Chromazone. An eventful recruitment week is met with excitement in the Loyola Schools. Photo by Christella D. Soriano

JOIN ORGS for what they are, not for what they can give.

This was the position of the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo (COA) recruitment week (RecWeek) team on their decision to ban individual sponsors for organizations.

Entitled “Chromazone,” this year’s RecWeek was held in the Manuel V. Pangilinan roof deck from June 27 to July 1.

Vice President for Special Projects Charla Tsoi said they decided to disallow orgs from getting their own sponsors in order to encourage active student participation.

In previous years, both the COA RecWeek team and the student organizations themselves would get sponsors for freebies to give away to their members. This would be the first time that such a restriction would be imposed.

COA President Kenneth Abante said that majority of the organizations agreed to the changes to be implemented, which were decided in a vote.

Aside from this, it was also decided that scholars would get discounts for the org application fee, pegged at P100.

Join orgs for the right reasons

Tsoi said the decision came after noticing that the sponsored freebies served as the orgs’ major factor in attracting members.

“It’s not a good practice [because] some people join for the freebies, [but then] they’re inactive [afterwards],” she said.

Abante added that they wanted RecWeek to focus on marketing the “core competencies of the orgs” and not to be “a profit-generating event.”

The decision came after the policy was voted for twice, with 28 org representatives voting to implement the new rule against 14 ‘no’ votes.

In a surprise outcome, Abante said that it was the Business Cluster—the orgs which would be most affected by the rule—who voted ‘no’ to sponsorships.

Business Cluster head Mico Suba said they would instead explore alternative avenues for sponsors, such as in the orgs’ individual general assemblies.

Although Ateneo Junior Marketing Association (AJMA) President Jackie Kawsek noticed a decrease in foot traffic this year compared to last year’s event, she also expressed her support for the move.

“AJMA believes that Recweek is first and foremost a project of COA and not a project of individual organizations. Thus, it should be the right of COA to control full monopoly of all sponsorships for their event as this would also avoid complications with overlapping, claiming and competition of sponsors between orgs,” she said.

Not every org however was in favor of the ban. Ateneo Lex human resources project manager Lean Lumabas said the change affected their marketing strategy, as sponsors were a key drawing factor in attracting members to join the org

“We adjusted by marketing more,” she said. “We made sure that we had the attention of people, and we [accomplished] this through our cafeteria raids [and] Lex identity photos on Facebook.”

Standardized recruitment fees

Aside from banning sponsors, the RecWeek team decided to implement a new policy: discounted application rates for scholars. The rule was decided with 36 organizations concurring.

“We received feedback [that] some scholars want to join but some of them have a hard time doing so [because] paying P100 isn’t an option for everybody,” Tsoi said.

To avail of the discount, scholars would go to Ateneo Gabay and would be given stubs with authorized signatures.

Not all scholars, however, were aware of this privilege. One freshman scholar said that only after she joined Gabay did she become aware of the discount available to her. By then, it was too late to reimburse the P100 she paid for the three orgs she had joined.

“Since I’m a freshman and I want to join a lot of orgs, of course it is heavy for us scholars to pay P100 per org,” she said.

No rash decisions

To prepare for the event, RecWeek head Yves Garcia said they consulted with the COA Central Board and the different organizations regarding the proposed plans.

A general assembly and an open forum were also held, so that representatives could vote on the changes to be implemented for this year. The approved decisions were then disseminated through the cluster heads and secretary-treasurers.

“It was important to make the orgs understand the reason behind the change, more than what they could see on the surface,” she said.

Tsoi noted that only accredited orgs had the right to vote.