iLL-Literacy

Along side with UCAB and IPAX, ASC is bringing spoken-word group iLL-Literacy to the WM campus, Saturday, November 1 @ SC Commonwealth 8 PM


Here's their description on their website:

In the age of empty words—where millions log in to comment on videos of iguanas skateboarding, where entire television series’ are based on who can blurt out the most grotesque diss on someone’s mother, where there exists such a thing as cell phones for babies, it seems everyone has something to say. But who’s really listening?

Enter iLL-Literacy—a collective of poets, emcees, and all-around fresh individuals—with a mission that seems simple enough: to have something to say, and for people not only listen, but want to listen.

Call it spoken word, call it hip-hop theater, but never call it typical, the crew consists of Adriel Luis, Dahlak Brathwaite, Nico Cary and Ruby Veridiano-Ching—four artists who harbor impressive accolades in their own rights. Since the four officially debuted their tour as a collective at the American University of Paris in 2005, iLL-Literacy has swept the corners of the globe with a delicious blend of lyrical verse, innovative theatrics, and an addictive approach to audience interaction that has kept the crew traveling nonstop.

iLL-Literacy has covered much ground in a short time, rocking stages from off-Broadway New York to London’s Picadilly, to its home base in the California Bay Area. News of the amazing talent has drawn attention from HBO’s Def Poetry and MTV, as well as crowds who have witnessed the collective share the stage with the likes of Common, Mos Def, KRS-One, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

iLL-Literacy’s hot, and only getting hotter. ‘Nuff said.

ASC Date Auction

Sorry I neglected this blog during the Date Auction planning process this year...I'm going to try to make up for it now so that ASC can have a better reference in the future :]

The ASC Date Auction is our biggest fundraiser for the entire school year. It's actually our only fundraiser that we have. Most of the money goes to fund our annual winter formal, but we also give a certain percentage of the profits to a charity. Traditionally every organization would provide a few members for auction. It isn't exclusive to just members of ASC organizations -- people that aren't part of ASC can also sign up to get auctioned off. Most people do a short talent and then get auctioned off afterwards.

This year, AAMC approached us and asked if they could co-sponsor with us. Usually AAMC has their own date auction, but unfortunately this year their date auction landed during homecoming weekend. Honestly, October is quite a disaster month to be planning events - you have fall break, Green & Gold, Homecoming weekend and Halloween weekend. Our own date auction was on a Sunday evening which isn't really the ideal time for any event.

Co-sponsoring has it's pros and cons, so it was something to think over before rushing into any decisions... (Pros: Draw more people to the event, appeal to different audience, share responsibilities. Cons: Split profits, how to split the work up evenly, communications). At the end, we decided that we will split the money according to the respective members/representative that get auctioned off from each organization.

One of our main challenges was getting solicitations for the date packages this year. Well, I think it has always been a challenge in the past. It's no easy task to ask businesses to donate something. You don't always get to speak to the manager or to the person that is in charge of donations. Even if you leave the letters to give to the manager, they don't always end up where they should. Often the letters are forgotten and disregarded - because lets be honest, a charity date auction isn't the first thing on a manager's list of things-to-do. Basically, in the future, it would be better if the exec board start solicitating possibly in the start of the year...like August, so that you have time to return to all the businesses and remind them/make sure that the letter has been received by the right person. Mostly likely you would have to go back a second, third time. Also, we aimed at high-classed restaurants this year because in the previous year, we thought the date packages weren't really 'quality' dates. However, we also limited ourselves by going to higher-classed restaurants. So basically...need to find a good balance. We had to do a lot of impromptu date packages at the end, and we had to spend some of the money, but it turned out ok at the end I think.

The set up of the date auction turned out pretty well. A lot of people thought having the tables was a lot more intimate and not as awkward with rows of chairs, which was also a bonus. We intentionally set up the tables because we decided to have finger foods and drinks this year.

Overall, the date auction seemed to turn out ok, which is a huge relief for me. We ended up making $1500, 500 more than our target $1000. Even after we split the profits up with AAMC, we had around 1200 left over for ASC. We also donated 10% of the profits ($150) to the Karen G Komen Breast Cancer, which was fantastic :]

Thanks to Tyler Hudgins, who is kinda amazing and decided to cosponsor with us this year. I'm sure he's glad he doesn't get 10 emails from me per day.
Obviously, everyone on the exec board...Se won, who's always got my back. Mike who was AMAZING and worked totally hard to get all the auctionee information and music and all that stuff, together. Ben and Eddy wrapping everything else and moral support.
Our MCs Tymon Francis and Koji Ukai
All our auctionees cause it takes a lot of balls to get up there and get auctioned off

Ok. That is all from me.

Til next time-

ASC Forum / phpBB

I set up the forums, and it's linked on the website now. It's at the bottom right hand corner, and located on the web at http://hostedboard.com/?mforum=asianstudentcou

It would be a decent place to discuss things without having to actually meet ... just a suggestion. It's available to all to use, and if you want something from it, such as another board to write on or whatever, then just email me.