Someone's got to marinate all that meat, right?

If only all meat tasted like Korean barbecue. But, alas, that's not the case. Someone's got to do the work to prep the meat, transport it, marinate it, chop it up, and put it on the grill. To marinate 1000 lbs of Korean barbecue tonight, it took:

• 23 people
• 25 cutting boards
• 24 knives
• 6 food processors
• 22 tongs
• 17 really big bowls filled with soy sauce and marinating stuff
  

Additionally, it took four guys and a big truck to pick up all the meat and transport it this afternoon. Here's a picture so you see how many boxes we're talking about:

What to expect at the Free Korean Barbecue!

So you've circled, "Free Korean Barbecue and New Student Welcome Night" on your Welcome Week calendar. That's a good thing, for sure. But what to expect? Seems like everyone and their cousin is going to be there.

In previous years people came to the barbecue because they got one of our ubiquitous flyers, met a new friend who was going, or just smelled the thing as they were walking by. Here was the common scenario in years past: New student goes to registration table, says hello, gets name tag, wanders over to really long line which is serpentine in form and Disneyland in length, gets plate of food (which smells really good), isn't sure where to sit, is a little intimidated by the massive amount of people, and (if said student came alone) uncomfortably sits near a cluster of people trying to belong, and enjoys good food. If said student is lucky, will meet a Koinonia or acts2fellowship member and strike up a good conversation.

We always thought that wasn't a very good experience. Yeah, the food's good. But it's not just about the food. It's about the people, meeting someone and connecting with them, finding out a little bit about our group and what makes us tick. So here's the scenario you can expect tomorrow night (it's only one day away!): New student comes to registration table and gets cool name tag with colored sticker, says hello, gets plugged into a group of 10-15 other people, is directed to big cluster of colored balloons corresponding to the color on her name tag, sits down with group and meets other people and has interesting conversation, eats good food, has more groovy conversation (like, "I know someone from that high school!" or "I visited your hometown before... I think it was when I got lost on the way to my SAT." or "Oh my gosh! I collect spoofy youtube movies too!"), and then walks over to Wheeler Auditorium with new group of friends, laughing and holding hands all the way.

With the exception of the holding hands part, that's what you can expect tomorrow night when you get to the barbecue. See you there!

How many pounds of meat should we barbecue?

That's the question, of course, when faced with an uncertain number of people who will show up that night. Do we dream big and hope for a huge turnout, but then overbuy? Or do we go cheap and conservative, but then also set ourselves up for a situation in which lots of people will be disappointed (and hungry)? The latter is not an option and certainly not one of our values.

Thankfully, we have some perspective we can bring to this problem since we've done this barbecue thing several years now.

Last year, we bought, marinated, and grilled 800 lbs of Korean barbecue short ribs. Unfortunately, we also ran out before the half hour was over, and a dispatch was sent to Berkeley's finest, Top Dog and we started grilling sausages, frankfurters, and hot links. The guys didn't mind so much, but it was still a real learning experience.

This year, we're projecting 1000 lbs of meat. That's right, folks. 1000 pounds. I've heard male arctic polar bears stand 11' tall, and, if they're really well fed, can weigh upwards of 1000 pounds. Now that's perspective.

Council, tabling, and flyering

Each year, when New Student Welcome Night rolls around, the burden of handling all the administrative stuff for the evening falls on the club Council. But which club? Koinonia or acts2fellowship? The two Councils alternate each year, and this year the Koinonia Council is at the helm.

One of the things we talked about last night was tabling, which Brian's in charge of. "Wait a second," you're thinking, "What's tabling?"

The first two weeks of school, everyone's out on Sproul Plaza, flyering their events, setting up their table with all the pamphlets and photos and (if you're lucky) candy, telling people about their club or organization, and it's just plain crazy! Of course, we're all into joining the fun and hustle on Sproul Plaza and we hope one of our flyers finds you!

Acting, drama, and being funny

It's a New Student Welcome Night tradition to have an uproariously hilarious skit. Generally, we get there. But it's not without logging serious hours, jumping up and down, putting on costumes, taking them off, moving props around, and repeating some lines over and over and over again to get it just right. It's a high bar to reach NSWN-readiness, and by the end of all the practices, pretty much everyone on the skit team can recite each other's lines just as well as they can recite their own.

