Reminders for April

Posted on March 31, 2011 by BLSPI

BLSPI Folks,

A few reminders for next week:

1) Brooklyn Law School Public Awards Ceremony and BLSPI Alumni Dinner is next Wednesday, April 6th at 6:30pm in the Subotnick Center. Come celebrate public interest at Brooklyn Law School and honor graduating students who have exemplified themselves in public service. We are very excited to have the Honorable Ramon E Reyes Jr. as our keynote speaker. Please RSVP to Danielle.sorken@brooklaw.edu

2) March Madness Viewing Party — $5 raffle tickets for Pieper Bar Gift Certificates, and proceeds go to Japan Relief Efforts! Monday April 4th, 8pm Student Lounge (game starts at 9).

3) Class and Clinic Mentoring Event: date, time and location TBA. Come speak with upperclassmen to get some perspectives about registering for classes, taking on internships, and creating the resume you want.

4) SBA Transition Dinner, April 21st, 7pm in Forchelli. Let’s welcome our new student leaders! Also, be sure to vote for BLSPI as best student group on campus.

Speaking of transition, congratulations to our newest board members!

Michael Berman, Co-Chair
Jess Rickards, Auction Chair
Rosa Cohen-Cruz, Fellowship Chair
Cristina Lee and Sary Udashkin, Mentorship co-chairs
Matthew Allee, Secretary

5) Outline Bank: email Steven Hasty with helpful outlines, and he will send you the password for BLSPI’s outline bank, which is located on the TWEN site.

Email blspi@brooklaw.edu with any comments or questions.

Tagged , , , ,

Next General Meeting March 29th

Posted on March 21, 2011 by BLSPI

BLSPI Folks,

Hope you all had a good spring break and are finishing out the semester well. Thank you to all who helped and attended the Auction! It was a very successful night, and we are so glad to have some substantial funds for our programming. Also, Race and the Law last week went incredibly well and was an enriching educational experience because of everyone’s efforts and participation.

Our next general meeting will be Tuesday, March 29th at 1pm. The schedule says room 603, but that may change, so pay attention to the portal. We will make several announcements and will be holding elections for a few positions listed below. If you are interested in running, please send a campaign blurb by this Friday 5pm so that we can send out candidate info to our members before they vote on Tuesday.

Events for the next couple weeks:

  • April 4th: March Madness for Charity, 8pm Student Lounge Come watch the end of the Final Four and get a chance to win a Pieper Bar Certificate! Buy-in for final four and raffle tickets will go to relief efforts for Japan.
  • April 6th: Public Service Office Ceremony and BLSPI Alumni Dinner, 6pm Subotnick Come network with public service alumni and watch our graduating 3Ls receive their awards for all their hard work. RSVP by Friday, April 1st to danielle.sorken@brooklaw.edu

Position Descriptions for Elections:

Co-Chair: This position oversees the executive board, helps run BLSPI events, works with BLS administration, and performs various other tasks to fulfill BLSPI’s mission of helping students on campus pursue public service careers. This role requires 5-10 hours/week and certainly more during the last month before auction.

Fellowship Chair:

  • Maintain contact with all fellows and act as liaison between fellows and administration
  • Direct the selection of new fellows through the application, interview, and selection process
  • Fellowship chair must be a past BLSPI fellow, and preferably a member of a previous fellowship selection committee This is a position which will depend on a steady commitment throughout the next year. You’re expected to mentor incoming fellows and keep in contact with them throughout the summer about fellowship concerns. Then, you aid fellows in transitioning into a BLSPI leadership role. Time commitment is ~4 hours per month during the summer and fall semester, ~15 hours in application prep in January, and ~25 hours for selection weekend. The fellowship chair also orients incoming fellows at the end of next year. (Email leigh.mangum@brooklaw.edu for more information).

