Suddenly Remote: 20 Virtual Event & Activity Ideas for Off-Campus Engagement
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Create Successful Remote-Inclusive Events to Engage Your Student Community
Campus communities need a place to come together, now more than ever. As many schools are moving activities from in-person to virtual settings in light of the COVID-19 crisis, many higher education professionals and campus event organizers are looking for new ways to engage students digitally.
Student affairs administrators and student organization leaders are exploring innovative ways to connect their community members, effectively and efficiently manage their groups from a distance, develop social engagement and two-way communication strategies, and implement enriching interactive virtual events to a suddenly remote community.
We at CampusGroups are here to help your community build creative, remote-inclusive events and rebuild member connections and communication in this challenging time.
Check out our list of virtual engagement ideas:
1) Netflix Party
Host a club movie night through the Chrome Extension Netflix Party and watch a movie together with the built-in chat.
2) TikTok Competition
Join in on the TikTok fun by creating content for an existing TikTok challenge or creating your own challenge and trying to get students at your school to join your challenge. Share on your campus community platform and create a hashtag for them to follow on TikTok.
3) Photo Contest
Have students share fun and inspiring photos, campus-wide or within a group. Set a new theme daily or weekly such as pet pics, dorm-style door decoration, who is your quarantine fam (introduce family members, roommates, your cat), or most organized desks (bonus: this can also help equip less organized classmates with ideas to improve their own workspaces). Set up a hashtag on social media for everyone to contribute and follow and see which photo gathers up the most likes for a prize.
4) Post a Group Video Lesson
Use this time to share your talents or share your knowledge! Invite group members to record and upload their own instructional videos to share something they care about with the community. Make a quick tutorial of your best recipe, workout session or guitar lesson and share it with your pals on the group feed.
Need more inspiration? Teach self-defense strategies, make a time-lapse video creating a piece of artwork, perform your senior piano recital or put together a 3-minute PowerPoint presentation on your favorite topic (black holes, anyone?) Create a library of enriching videos for members to add to and access at any time!
5) Collaborative Group Photo
Just like our CampusGroups team, create your own #CampusGroupsChallenge picture! Ask each member of your Group to take a picture by himself, herself or with loved ones spending this confinement time together. Each member should write a letter or a word that you have decided together to create a meaningful message. Assemble the pieces of your group puzzle and ask your members to share the end result masterpiece!
Join the CG Challenge! DEADLINE: April 10, 2020!
Share your picture on your group's or schoolโs Instagram and don't forget to tag us @campusgroups. The most creative group will receive a CG prize!
Join the #CGChallenge! Create your own group message photo, share on your instagram & tag us @campusgroups by April, 10, 2020!
6) Livestream a Virtual Speaker Event
Gather members in your community together at the same time by hosting a live session, presentation or webinar for chapel, a virtual speaker event, or set up a video conference Q&A session with an alumni of your school to share career and industry insights with current students.
Keep events exclusive to your campus community by sharing video links only with registered users. Contact our team to get set up!
7) Interactive Maps
Now that you are all going home, this is an opportunity to learn more about your group members! See how many different states are represented in your group map, share the best spots from your hometown, and explore each other's backgrounds!
Create an interactive Google map showing where each member of your group is located! Ask members to share their new off-campus location by pinning to your groupโs own Interactive Map.
More spread out than usual, the CG team is still united in our mission to bring connections to our communities.
8) Career Prep
Bring in a recruiter to talk about virtual job search strategies. Invite alumni for a Q&A session related to your groupโs field of interest. Women in Business Club? Host a webinar featuring a female CEO alum to share insights and expertise with current students.
Take advantage of CampusGroups Connections Program by matching up students with upperclassmen or alumni working in their preferred industry to expand their network and practice mock interviews.
9) Virtual Field Trip
Organize a virtual field trip based on your groupโs interests: Art, science, history, archeology and more! Many of the worldโs most famous museums are offering virtual museum tours to share their incredible collections while promoting social distancing. As a group leader, you can simply pick a deadline, create a virtual field trip and encourage members to attend the tour either at the same time or explore at their own convenience. Depending on museum regulations, you might share and discuss photos, insights and comments on your group feed, or alternatively set up a follow up webinar to host a discussion about the tour.
Not sure where to get started? Check out Google Museum Views List for inspiration!
10) Book Club Connections
Students are in charge in this setting, so pick something fun! Have group members vote on and read a selected book, graphic novel or short story and then meet up for a Lit & Latte discussion. Bring your own questions, feedback and snacks. (Bonus: If your assigned reading has been adapted into a film, ask members to check it out, too (or watch it together at a Netflix Party - see #1) and compare!
