Postering rules
The official ASA postering rules are here.
Design your posters
Copy them from previous years (listed in the wiki as child pages) and change the date and location, or get creative and design your own! Be sure to save them into the wiki (pdf and source format) for reuse in later years.
Hire someone to poster
Recently there's been one person who's been postering for most of campus. She needs a fair bit of time beforehand (one or two weeks), which has been a reason I (Dennis) didn't always coordinate with her. She does work with student groups and so has an MIT vendor number you can pay. She also knows the poster cleanup schedule better than anyone and is responsible for maybe 80% of the posters on campus. I would recommend hiring her if the treasurer is okay with it (the price as of 2013 was $0.35 per poster, which she says has not changed in years). Her contact info is:
Rachel Maillet
781-696-2824, cell
781-890-7850, work?
rachelmaureen@hotmail.com
If you don't hire her, the following sections are good advice for how to poster:
Making copies
If possible, use colored paper, as it stands out more. Try to pick unusual colors, and if necessary go up another price bracket to get colors that fewer groups use. Or use color printing!
You can have the copies charged straight to our account, and that way you don't have to get reimbursed for the cost. Use the main account number listed on the Treasurer wiki page. Apparently this can only be done at the CopyTech main campus location, but you can also send files there electronically and the printouts will be ready when you go to pick them up.
How many copies to make?
We counted that if you poster starting at the E25 lobby, work down to 66, 56, 16, over to the infinite corridor (picking up boards on spurs in 6, 2, 1, 4, 3, 7), and the Student Center, this requires just over 70 flyers. In W20 there are boards on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd (1 obscure board outside the bathrooms) and 4th floors. You'll also want more copies for postering dorms, and for Tech Squares members to give to friends. And to reposter each time the posters are cleared.
Posters in obscure locations may persist for months, so poster all over first, and they'll be there during the entire recruitment period with no more work from us.
When to poster
Ideally as soon as the blackout lifts (or maybe two weeks before class starts), and up until and including the first day of class itself. We can only recruit new members two times per year, so we need to make it count.
Finding space to poster
Bulletin boards at the Institute are cleared on Sunday and Thursday nights (depending on how busy facilities is). People are inconsiderate. My heuristics for "making space" on bulletin boards are:
- Get there early in the day. The boards are cleared after 10PM and students tend to get up later (after their first 9AM class) so being early means you don't have to work as hard to find a spot. It does mean you have to work harder to keep from getting covered over (see maintenance below).
- If the boards are suspiciously full, come by again the next day to see if they get cleared a day later.
- MIT stuff takes precedence over any commercial posters. I have no qualms postering over ads. If they're offers to employ students, I leave them for a second pass.
- Outdated flyers also go without a second thought.
- Any postering in violation of the rules (multiples for a single event/purpose) are toast.
- You can poster over outdated or rule-breaking posters (and often should, in order to get a better spot), but don't tear them down (that's against the rules).
Maintaining the posters
This isn't a passive business; our presence needs to be maintained. Other groups are much more cut-throat and you
have to keep things up. If I'm walking and find someone has covered one of our flyers, I don't think twice moving theirs. GET HELP. Other MIT-frequenting members should be recruited to police the postering.
Table-top cards in the dining halls now require a reservation to be made at the ARA office, W20-5th floor. By my last count, Lobdell has about 90 tables and Walker has 55 tables. I haven't done Baker and I think there is another dorm-based dining hall in a west campus dorm.
Postering Blackout
At the beginning of the school year, during rush/orientation up until the activities midway, the ASA limits how student groups may recruit new students. This may interact with early postering you want to do. Check the official ASA rules or ask them for clarification to be sure.