Wesley’s Senior Project

All I needed was one more house, so we continued to help Bonnie fill, stamp, and glue letters for today. We did this for a little over an hour. Bonnie then left to pick up Tuckers for the office, which was very nice. I got a grilled cheese, which Bonnie thought was kind of funny, but at the moment, I just wanted something simple. After eating with everyone, I worked on my paper for a little bit. Some people in the office saw the Proctor Mountain bus show up, so we all looked at them through the window. I ended up going outside and saying hi to Stewart. I also gave Carol and Jeff a hug. Afterward, I went back inside, finished my paper, and left. 

 To start the last couple of days of the senior project, I helped put stamps on the letter that Carly and Bonnie were preparing. I then continued to work on thank you letters and put a dent in the very long list of names. I got into a rhythm of writing and stamping until my wrist and hand started to hurt, and I messed while addressing an envelope and had to take a hand break. We did this till lunch and then went to try and finish the napkins. There weren't very many packets left, but we put some under the bench to make room for the table and space to sit on the bench. Once it was time to leave, I went to a cook-out with the baseball team, which was very fun. It was an excellent way to end the season. Now I am watching the Celtics game and took a break at halftime to write this. If they go down 3-1 in the series, they will probably lose, so they must win tonight. 10am-2:30 Total: 54 hrs 

  Wesley Koziol Kelly Griffin-Brown  Senior Project  22 May 2022 Weekly Blog  During my last week of the senior project, I was able to experience most aspects of what it takes to work in the Alumni Office. Whether it was emailing alumni for new contact information, sending thank you letters to donors, or planning important events like graduation and reunion. Building this type of experience was one of my goals, and I can confidently say that I achieved the goal. I also wanted to improve communication, which we practiced by sending thank you letters and emailing alumni. Although I did not get to talk to alumni on the phone or in person, I think I practiced outreach through email and ways to show appreciation.  Some new projects we started throughout this week were thank you letters, seating for senior dinner, emailing alumni, and things for senior families. We also learned about where donations go, specific contributions, and how Proctor fundraises for projects l...

 For my last Friday of Senior Project, we kicked it off by emailing alumni from the classes 2015 to 2020. We were emailing them because we did not have a non-Proctor email in the database. Some of them didn't have phone numbers either. It surprised the number of people who didn't have a non-Proctor email recorded because I'm sure I get emails from Proctor every now and then on my personal email. I am also curious how many of the alumni actually check their emails. Not just their Proctor email, but email in general. After lunch, we put another dent in the napkins, which was awesome. Then, we put on a clinic for the Andover baseball team for my last baseball practice. Adam Jones was the coach, and they brought around twelve kids over. I then sent out some more emails to alumni and checked my google survey. 9am-2:30pm 8pm-10pm Total: 50 hrs

 For today Bonnie gave us a presentation breaking down who donates, how they donate, and what the money is put toward. Something that stood out was that donors get to decide where their money goes. Some people want it put toward specific things like dorms, the art program, or activities while other donors allow Proctor to choose where the money goes. We also looked at a timeline of when things were built from the meeting house, the library, the athletics building, and even the newer projects like the dining hall and woods center. Next, we went and folded napkins which were nice after a lot of information. I couldn't tell you how many napkins we folded but I'm sure it was a lot. Later today I went to the play which was very fun to watch. 9am-2:30pm total: 43hrs

During today's work session, I wrote thank you letters pretty much. I told them where I was going to school and a highlight of my time at Proctor in my thank you letting I said thank you. Most of them were the same; however,  a few of the letters were different toward the end because I had messed up my rhythm and started the letter differently. I think I wrote around eight to twelve of them, which only created a small dent in the long list of names. After lunch, I went to my last baseball game, and we beat Brewster 9-5. It was a super cool way to end the season, and I will definitely miss playing with the team. Later that day, I also went through my google form and found that more people had filled it out with their college, a non-Proctor email, and a possible college address. I then put those things into a google sheet I have been working on. 9am-12pm 9pm-9:30pm total: 37hrs 30 min

 Today, we worked on a senior gift for senior dinner, which took around two hours. It was a very long process because we had to assemble each senior's gift. Next, we filled the missing field house chair names into a good sheet. After lunch, I ran home to grab Kate's guest locker room key because she wanted to fold napkins. Carly and I organized the senior gifts in alphabetical order and checked to ensure they were all there with Brooke. They filled three large boxes and one medium box. The activities we did today were very time-consuming and a little tedious. 9am-2:30pm total: 34 hrs

