By Erin O’Sullivan
After a brief summer hiatus, August 15 marked the return of NIRSA’s favorite hashtag: #RecChat.
Named one of the top five resources for collegiate recreation professionals by Active Network, Inc., this popular medium for networking and discussion has gained an enthusiastic following among NIRSA members.
Founders, Earl Cabellon and Mike Warren, understood the difficulty of having direct and immediate conversations when our peers are scattered across the globe, and created #RecChat, with its designated time and virtual meeting space, to help remove those roadblocks.
During this #RecChat-in-review session, over a dozen members tweeted in for the hour-long, question and answer session, which focused mostly on #RecChat-specific feedback: what drew participants to the chats, what was most beneficial about last year’s chat sessions, and suggestions for improvement. Among the ideas brought up for future discussion were how to use technology to its full potential, changes taking place at peer institutions, and student engagement—both for on-campus events and in the #RecChat community. A full transcript of this session, along with past #RecChats, can be accessed in the NIRSA Discussion resource library.
This starter-session welcomed many new faces, who explored the “how-to” of #RecChat’s question/answer format—the @RecChat moderator proposes questions, labeled chronologically as Q1, Q2, etc, and members tweet back, labeling their answers correspondingly as A1, A2, etc. This allows organization and consistency to go hand-in-hand with Twitter’s real-time, and often rapid, abilities, thus allowing members to easily follow along with the conversation. In addition, participants were reminded of Tweet Chat, an online tool that makes it easier to follow along with a hashtag-based conversation. It allows you to focus only on the tweets tagged with your selected hashtag, delivers results faster, and automatically adds the hashtag to your replies.
“What is #RecChat” video produced by #RecChat crew member, Bill Ling.
The August 15 session also welcomed two new #RecChat crew members: Bill Ling, Coordinator for Campus Recreation at SUNY Oswego, and William Moore, Intramural Sports Graduate Assistant at Boston University. Many members will recognize Bill as the star of the recent “What is #RecChat?” video, perfect for those who want to know a little more, or just want a reminder, before our next session.
#RecChat will be back Wednesday, September 18 from 3-4 PM EST. Keep following @RecChat and @NIRSAlive for up-to-date information on topic ideas and all things #RecChat!