The inestimable Josh, theater arts major, is skit director, and taking the stage is James, Annie, Steve, Jacob, and Angela. Of course, it's about the behind-the-scenes peeps too: Sang on music, and Wanda taking care of props and costumes. The plan, as far as I know, is they're scheduling about 18 hours of practice in the next two weeks so they'll be stage-ready and funny. The first won't be a problem. The second... well... we'll have to wait and see...!

Reserving rooms: chore or delight?

Yes, we said the Barbecue would be next up for discussion, but first things' first. These days it's all about reserving rooms.

Got to get the room for New Student Welcome Night, reserve the Campanile Plaza and Memorial Glade for the pre-NSWN barbecue, and what about the acts2fellowship Welcome Night and the Koinonia Welcome Night the week after? We want to make sure there's enough time to hang out afterwards, so we need another room for that. It's endless! We haven't even started talking about rooms for weekly bible studies and small groups.

Thankfully, the two Councils have been doing a lot of running around on campus, talking to administrators (really nice, great, wonderful and lovely administrators!... in case they're reading), getting permits (we need a food permit and an outdoor amplified sound permit in order to do our NSWN barbecue), logging in hours on the UCB room reservation website, and overall just making sure there's an auditorium for people to show up at.

Reserving rooms: who'd 'a thought it'd be so tedious and time-consuming? But thank goodness buds like John, Paulina, and Jasper (mighty seniors!) have been so willing to run ahead and pull the NSWN 2007 cart.

Publicity and the web

Each year, we mail something to the new students, some way to say hi and introduce our group. It used to be a letter, and then that seemed too frumpy, so we changed it to a postcard. It was cheaper that way too and coincided with the entire revolution to print stuff in color.

This year, we thought we'd do something a little different. If we can, of course we'd still like to send a postcard welcoming new students. It's a small gesture for us to say hello, congratulate new students as they prepare to arrive to Berkeley, and introduce what our group's about. It's also an invitation for them to join us at New Student Welcome Night and some of our welcome week activities. It's something like 3000 postcards we'll be mailing out so Ben's making sure we get the ball rolling: design, printing, and then mailing.

Additionally, however, we thought we'd start by making this website (which is still under construction), and also jump on the web where many of our members already currently live, breathe, and eat. Seeing as how Youth Trends notes that 69% of women and 56% of men ages 17-25 are on Facebook, we're going to set up a Facebook NSWN2007 event (which will be connected to this site) so we can invite our friends and new friends that way too.

Trying new things, and rethinking some old ones. Next up: the NSWN barbecue.

project number one: website

Thankfully, NSWN is not a solo effort. There's plenty of people to help, and good thing too. Take this website for example. It may be hosted on blogger.com, but we felt the templates offered were a poor selection. Frankly, they hurt our eyes. So all our flashy designers being tagged to projects already, we thought, "Hey, there's plenty of good stuff out there. Why design from scratch when there's templates for us to modify?" After a little research, we found elegant themes and beautiful ones too.

So here's the question: Having chosen the design, who's going to do the hard work and cut up the template, modify it for our needs, and then put it into a language blogger can understand?

Good thing Berkeley has a stunning CS department (although their webpage isn't anything to look at), and good thing there's people on the NSWN crew who hail from that stunning department. Koinonia web-man Jon Yen is tackling the redesign and putting this site together. Next step is to think about what info, videos, and pictures should occupy this space. But, of course, that's another conversation for another day.

Launch date: July 11

July 11 might be the official launch date of this blog, but it's ain't the beginning of New Student Welcome Night 2007 planning. That started some weeks ago. The old councils met together and did the handoff, and the ball started rolling. This website's just playing at catch up.

One of the first things on the table as we were planning were ideas for different videos: a new NSWN video and a NSWN ad. For those of you who worked on the last NSWN video, you're probably thinking, "That's a lot of work! Do we have enough time?" And others are wondering, "What's a NSWN ad?" Both questions are good. And answers are going to be vague, because part of the fun is that the whole night is looking to surprise: not only new Berkeley students and friends attending our event, but also our own Koinonia and acts2fellowship members! Awesome.

Stay tuned. We're just getting started.