Mentorship Chair (at this time, not an e-board position, but subject change):

  • Encourage 1Ls, 2Ls and 3Ls students to sign up for the BLSPI mentorship program
  • Match and facilitate the meeting of upperclass mentors and 1L mentees (by planning a fellowship)
  • Stay in touch with mentors and mentees and mediate occasional scheduling conflicts and communication between them
  • Plan event preparing students for PILC Fair/summer job search
  • Time commitment is <5 hours prep over the summer, 10 hours matching students and planning fellowship mixer, <2 hours per month communicating, 10 hours planning PILC Fair prep event. (Email leigh.mangum@brooklaw.edu for more information).

Auction Chairs (2):

These roles require a steady commitment throughout the fall semester to communicate with donors, create support committees among BLSPI members, and plan for the day-of event. Spring semester will demand part-time hours, and then more during the couple weeks before auction, to ensure that donors are committed and school contacts-students and alumni- are aware of this wonderful event so that they can be ready to help this cause. For more information, contact michael.berman@brooklaw.edu or theresa.omansky@brooklaw.edu

Secretary: This job requires you to schedule monthly meetings and other BLSPI events through BLS Connect, make any technology arrangements for any BLSPI events, make food arrangements for the monthly meetings, and make flyers for each meeting and hang them in the school. It requires about 1.5 hours the week before a meeting, but other than that does not take any time unless there is an event that needs to be planned for, such as the auction, Race and the Law, etc. It takes a lot of communication with the Presidents and other members of the E-board, so mainly you just have to make sure you’re able to be reached through email most of the time.

Please contact blspi@brooklaw.edu with questions or concerns.

See you all Tuesday,

Meredith Symonds

Jesse Thompson

Tagged

Auction Success!

Posted on March 4, 2011 by BLSPI

Hi All,

I just wanted to write on behalf of the co-chairs to congratulate and thank all of you who helped us last night.

First of all, Mike Berman and Theresa Omansky probably slept a combined total of 30 hours last week, and their hard work absolutely showed through last night. Their never-ending dedication and tireless commitment to BLSPI is an outstanding example of what it means to care about a cause. Deeply, from all of us, thank you!

Next, I wanted to thank everyone else who helped us with any part of this process. From the people who canvassed and brought in our wonderful donations to people making sure guests got their coats by the end of the night, we really could not have done this without you. I was so impressed and honored to see so many people willing to dedicate so much time and energy to our organization’s most important event.

I spoke to so many people — students, faculty and alums — who praised our efforts. We put on a great show last night, and I want all of you to feel like it couldn’t have happened without you, because it actually couldn’t have. I got the chance to thank many of you last night, but I wanted a more public way to acknowledge everyone’s great work.

Because of our wonderful volunteers, we had one of the most successful auctions in our organization’s history. Thank you again and again, and enjoy this well-deserved week off!

– Jesse Thompson and Meredith Symonds, Co-chairs

Tagged

Auction Update

Posted on February 24, 2011 by BLSPI

Hey Everyone,

The lots for the auction have been posted. Check out the great collection of items that will be up for bid at the Auction on March 3. Ever wanted to know what it’s like to be a fighter pilot? Want to own a Fender guitar signed by the Pink Floyd guitarist Roger Waters? Ever wished you could feed the animals at the Bronx Zoo? Well we’ve got all that and so much more, and you’ll find it only at the BLSPI Auction!

Hope you all can be there next Thursday.

Tagged

ONE WEEK until the Auction!

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Jess

We will be tabling in the 4th floor dining room on Thursday 2/24 from 11am – 2pm. We will be selling advanced tickets to the Auction, passing out fliers, and generally hyping up the auction to all the passers-by. A few of you have signed up already to help that day. But, even if you have not, we would ask that, if you have time, please stop by to help out. The more the merrier. We’ll have all the supplies that you’ll need there for you when you get there.

We will also be doing this on Tuesday, March 1.

Facebook stuff: If you have not done so already, please RSVP to the facebook event for the Auction: http://www.facebook.com/index.php?lh=042aa78693ff1c6b54e4aca8cdda7877&#!/event.php?eid=129255567142475 And, please invite all of your friends from BLS (or elsewhere) also. And, while you’re at it, make sure that you “like” the BLSPI page as well.

