Moms’ Weekend is one of the busiest event weekends on campus, and it takes a lot of work to get everything up and running — everything from the games in the Iron Mom competition to finding suitable entertainment has to be decided long in advance. This year, Moms’ Weekend is April 4-6, but preparations began in January.
Katy Kithcart | Argonaut
Students Wil Everly and Jessica Gillespie work together to help plan Moms’ Weekend. As members of the Student Alumni Relations Board, Everly and Gillespie were chosen to cordinate the majority of the weekend events.
“We are constantly planning events,” said Lauren Hamilton, Student Alumni Relations Board adviser. “We’re working on Homecoming and Dads’ Weekend right now, so it kind of never ends.”
SArb does its best to arrange activities and entertainment for big events on campus, Hamilton said, but it also partners with other University of Idaho organizations such as Vandal Entertainment to host events like Idaho’s Got Talent. Some groups don’t work directly with SArb, but use SArb events like Moms’ Weekend as a means of raising publicity for their own philanthropy projects — the Phi Delta Theta Turtle Derby, for example, which has been a staple of Moms’ Weekend from day one.
“Moms’ Weekend is not isolated to this office,” Hamilton said. “We want as many campus groups involved as we can get. Our students are working with their students and making sure the event gets on its feet.”
There are 89 students in SArb who work as student volunteers at UI events, Hamilton said, and their activities range from brainstorming new ideas to checking people into seats at events. The advisers are there for the heavy lifting, and perform tasks that the students can’t do, like writing checks and booking entertainment.
“We have the student chairs that run the whole thing,” Hamilton said. “It’s kind of their deal. They decide the events and things we want to do, and they will be emceeing the event.”
Preparation for Moms’ Weekend began in January with the student committee chairs, Jessica Gillespie and Wil Everly. They were responsible for sending out mailers and event planning, picking a theme and setting a timetable for the various jobs that needed to be completed.
“It’s a lot of small puzzle pieces that come together to make one beautiful Moms’ Weekend,” said Gillespie.
While Moscow is usually packed with people looking for hotels and good restaurants for the duration of Moms’ Weekend, there is still a need for community outreach, Gillespie said.
“A lot of parents that I know that live in the Moscow area don’t participate, because they live here and some of them visit often,” Gillespie said. “But it’s really a fun thing (to do) no matter where you live, no matter where you’re from.”
This year, while brainstorming ideas for the weekend, Everly thought of his own mother and how she might want a letter from him as a keepsake to help remember the day. The idea stuck. Now students with a similar inclination can write their own letters from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday in the Idaho Commons.
But all of the planning and ideas in the world are nothing without student committees to carry them out, and both Gillespie and Everly said good leadership and teamwork are the keys to success. Emails and menu plans are one thing, Gillespie said, but she would much rather let student volunteers actively run events and have them take charge in a way that utilizes their full potential.
“A lot of it is the little details and making sure you have that little something special, but also not getting so wrapped up in the little things that you get carried away,” Everly said. “I think the hardest thing is making sure everyone knows what’s going on and when, so you don’t have anyone sitting at home when something is going on.”
Daniel Durand can be reached at [email protected]