Pre-semester checklist

1. Setup

• Have everyone working on project added to your task management system.
• Go through "Fellowship Prep" and "Outreach" Sections and add reasonable deadlines

2. Fellowship preparation

• Choose dates for fellowship and for other activites you’re planning over the year. You can use this template as an example.
• Decide when applications open and close and when marketing needs to be done in relation to this. When do you notify applicants that they've been accepted? When does the program start? – This often is blocked by other tasks like making posters, Facebook posts, and emails!
• Create a copy of the fellowship syllabus - go to Intro Fellowship Curriculum/Syllabus
• Update/Create an application form - go to the guide to running an Introductory Fellowship
• Secure fellowship facilitators. Facilitators are often the main source of new group members due to their ability to build relationships and explain concepts well, so ensure you put strong people on this task. However, as we note in the How do EA groups produce impact? page, it is important not to have strong group members focus only on facilitation; they need to develop themselves too!
• (Optional) Create an interest form for Outreach

3. Outreach

• Decide which Outreach strategies you plan to pursue. See the Social media strategy page for information about specifically online methods.
• (If possible) Find one successful club on campus and ask how they advertise
• Generate additional outreach strategies to try
• Brainstorm possible outreach strategies specific to your university, some prompts to consider:
• Events, such as a club fair, for students to table at.
• Professors willing to forward your material to students, or allow someone to speak in class.
• Mailing lists: these could be activity-related, school/department/subject-related, residential or other.
• (If applicable) Create new referral form
• See a sample referral form (by Yale EA)
• (If applicable) Send out referral email to all past fellows/core members
• (If applicable) Send out emails to referred students
• Have each member personally tell at least 3 people
• Create a social media strategy; see Social media strategy

4. Tabling and Activities fair

• *** for more information on this, go to the tabling guide and club fairs page ***
• Determine the date and time of your org fair
• Check when signup opens
• Register a table the day signup opens
• Gauge availability of potential tablers
• Send a When2meet to tablers to decide which dates to book the tables.
• Book Tables
• Making a professional looking table; see above guide for what to bring
• Buy Handouts prior to every tabling event
• Develop a 20-60 second pitch for your club, encourage other tablers to do the same; see Introducing EA and communicating about it
• Decide on your Call to Action. Make sure you are proactive when tabling: don’t do your schoolwork sat down, but instead actively reach out to people passing by. Be friendly and inviting - this is what the event is all about.

5. Flyering

• Create your flyer or set of flyers by copying examples; see Canva and social media templates
• Print your flyers
• Post your flyers in areas that people will read, not just the ‘clearly approved’ areas. However, make sure you’re not breaking any norms or rules.
• Create a plan for social media; see Social media strategy

6. Final Decision Making

• Plan application reading period with fellowship facilitators
• The day after applications close, facilitators will meet to read applications of applicants
• Book a room to use
• Deliberation: Decide which applicants to accept
• Figure out cohort times. These should be regular and not moving once set; i.e., in the same time and place.
• Figure out intro social event time
• Sending the acceptance email (and rejection emails); see Email templates
• Plan intro social event; see Social event ideas
• Ideal Meeting (sample agenda for tackling the above tasks)