OK, so from this point on, it’s “All hands on deck” around here. We need all of you there at the Auction, helping out in a variety of ways, to make this night the success that we all hope it will be.  But, before next Thursday, we’re going to have a series of meetings to talk about things. There will be two meeting, we need you to come to one of them. The first will be Monday 2/28 at 1pm in Room 603. The second will be Tuesday, 3/1 at 4pm in Room 503. Again, you only need to come to one.

At these meetings we will hand out and discuss the various jobs that we need you all to do at the auction. Below is a list of those jobs. If you have a preference please make note of it. Then click on this link: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=txmlhpKTOuUvq0m5nTB-C3Q&authkey=CKyP-KID#gid=0

Sing up on either the Monday or Tuesday sheet (tabs on bottom) based on your availability. Make note of your job preference if any. We will attempt to accommodate your preferences, but we obviously can’t guarantee anything. Also please note if you have any experience working in restaurants or catering (and how much).  And also please note what time you will be available on March 3.

JOBS:

Entrance Table- Selling wristbands at the entrance of Feil

Set-Up- Helping to set up downstairs and upstairs

Runner- collecting winning bidder information

Cashiers- Helping the treasurers handling the purchases

Bussers- Light clean up around the auction and food tables

Bartenders-  giving out beer/wine to guests

Clean-Up- stay and help carry items back to BLSPI office

Coat Check – check guests’ coats

Tagged

BLSPI Auction Update: The Home Stretch

Posted on February 9, 2011 by BLSPI

Hey Everyone!!

It’s pretty hard to believe, but the auction is right around the corner. It seems like just yesterday Theresa and Mike were sitting in a cafe in Tribeca having their very first discussions about how to make this year’s auction a great success. But, that was seven months ago, and now the auction is only three weeks away!

This semester so many of you have given your time and energy to ensure the success of the auction. Between the mailings, the canvassings, and the goody bag efforts, your efforts have already resulted in so many great donations, with more and more coming in every day. And, through graphic design, contacting professors, web design, mining through databases of past donors, working on publicity and social networking, or getting in touch with family and friends, it seems that everyone is finding some way to get involved. When you look at all the work that has been done, it’s hard not to feel enthusiastic about the auction!

But, this is no time to rest on our laurels. Not when we’re all so close to putting together an amazing event. And especially not when that event is just over three weeks away. So we’re asking you to join us down the home stretch for one final push to ensure that this auction turns out to be the wonderful success that we all know it can be.

Here’s what you can do to help:

  1. Publicity – We need folks to put up fliers all over campus. And we need people who can sit in the entrance to the cafeteria during lunch hours the week before the auction to talk up the auction and sell advanced tickets. So, if you’d like to help out this way, send us an e-mail. Or you can click on the link to the Google spreadsheet below and enter your name in the columns that fit your availability. We’ll get in touch with you. And, even if you can’t help out at any of these times, we still need you all to start talking up the event to your friends and classmates. Get people excited about attending!!! Remember: March 3, 7 P.M., Feil Hall, $15 admission for students which gets them lots of food and an open beer/wine bar.

    Lunch Hour Sign Up Google Doc (note: there are five separate pages to the spreadsheet, one for each day of the week).

  2. BLSPI Jeopardy – You may have noticed that you recently received an email from Professor Pitler announcing his jeopardy event. We’re responsible for making this event a success and we’re looking at is as an opportunity to promote the Auction and also sell some advanced tickets. We need some folks to help promote the Jeopardy event and to help set up the logistics. If this strikes your fancy, let us know.
  3. Last minute arrangements – Finally we’ll need everyone’s help as we get closer to the day of the auction. We’ll need people to do everything from picking up food and beer to arranging auction items so that they look pretty. And on the day of, we’ll need lots of help setting up Feil Hall for the Auction. We’ll be in touch again before that comes.

That’s all for now. Thank you all again for everything that you’ve done for the auction and we look forward to hearing from you about how you’d like to help going forward. We’re almost there. Let’s knock this baby outta the park!!

