Ice Breaker for July

I realized no one responded to my icebreaker in July did not go well. Perhaps it was too narcissist. So here is the one for July...

Imagine that all the housefellows for TAS are at a cookout commemorating the excellent year we have had. Imagine that we have accomplished all we set out to do. What is one thing you are happy we accomplished?

I would be happy I saw my "house" have an open social atmosphere. Doors are open, people are talking quietly and respectfully, and find their dorm a cool place to hang out after classes.

Mine is pretty out there - what is yours?

Collaboration Between Dorms - Help out the Noob (the new guy:)

At the end of the last semester Dan Melanz brought up to me the ability of different housefellows to collaborate on events. If this is so, then I would really like to find ways for us all to do more "house" sharing events.

A few things I have kicked around...

-Field Trips
-Going to cool events on campus as a house or collaborated houses
-Speakers, concerts, etc.
-Video Games Night
-Card Night
-Service Events
-Tea/Coffee Social
-Late Night Waffles
-Cookouts (Maybe throw in some vegetarian options)
-Board game challenges
-I was thinking maybe a twister night

I think I have seen all these things happen within TAS, but I want to know what you all are thinking.

I especially would like some guidance from past housefellows on what worked and what didn't.

Counting down the days...

The Pine Room

With training two weeks away, I have begun thinking about things we can do for next year and one of the topics I was thinking about was the Pine Room...

Events that I was aware of from last year were:
-The dances
-The FASTA formal
-The TAS Olympics
-Movie nights
-Board games

Those are the only events I remember off the top of my head...

So my question associated with this moment of free association is...

Are we making the best use of our community room or can we do more with it?

Do other groups besides University Housing have dibs on the room?

Which of these events worked and which didn't?

How could the ones that worked be made better?

A few ideas I have kicked around in my head...

A Coffee House

-Perhaps on a week night we could convert the pine room into a starbucks like setting. We must have a few tea and coffee drinkers in the house. People could talk quietly and study.

A Bar-like setting

-While I am not in the least advocating anything alcoholic, bars can be excellent places for people to just sit, relax, and talk. We could provide some intimate lighting, have some games set up (even table tennis and board games would work as opposed to pool), some root beer, good music, dancing, and tables for talking and socializing.

I bring these two ideas up because I thought we could really use the pine room to our advantage to create a cool atmosphere on the lakeshore. The disadvantage is that we may not be able to compete with anything more attractive a walk or bus down to State St.

Tell me your thoughts.