As a part of the committee for the Enactus society, we were given some jobs over summer working towards the freshers fayre, these were:
- Collect gifts for the hamper to give away to a lucky winner out of the people who sign up at the freshers fayre
- Make a spreadsheet including questions for the sign ups to answer as well as providing their details for contact
- Edit dates and times onto the posters to tell everyone where and when the welcome meetings will take place
I was first told to get in touch with someone at Enactus which could provide me with contact details for some of the partner companies with Enactus, such as Asda, Unilever and Bic. This turned out to not be possible, I sent a few emails anyway but I did not receive replies for a long time. I instead decided to try some of the local businesses near my house, this is something I have never done before and I was a little nervous, although after the first few places I got my ‘script’ straight in my head, to inform them exactly what I want for what, but not ramble on and bore them. The first few places were not successful, but not for negative reasons, a cupcake place close by simply said they get such a lot of requests that they have to limit themselves to a monthly charity budget and the September one had already been reached. As I continued down the road, I stopped being so picky with what I thought I wanted in terms of products, and just tried going into most places and seeing what they could offer me. This resulted in vouchers and bar tabs in a few places, but I also wanted to get some physical items that could fill an actual hamper. Pictured above are a few things I got from my first trip down the road and back, I was surprised that most stores were trying to be very helpful, such as hairdressers giving out free haircuts, a sports store giving some free tennis balls and even a corner store giving some sweet treats.
I tried co-op and was asked to provide the request in writing, so I did that that night and took it back the next day, they then gave a large amount of party food, such as some posh crisps, chocolates and drinks. I also had success in a sports and protein store, where I got a selection of protein based bars and snacks, as well as a water bottle and a shaker, which is a very good prize considering a lot of Cyncoed campus is based around sports.
I was very happy with the collection, I think in the end the value of the basket was around 200 pound, including over 80 pound in vouchers. It was ready to go for the freshers fayre.
The freshers fayre was quite successful, we managed to get a good number of people to sign up and a lot of people interested in the community forest project which was great to see.
Tahlia Paige 