MOST OUTSTANDING SOCIAL EVENT NOMINEE
Vietnamese Student Organization
at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
The Golden Lotus
Provide a detailed description of the event and the population it served. Details MUST include: date of event, number of participants, program purpose (goals, objectives, etc.), use of resources (finances, community support, etc.), and marketing techniques.
Date: April 2, 2022
Participants: 114
Everybody usually knows how a typical casino night goes. You have your game of poker and blackjack, but we have included some Vietnamese games like “Bau Cua” and “Tien Len” (Thirteen). We decided to mix the two and create Golden Lotus. The name came from the idea of Golden Nugget (which is a casino in Lake Charles). It was an event that we had in the past for VSOUL which incorporates a casino night for the first half and workshop/games for the second half. This year we wanted to do things differently where the majority of the time is spent playing the casino games and the rest of the time was filled with activities we wanted to implement. Golden Lotus is usually a major event that we have in the spring semester so we had made plans for it when the Spring 2022 Semester started. We came up with the idea of having the programming committee implement some marketing and design tactics to advertise Golden Lotus. Business cards were made to help spread the word of our Golden Lotus event. The cards were given to each executive board member and were tasked to hand them out. We also reached out to other VSAs to participate in our event as well. There were budgets implemented for food, decorations, etc. We also had our alumni volunteer to help us out with the event.
What efforts were used to motivate and involve the organization's members?
We had raffles and a dance floor open for everyone to enjoy. People can come up to each table and play a casino game of their choosing. At the end, there's an award for the person with the most chips.
Did the organization overcome any challenges that arose while planning and implementing the event? How?
Initially, the programming committee was going to go with the idea of workshop/games again, but how programming went during Golden Lotus, we had to improvise and cut off the second part.