11) Guided Wellness Sessions
Help students relax and focus in this stressful time. Gather members together and livestream a calming guided meditation or soothing yoga session hosted by a trained instructor. Or make it a recurring event: Create an extensive wellness series to offer additional classes and workshops.
Side note: You might also want to share with your community members that the Headspace app is offering some of their content for free during the COVID-19 crisis.
12) Virtual Trivia Contest
Name that tune! Challenge your group members with fun rounds of trivia. Pick your poison: Current events, politics, history, sports, music, film or any topic related to your organizationโs goals and interests. (Offering a prize to the winner or winning group goes a long way to boosting participation!)
How does it work?
Pick and date and time and set up your event. Share a Zoom link to registered members and randomly sort them into teams, depending on how many participants you have. Let each team pick a name and captain (who will be submitting answers). Pick someone to host or emcee and ask questions, then send teams into separate break out rooms with their teammates to discuss privately. Teams are given one minute to come up with their answer and have the team captain slack it to the scorekeeper. A prize is awarded for the highest points!
Learn more about hosting events on CampusGroups here!
13) Hold on to end of year traditions
Do you usually host a dinner where you give out superlative awards to your seniors? Keep traditions alive by creating surveys to engage your group members! Use our Poll and Survey feature to ask questions about and develop end of the year superlative awards (e.g., Most Hard-Working, Future CEO, Most Likely to Start a Riot).
14) Elect Officers
Looking ahead to the fall semester, itโs a great time for student organizations to set up elections to select new leaders. This can be a challenge on-campus and even tricker off-campus, but CampusGroups Surveys module helps ease the transition of leadership roles with a paperless, secure way to facilitate the election process, from creating a ballot, announcing and promoting, allowing members to easily click and vote online, and notifying new leaders.
Learn more about holding an online election for your student organization on CampusGroups.
15) Virtual Leadership Training
Turn a day of in-person trainings for incoming student leaders into a virtual experience, including videos, readings, quizzes and more. Use the Tracks & Checklists feature to ensure learning objectives are met and requirements completed.
16) Lunch & Learn
Gather your group members together for an informative BYOS session (Bring Your Own Snacks), whether youโre studying for an upcoming exam, planning an event with your team of officers, working together on a collaborative project or inviting a professor or industry pro to give a talk or lead a discussion group. Package your virtual gathering however you like: A Coffee Chat, Lunch & Learn, Brown Bag Lunch or Thirsty Thursday Happy Hour.
Students who are already missing on-campus life might be getting bored and restless, so get creative and keep it fun, stimulating and engaging!
17) Virtual Board Games
Maintain the recommended social distance while challenging your competitive spirit by organizing an online board game meetup with friends. This is a fun and budget-friendly way to get together and connect with friends and group members you might not know very well yet.
Here are some beloved group games that are ideal for virtual gatherings: Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Ticket to Ride, Words with Friends, and Pandemic, or browse available games on apps like Tabletop, Pogo or Poki, which provide online arenas for playing board games, just like in real life!
18) Embrace E-Gaming
Connect your groupโs gamer members on Discord, a gaming server where you can chat and play games together with friends. Set up your own dedicated server and invite your friends to chat/call within the various text and voice channels you create.
โEngaging students in esports can help them build critical thinking skills, encourage teamwork and innovation, and promote self-directed learning.โ
19) Organize and Share Volunteer Opportunities
Take on volunteer and leadership roles in your community or virtually.
Keep it local: Help with grocery shopping for an elderly neighbor or offer babysitting services to the family next door. Donate money, food or volunteer at local food banks, foster a shelter pet, volunteer with Meals on Wheels or other philanthropic organizations, or lead an on-the-ground effort by organizing a fundraiser to help struggling small businesses or displaced workers in your community.
Expand your outreach: Explore remote volunteer opportunities from the comfort of your home like mentoring or tutoring children in your favorite subject area, providing text-based emotional support in a program such as Crisis Text Line, or helping the visually-impaired with everyday tasks in a program like Be My Eyes.
20) Daily Share
Itโs a stressful time. Inspire each other by asking members to take turns sharing a thought-provoking or fun quote, meme, video, poem, etc. Assign one member to share per day and ask them to explain what their selection means to them.
Do you have an idea for a remote-inclusive, virtual event? Please share in the comments so all campuses can learn from each other whatโs working well!
Want to learn more about leveraging CampusGroups to help keep students connected, virtually engaged and efficiently manage online programming? Please check out our blog post on Communications and Community with COVID-19, or feel free to reach out to chat with one of our team members on a quick demo call.
