Orientation Group Meeting #1
Orientation leaders! This is the time you have all been waiting for! Your first group meeting is a great way to get all your baby falcs excited about the program, set expectations and get to know each other better. Below is an outline of the different areas we would like you to cover during this first meeting!
Time: 4:15PM – 6:00PM (note, timing will vary based on your group’s dinner rotations - see schedule!)
Location: Dana Center, other indoor locations on lower campus like foyers of residence halls (if raining)
OR outside the Dana Center and around lower campus (if weather allows) Find a spot that works best for you!
Please make sure that all groups are in the predetermined designated areas!
Agenda:
• Welcome to Orientation
• Setting group expectations
• Creating lines of communication with your group
• Ice breaker
• General overview of the schedule
• Overview of the rest of the evening
• Answering any initial lingering questions
• Lead them back to middle campus
Please note these agenda items DO NOT have to be completed in this order as long as you hit all of them!
Welcome to Orientation
To start off, this would be a great opportunity to take quick attendance to ensure all members of your group are present at the meeting! Please flag to your OA a list of baby falcs that are not present at the meeting. Then start your team meeting off by welcoming all your baby falcs to their new home! Be excited and enthusiastic and assure them that you will be a resource to them in any way they need! We recommend going over your role & responsibilities with them here including helping them understand the wide range of issues/situations/questions they can reach out to you for!
Setting Group Expectations
As fun as orientation should/will be, it is always beneficial to set and manage expectations of your group. We suggest spending a couple of minutes talking over dos & dont’s of the program (would refer to Bentley values here) to start the program off on the same page. Some of these expectations would include participation & attendance, respecting others, overall orientation week rules both during and outside scheduled programming, taking your cool hat off, and communicating heavily with your OL! Lines of communication with the group
Make sure to check that all of your Baby Falcs have access to GroupMe and are a part of the group. Please have WhatsApp downloaded as a backup form of communication
If you have not already made a GroupMe during the virtual meet & greet: To have all communications in one place, we would like you all to create GroupMe groups where you will be able to send updates about meeting times/locations, clarify any confusions, and have a place to chat during the program! We also recommend giving them your personal phone number and email in case they need it. Add any members who were not at the virtual meeting.
To set up a GroupMe, baby falcs will need to download the app and create an account. From there, you will go into groupme, make a new group, skip past adding members, and do the following to pull up a QR code for baby falcs to add themselves!
Settings > Enable Sharing > Share Group > *Scroll Down* > Display QR Code
Icebreaker
After you have spent some time establishing the rules for the program and have lines of communication set up, it would be beneficial now to get some energy in the room by playing a good old icebreaker! Have everyone go around and introduce themselves and maybe if they are living on campus, where they are living. We recommend starting with a low-medium energy icebreaker that allows the group to get to know each other better. Some suggestions would be playing games that would allow all of them to get to know each other’s names! For example, the picnic game, phone wallpaper game, or 2 truths and a lie!
Overview of the Schedule
Spend some time going over what each day of the orientation schedule will look like. The schedule focuses on a specific topic area each day and the group would benefit from that context. A brief overview is listed below! Ensure that all members of the group have downloaded the CampusGroups app to get more details!
• Thursday: Welcome Home!
• Friday: Academics
• Saturday: Our Community
• Sunday: Balanced and Engaged Falcon
• Monday: Optional Programming
• Tuesday: First Day of Fall Semester Classes
Overview of the rest of the day and the next morning
Briefly go over the rest of the activities planned for the rest of the evening! These activities are listed below!
• New Student residence hall meetings are happening tonight
• Evening programming happening tonight
o Block party on the library quad
o Go to the activity with new friends or roommates! Make fun dorm decorations or play a game
• Breakfast is from 7:00-8:45 am tomorrow
• Decide where you will be meeting up as a group at 8:45 am after breakfast. Try and keep the same location every day. Make sure people know your classroom too in case they miss you at the meet up location
Answering questions
As new falcons arrive to campus, they will have a series of questions about Bentley, the orientation program, classes, clubs & organizations and so much more. End your session by answering any lingering questions to the best of your ability! Flag to the group the sessions where specific questions will be answered in more detail (for example, questions about getting academic help will be answered in the academic sessions).
Lead the group back to middle campus
As the meeting ends make sure the group knows where they need to be next and walk them to that location. We would like to flag here that the end of this meeting time will be dependent on your groups dinner rotations so be mindful of that and structure your meeting accordingly. If you have extra time left after you have gone over all the agenda points, you can fill in that time with an ice breaker or leave more time to answer any other questions the group might have!