting we are to decide which on campus organizations we will be able to meet with to encourage participation in our event.  I am also hoping to mention this event in each of my classes and give out the flyer with the registration  information.  The event is only a month away so there is much to do to prepare.

A Movement may not be a Social Movement but . . .

After examining the Wikipedia list of social movements I chose the Slow Food Movement.  Though I determined that it did not fit the criterion for being a social movement my son argued that I was wrong.  Though I saw that Slow Food lacked the numbers, unity and commitment elements that would make it a social movement, my son, who is a true Slow Food advocate believes that the numbers that Wiki has posted are misleading and that the movement actually got started long before the Spanish Steps/McDonalds rally. When someone is involved and feels passionately about their cause it may be difficult for them to see that their "movement" has not met the full definition OR perhaps there is more to the story than Wiki has written.  My son said that Alice Waters started to bring recognition to the Slow Food cause long before 1986.  He is probably right.  Perhaps what we see on Wiki is misleading and needs updating but based upon what is posted there, Slow Food does not fit the definition though it might someday.  It was interesting to see how many of our class picked the Slow Food movement.  Maybe it is a larger movement than the posted 100,000 members that Wiki has posted.  My son is looking into proving both Wiki and me wrong.