 For the start of my second week, we started it off by doing a little research on alumni. We started with the class of '98, but once we found everything we could, the three of us moved on to the class of '73. It was much harder to find information on that year's graduating class because only a few had a LinkedIn account. If they didn't have a LinkedIn account, the only other way I was finding them as if they owned a business or had done something memorable. We did those two tasks till 10:30, when we headed over to the field house and started folding napkins. It was kind of relaxing doing a little mindless work on a Monday. We blew through two or three packets of the napkins, which is pretty good. Once I got home, I continued working on the alumni research. 9am-12pm and 6:30pm-9:3opm total: 29hrs 30min

      Wesley Koziol  Kelly Griffin-Brown Senior Project  15 May 2022 Weekly Reflection  With twenty-four hours under my belt, my experience in the alumni office has been exciting and fun. I've been able to meet the members of the alumni office, who are a very welcoming, fun, and energetic group, which makes the small tedious tasks exceedingly better. Anyways, so far, what I've learned is how vital the alumni office is to the entirety of Proctor. This is shown through ongoing funding, alumni outreach, and community building. Although there is the main donation period, there is always an opportunity to donate transparently. When it comes to the community outreach, they send thank you notes to people who donate and create opportunities to have your name attached to a chair in the meeting house, a bike rack, or locker, which leaves their mark on the community. The office also pushes to build long-lasting relationships with alumni and their families and friends....

For today we learned about another way the school fundraisers. You can donate one-thousand dollars, and the school will either put your name on one of the chairs in the Meeting House or have your name in a locker room. We then went to the Meetinghouse to update a list of names on the chairs. Many names had not been updated on the list yet, so we made sure to write them down. After that, we started working on a couple projects. The first one was going through a google sheet full of names and trying to find information on their current job or living situation. The next job was going through the buy Proctor page on the Proctor website and ensuring the sites were all still active. Some of the companies were very interesting; for example, one alumni runs a production studio in Los Angles, CA. Those three jobs took us the whole day. Brooke also brought us Dunkins in the morning, which was super nice.  9:00am-2:30pm 5hrs total: 24hours 

Today we sat in during a meeting with the whole alumni crew and Bryan, where they mapped out the graduation schedule for him. Since it was Bryan's first graduation, he took notes, making sure he knew where he needed to be. Getting a sneak peek into what graduation would be like was interesting. It was also cool learning about the prestigious company Proctor highers to record graduation. They also mentioned that the senior class goes on a little trip either Thursday or Friday, which is exciting. Unfortunately, they wouldn't say what it is; however, I guess it's a little getaway in Boston. After the meeting, we worked on packaging gifts for parents on the board and finished making name tags for the fifty-year alumni with ancient pictures of them.  9am-2:30pm 5hrs Total: 19hrs

To kick off my third day of senior project, I sent out reminder emails to alumni who had not yet clarified whether or not they were attending the reunion. Fortunately, a couple people did respond. Next continued working on filling out a spreadsheet with the senior class's college decisions. A hand full of people did fill out my server; however, there are still many people who I have yet to hear from. I am also not sure how I will figure out their college decision without them filling out the survey. Lastly, I helped Kate and Carly find yearbook pictures in name tags. The older yearbooks were very difficult because many of the senior pictures were of bad quality or weren't there. If I couldn't find someone, then I would look through the year before, but the odds of finding a better picture were slim to none. 9am-12pm 3hrs

I started today by putting fifty-year alumni pins in Proctor Academy hats. Then moved on to clearing old name tags for them to be used again for graduation and/or reunion. Next, we transported boxes to the visitor locker rooms, where we loaded the boxes and started our next project. First, we learned how to fold table clothes and began to work through all 1800 of them. After lunch, Bonnie showed us what their database looked like. We learned how it worked and that they would transfer the data to a newer Blackbaud program. I noticed that the new Blackbaud seemed very similar to what the proctor student website looks like. Anyways, Bonnie then had us set up a linked-in account and gave us time to experiment with it. 9am-3:00pm 5hrs 30 min

       On my first day of working with the alumni association, the association's core gave me the rundown. They helped us understand how the school acquires money from tuition, fundraising, and foundations. One of the women working there explained her personal experience with her current alumni job and her job while working with the Colby Sawyer admissions. She explained how working with the alumni association allows her to build long-lasting connections with students, family members, and other people they happen to meet. At the same time, her role in admissions consisted of meeting people but not being able to build relationships. This was very intriguing, something I hope I can experience during my senior project.      After the introduction, I started my first task. I went to the dining hall and counted all dinner plates and dessert plates for senior dinner. Unfortunately, there were not enough plates, so we will have to rent plates. Next, we fixed ...