Event Planning With Malachi Regis

As Social VP for AUSA, especially in this climate, there’s definitely a lot of changes that are occurring. How has your planning for events been different in light of the pandemic?

I think in terms of the general amount of events that I would like to have, we had to decrease, and the events that we would add would end up looking dramatically different. But I think the overall theme that I had coming into this year kind of stayed the same. I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t exclude those who are remote this semester. I am trying in my planning to include them as much as possible, but it is always a struggle to find stuff to do online. As far as “different” and how that looks this year, that’s kind of where we’re at.

What specific restrictions have you had to work with and manage?

The biggest thing for me is food. It’s hard to have social events without food, and although some clubs get away with having food, we are a sponsored group, so we follow the guidelines more strictly. It has been a challenge to have food at our events. The regulations on having food and who caters it, where it comes from, how it’s prepared, and if they were safe while they did it. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges that I’ve encountered besides the restrictions on the number of people in spaces and all of that. In all honesty, the state of Michigan is still at ten people for social events held indoors, so I’m really working under very hard circumstances because there is no event where you can have ten people indoors ---- it’s just not a social event. So yeah, those are my two biggest constraints that I’ve had to work with this year.

So with the constraints in mind, what events have you planned this year?

We’ve already done our game night. It didn’t go exactly as I planned, but it still happened, and it still was kind of a trial run, I guess, because we did an in-person and online game night. I just think that I might split them up and have just an online verse and a just “in-person” event in the future. It was hard because I had to figure out how we could play games without using board games because of contact, moving pieces, and different people playing have to be six feet apart while playing the board game––it was just rough. But I think the online version where each person can participate from their phone is the next “game night” event that we’ve come up with. I think we’re still in the process of planning the Talent Show but were going to have to find a way for that to happen with ten people indoors. So yeah, we’re still working with that and moving forward. It's a challenge, but we're trying to find creative solutions.

So I feel like I know your answer to this next question, but if there was anything that you would change about how either AUSA or the administration has dealt with the pandemic this school year in totality, what would that be?

That’s a very good question. I think the biggest thing for me would be consistency. If you say something, it should go across the board, and everybody should follow it. Right now, it seems like the administration does it, and the students kind of do whatever they want to do. It’s really hard seeing other clubs plan events, and sometimes they may have outside food. Sometimes they may be less strict about social distancing, it's really hard when clubs can do that, and then students look at AUSA and are like: “ well, we did this at this club event, why can’t we do it as an AUSA event?” and I’m like “well, we just can’t do it because it’s against what we’ve been told to do.” and I know it’s hard because there is so much going on, and you don’t want to have an environment of policing, but it would just be nice if everyone was just consistent and following the rules and stuff like that. Honestly, it’s a tough situation that we’re all in, and they’re not a whole lot we can do about it.

Is there anything else you would like to say to the readers?

I know we didn’t have the chance to introduce ourselves as AUSA and as student leaders this year, but we are still working, and we’re trying to find creative solutions for traditions such as banquets and Talent Show. These are our two biggest events and were going to try to figure out a way to still have those events but still follow the guidelines. So we’re working and if anybody has any ideas about events, let us know, but we were still planning on having at least one event once a month.