–BLSPI Auction Co-Chairs

Tagged ,

PILC Prep Tomorrow! 6-9PM in the Student Lounge

Posted on February 1, 2011 by BLSPI

Hello everyone,

This is a reminder of this tomorrow night’s PILC Fair/summer job prep event. Please join us from 6-9pm in the Student Lounge.

Please come if you are attending the NYU PILC Fair, have attended PILC Fair, are looking to secure a summer public interest job, or have worked a public interest job! Yes, that means you.

1Ls, feel free to bring a copy of your resume and/or cover letters; we’ll have upper-class students to give you feedback on them.

BLSPI will provide the refreshments.

Again, that’s tomorrow – Wednesday, February 2, from 6-9pm in the Student Lounge. We’re looking forward to it!

Tagged

REMINDERS: Public Service Work Log & PILC PREP

Posted on January 31, 2011 by BLSPI

Hi BLSPI Folks,
 
This is a friendly reminder that the deadline for fall semester hours for the Public Service Work Log is tomorrow, February 1st.  Please make sure to get credit where credit is due!
 
You can access the Work Log through BLS Connect (aka the Portal), by scrolling down on the right-hand side on the “Students” home page and clicking on “Public Service.” 
 
For any other questions, please contact Danielle Sorken in the Public Service Office.
 
Also, don’t forget the PILC Fair Prep Night this Wednesday, February 2nd, at 6pm in the Student Lounge.  There will be great information about the interview process and refreshments.
 
See you all then!

Welcome Back and Our Exciting First Meeting!

Posted on January 15, 2011 by BLSPI

BLSPI had its first general body meeting of the semester on Tuesday, January 18th.

Meredith Symonds was re-elected as BLSPI Co-Chair.  Congratulations!

Our first Charitable Bar Review of the semester will be on January 20th, at the Roebling Inn (97 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn).  $5 for happy hour specials all night — Proceeds will benefit the Brownsville Partnership, a homelessness prevention program in Brooklyn.Some advance notice about some important deadlines coming up:

On Thursday, January 20th (12-2pm), there will be a Spring Pro Bono Recruitment Fair. Did you miss out on a training of a pro bono project that you really wanted to work on? Do you have questions about what projects exist, and what they do? Join us in the Student Lounge to connect with pro bono projects from all over.

The deadline to log any public service hours you have worked (in the Public Service Log on the Public Service webpage) is February 1st. E-mail blspi@brooklaw.edu or danielle.sorken@brooklaw.edu if you have any further questions.

Our Spring Blood Drive this year will be held on February 16th. At our meeting, we’ll send out a sign-up sheet for people to volunteer at the sign-up table.

On February 2, from 6 P.M. – 9 P.M. in the Student Lounge, we’ll be hosting a mentor/mentee event with the NYU PILC Fair as our inspiration. There, you’ll be able to discuss everything you may need to know about the Fair and how to “win” from our illustrious upperclassmen.

The Race and the Law Conference will be held during the week of March 14. Come to the meeting to hear more about how to get involved!

The Auction will take place on March 3! We’re deep in preparation, and are always looking for more help. We’ll be passing around another sign up sheet at our meeting for more opportunities to help.

Tagged ,

Community Speak-Out for Reproductive Freedom

Posted on January 15, 2011 by BLSPI

Get involved with NLG and Reproductive Rights!  BLSPI members have volunteered at the clinic before, and it’s a really great experience.

Hi Student Leaders,
Just wanted to let folks know about this, it’s something that our chapter of the NLG will likely endorse (I’ve been helping with organizing the legal observers).  I know it’s way up in the Bronx, but it’s pretty quick on the 4/5, and this particular clinic has been targeted for quite some time now.  If you can send this out to your list or help to encourage folks from your groups to attend via your attendance, it would be much appreciated.  Please see below for ways to participate.  Even if you can’t participate in any of those ways, I’d like to encourage you to do something to honor safe and legal reproductive healthcare sometime near the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Best (and hope to see some folks at the pro-bono fair!),
Cristina

Continue reading →

Tagged