I shared in my previous blog about Christian Student Fellowship having their Welcome Events shut down by the University of Kentucky due to violation of health protocols. A friend of mine who is a retired BCM Director volunteers with them and the leader is one of his former students. They have provided this information and gave me permission to share it in hopes that it will help others in this unusual time. Also, I want to make sure my blog is not wrongfully harming their name and reputation.
This is a PORTION of a statement by Brian Marshall, who is the CSF leader, which he sent to their supporters.
"This past Friday (8/14) was the first night that all students were officially on campus and we were ready to host one of our events--S'more Summer. We had spent literally months--hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars---to create safe spaces to welcome students in accordance with university and CDC recommendations.
This was the first Friday night of students being back, with thousands of students on campus the university only listed 3 campus activities in the K Week App. The CSF S'more Summer was one of those 3 events. We did not know until after the fact that only three events were being publicized. The S/more Summer event is an annual event we host and typically draws way fewer people than showed up this past Friday. Unfortunately we simply didn't foresee the crowd that showed up almost immediately after the start of our event. Our event--as well as the other two events on campus--were overrun by students.
Using widely published guidelines for occupancy standards, we had a pre-set number of people we allowed in this largely outdoor event. But we hit our capacity limit very quickly. We had to turn students away at the gates, even offering them $5 Starbucks gift cards as a way to say we're sorry you can't come in! But despite our best efforts - safety signage, announcements over the sound system, staff going around individually asking people to keep their masks on and spread out, etc.- we couldn't get students to maintain proper social distancing once they were inside the event like we had hoped.
On Saturday, we hosted two more events during the day which were much more manageable......Though admittedly even at those events where 6 food wide tables were spread more than 6 feet apart throughout our grounds, we would still find students clumped together in small groups. We made consistent efforts to walk around the grounds asking them to separate....."
In some additional information shared with me (Arliss), CSF had done the following:
-Submitted their numbers guidelines to the university prior to the event and it had been approved and promoted by the university.
-Also, they had detailed cleaning plans in place, including hiring a disinfectant workers for the events whose sole job it was to clean.
My Take-Aways From This:
1. HERE IS A BIG ONE FOR ALL OF US: You can do everything right and get in trouble!
2. If you get into trouble, be prepared to show what you have done both to University officials AND your supporters.
3. Training our student leaders is HUGE and enlisting them in WHY we are doing what we are doing and asking THEM to help other students understand and comply. Role models are huge!
4. A minor take-away is, I like the idea of having SOMETHING to give to students, if you have to turn them away from an event due to numbers. If you are having two large group worship events and the first one packs out...don't just tell them to come back later, GIVE them something.
5. Don't say, "We will probably get in trouble any way, so the heck with it." We are still responsible for doing right AND NOT burning our bridges with the University administration!! There will be other falls.
6. Share as much information as you can from your events of things that worked and did not work and learn from others. Let's keep passing information.
Oh, and why not pray for the CSF folks.
Arliss Dickerson is a college ministry coach, blogger, and author. His book, ALMOST EVERYTHING ABOUT COLLEGE MINISTRY, is available at amazon.com. Type in his name or the title.
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