OK, I volunteered at the last Expo, and I'll be coming out to Volunteer at this one as well, on the Friday, but here's what I think will make us a lot better.
1) Better organisation, last time, our desk was really untidy, and it looked like we were trying to push too many things
2) Better security, Connect education (next door) managed to catch someone trying to nick the books we had on the table, meaning that we'll have to ensure we have enough people there so that we have people on the table at all times.
3) If we're doing a running slideshow presentation like last time, we really need a more reasonable sized monitor as opposed to Dan's 26 inch TV we used last time that just took up too much desk space and made us look like we couldn't afford proper equipment. I have a 17 inch old LCD monitor which is a much more reasonable size, I got it for $20 from Monash, so I can donate that to AN to use for future events and such.
4) ATARNotes T-Shirts that are personalised, or have each of the volunteers having nametags which give our name and identify us as from ATARNotes.
5) iPads, tablets and computers. We need to have more computers to show off the site and let people browse around and play with it. We need to let people sign up on the spot, and have small cards so that they can write down their username, so that they remember to come back on ATARNotes.
6) We need to show off the strengths of our website which is the fact that we are a community. We need to need people to see what we truly are rather than seeing us as a "nerd-community", meaning that we need to be trendier, have more volunteers and we should organise what we are going to say so that we come off as a trendy, connected bunch. Look at the way that Connect Education markets and you'll see that they come across as young, energetic and insightful, whereas sometimes I think we looked a little bit too much of a nerd-club.
7) Rohit and I tried this out and it worked well, we need to walk around the place and give out flyers, take along a tablet and copies of the book so that people can have a browse and then point them to the ATARNotes stall, some people are interested and had a flip through the books and stuff.
8 ) I like the ATARNotes Chocolate, but to be honest, they're not really doing much, people just come by and take the chocolates well, beacuse they're free and the chocolates leave no impressions of ATARNotes, we need things which people keep and use that will remind them of ATARNotes, such as AN pens or highlighters (I prefer highlighters cause it's more unique), AN erasers, AN exercise books, AN notepads. It might be a good idea to have a system like "everyone gets an ATARNotes Pen, people who sign up as well will get a pen and a highlighter, people who buy a book get a pen, a highlighter and a notepad" for example.
9) Since the ATARNotes Magazine is going to launch in a few days time, I have a good idea, push it hard so that the magazine will launch the day before the stall, that way, people can have a flick through that. Then we can run a special for the next edition (the September edition), and we can take photos of the people who come to the stall, asking them if they want to feature in the next edition, good way to get the students involved in the process. Dev can organise KT to come down, or we'll just take the good old point and shoot and take photos.
10) Clean up the background, last time, we had too many posters, it just looked clunky, we should just have a big "ATARNotes" banner, and then just a focused poster, with little text, that describes the main points of ATARNotes. I also like the flyers (the idea of them), I reckon I designed them well but we probably need to shift away from the forum to focus on our other endeavours such as books and the magazine, the forum is now just one of the services offered by ATARNotes.
Lastly, Dan should shave, he scares the kids away
