Sunday, December 9, 2007

Weeeeee!

Or rather, Wiiiiiii! That's right - the new Nintendo system that I desperately want (hint hint, boyfriend o' mine). We played until 3 AM at a holiday party this weekend. And it wasn't just the two of us - most members of the party played at some point, or watched for quite awhile. The question is: Why? It's a freaking video game, for goodness sake!

Here's the thing about the Wii - it's engaging. People look like they're actually doing something even though they're just waving white plastic remote around. My favorite moment of the night was boxing a ninja, aka a woman who took karate for years and years and is still a black belt. Boxing her on Wii, I had a fighting chance (heh heh)! But I still lost.

How does this relate to OYFP or v0lunteering? Welllll... this is what OYFP wants to do: ENGAGE people. Engage ourselves. Engage our peers. Engage our partners. And honestly, it's a struggle to continually come up with ideas on how to come up with what often seems like the magic formula that results in engagement.

Of course, it's a little more complicated than just engaging people. We want to engage them in our activities, teach them about our non-profit partners, teach them about OYFP, make sure they have fun, get them to buy raffle tickets, encourage them to volunteer... The list goes on. The blog is one part of our effort to engage all y'all, and ourselves.

Do you have some good ideas for engagement? What has worked for you in the past? Personally, I'm going to pull for a Wii tournament event... though I'm not sure how we'll work that volunteering angle.

3 comments:

Krystle said...

Food always brings people around. Or should I say at least it does with me.

Terrence Fitzsimmons said...

I think people are really into the seasonal activities. If Boston has a few good snowstorms I think it would be awesome to have a charity snowman building competition with hot chocolate (spiked or otherwise)and snacks. Similar to apple picking, snowman building is something you can't really do in the city. It does, however, bring back awesome memories. I would go.

Unknown said...

Hmm.. we could do a snowman contest on the Boston Common! It could be a last minute kind of event, but still successful because it's so fun. Maybe the goal could be awareness rather than funds - since I don't know if the City of Boston would like if we charged money to use snow on the common land. :P