Author | Michael Powell |
What is Organized Mass Chaos you may ask? Well for starters, it’s an oxymoron. But it is also the name of this cool event we had at SGA. As you can probably tell from the name, it was crazy. It was wild. It was Organized Mass Chaos.
I asked Anna Boivin what she was excited about for OMC and she said, “Hanging out with all my friends. Getting extremely messy and gross. Getting to know people that I go to school with better.”
Sara Kate Walker also said that she was excited about, “Hanging out with friends that I don’t normally see.” (I think I’m noticing a pattern!)
So now into the games. We started with Gaga Ball. It is a variation of dodgeball that you play in a giant octagon ring. There are two balls that you must hit around the octagon at other people’s legs. If you get hit below your knees, you’re out. We all got in the octagon and worked our way down to only a couple people left. Whoever eliminated the last person was the winner.
After Gaga Ball, we moved on to the main chaos. It took place in the FBCL parking lot. There were four teams: The Blue Team, The Red Team, The Green Team, and The Yellow Team. Each team had a basket filled with slips of paper containing challenges that we had to complete by using materials from the No-Fly Zone. In the No-Fly Zone, there was an assortment of totally random items. Buckets of water, shaving cream, hula hoops, etc. etc. were located in this area. When it began, people from each team had to pick a slip from the basket and do whatever task they had been assigned. This was where it got interesting.
Before we started the games, Emma Baldassi said, “I don’t know much of what's going on, but I know shaving cream is involved.”
Ahhhhh...what the church must have thought? A whole bunch of kids running around in the parking lot rubbing shaving cream and dumping water on each other. What a sight! Some of the tasks in the basket instructed us to do things like find a leader and sing Mary Had a Little Lamb, write a letter in shaving cream on your friends back, or maybe even invite three friends into a hula hoop and welcome them to your “treehouse.” It forced you to interact with people you didn’t know and put yourself out there! I know I made a couple of new friends during the awkward games!
When you finished your task, you ran back to where your group was located in the parking lot and put the slip of paper into another basket that was for completed tasks. You would continue until the time for that round was up. If you finished all your tasks, you could restart and try to get as many as possible again. When the time was up, each team counted how many we had to see who won that round. Here is a picture of the “aftermath” of OMC. It is hard to see, but if you look closely, you can spot shaving cream and water on everyone:
After playing several rounds of the main event, we moved on to our final competition. We had to come up with a chant for our group. The team with the best chant won. After several quickly thought of cheers, the SLC members voted that the Blue Team won. I am trying hard not to be biased here, but I personally think that our Yellow Team cheer was the best! :)
After all the chaos was over, we cleaned up and had water and snacks. Here is what a few people thought of it:
From Students:
“Tiring, but fun.” -Sara Kate Walker
“It was physically active, and since I am physically inclined, I enjoyed it.” -Cylus Gross
“Tiring but so much fun. I tried not to freak out about being messy.” -Anna Boivin
From SLC:
“I thought it went pretty well, chaotic but organized” -Miranda Pepe
“A big success. The students seemed to enjoy the event. Definitely something that we will consider doing again in the future.” -Emma Harper
Even though some of the more organized people may not have enjoyed the chaos part of it, Organized Mass Chaos was a BIG hit, and I hope we get to see it happen again next year!