Sunday, April 26, 2009

BCG Update

We are in our last week of class and it seems to have flown by! I can't believe that by the end of the week we will have a completed document to give to Shari and Andrea. It feels like it is so far from done but it's actually not.

I am nervous about the final product and the final presentation. Not because I don't think that they will be great but just because I am stressed out and am really feeling the time crunch. My group has been great and I know we will be prepared and that our brochure will be exactly what the client is looking for.

I am excited to see the final product, not only ours but from the other groups as well. We have all been working so hard on this and it is exciting to see how the documents change and improve over time. I can't wait for Friday to see all the final presentations and final products. I hope everything goes smoothly.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Chapter 9 Response

The most useful parts of ch. 9 were the parts on getting feedback on your project and working on emphasizing the most important things. I think the idea of getting feedback on our projects from outside people in our target audience is a great idea. Giving them a draft of our project and having them look it over would be such a big help in determining what is and isn't working. This would be especially helpful with my group's drip irrigation guide. The true test would be to see if someone can use the drip irrigation system without any prior knowledge just by using our guide.

Also, I never really thought about the importance of emphasis in our documents but it is a great way to illustrate what the most important parts of our projects are. The ideas given in ch. 9 are very helpful, like the idea of signal words and repetition of key words. Ch. 9 was pretty helpful and I know once we have a completed version of our documents we will be using the steps in the chapter in order to revise and edit it and make sure it is the best for the organization.

Volunteering - Easter Egg Hunt

This past Saturday I completed my volunteer requirement at my church at the annual children's Easter Egg Hunt. Kids from the church and kids from the community come with friends and families to participate in a huge egg hunt all over the church grounds. They also get a snack, hear a story and watch a great puppet show. I love helping out with this event every year because it is just so much fun. Seeing the looks on all the kid's faces when they find an egg is priceless!

This year I helped with the one to four year old group (my favorite). They are so cute and excited about events like this. First, everyone watched the puppet show, which I was the star of (my voice, anyway) then we broke into our smaller groups and mine went to story time. This was probably the most difficult part of the day because it is hard to get 25 one to four year old kids to sit still and quiet through a ten minute story. But all in all it went pretty smoothly. Next we moved on to the snack room where I helped pass out cupcakes, jellybeans, goldfish and apple juice. After all the kids ate we made our way outside to the main event, the hunt. The little kids get to hunt all over the playground and after trying to explain the whole concept we opened the gates and let them go crazy. There were at least a hundred eggs in this little area so every kid got plenty. I had such a fun time helping them find the hidden eggs and helping them reach the ones up high. After every egg was in a basket we had to go back inside and make sure every kid found their parent or who they came with. After that I helped clean up a little bit.

I had a blast at the Easter Egg Hunt this year, it doesn't even feel like work when I see these cute kids get so excited and leave with huge smiles on their faces. The best part was that I knew a lot of the kids this year because of the other work I do with the little kids at church, like Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. It is all worth it when they run up to you, give you a big huge and thank you for being there with them.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

BCG Update

Over spring break we did not get to meet as a whole group. I think we were all just really busy but I know that we have all been working on our parts of the project. The first draft of each part should be completed by class time tomorrow.

I have been working on the fact sheets. It has been kind of fun compiling all the information and imagining how they will be used and who they will help. I am very much enjoying this project and I can't wait to see all the final products.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 is the chapter on charting your progress of your project. We have just completed the first draft of our progress report based on the information in chapter 8. I think our progress report is pretty good. I'm sure it can use some work but when we get our peer reviews we can revise it.

In chapter 8 we learned about how to form a progress report, who the audience is and the importance of active writing. Probably what I found most useful and difficult is the active voice. I have a hard time recognizing when I am or when I am not writing in active voice. Based on what the textbook says, active voice is very important in the progress report so I hope I did it correctly.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

BCG Update

On Saturday we went out to Bartlett Garden and met with some volunteers. We also met with Shari and discussed our proposal with her. I think it was a great start to our actual fieldwork.

We only talked to two volunteers because there were not many people there on Saturday morning. We did get a lot of great information though. I think we got a lot more from those two people than we thought we would. They gave us some great tidbits on how to garden in Florida and organically that we can include in our handbook and fact sheets. They also gave us the names of some great resources.

We talked to Shari about the proposal and she gave us her comments and questions. She brought up some interesting points and addressed some things that we had questions about. I think the meeting went really well and we are on our way to making a great project.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Group Project Update

I am really excited to be working on the Group Project. I am in the Bartlett Community Garden group and we are going to be completing a volunteer handbook and fact sheets for BCG. I thought our first meeting with Shari went great and now we are just waiting to hear back from her about our proposal.

We did our initial presentation in class last week and I was really nervous about it but I think it went really well. It was clear we all had a good grasp of what we are doing and that we are very excited about the project. The comments from our classmates were really helpful so that we know what worked well and what we should work on for the final presentation.

I'm glad we are pretty much done with all the beginning steps and now we can start working on the actual project! I can't wait.