All those who participated in the Connecticut Regional this year could not help, but feel the warm snug hugz of the new revolution. The Free Hug Alliance was made up of more than a few teams with a goal of, you guessed it, giving out as many free hugz as possible. It was inspiring to say the least and as I joined the revolution I couldn’t help, but feel we might be on to something here. So I started a website (still currently under construction).
Ask anyone from the FreeHugAlliance and they will tell you it was a blast.
I hope you post replies so everyone can see the new revolution as I saw it to be.
Free Hugs for First - I like the sound of that. I’ll try to give out some free hugs to our alliance partners (and to promote GP, the opposing alliance ).
You’re maybe thinking of these guys? There were also these crazy people a while back, too. It seems like there are always people giving away hugs at the Championship.
Sounds cool, I’d be down for it at the champs if I wasn’t going to be hardcore busy. Someone should stop by the 816 pit and see me. Lol just watch out because some people might be uncomfortable with getting a hug from someone of the same sex and also some mentors may not want hugs aswell.
Its true some people weren’t up for hugz and others needed to really be coaxed into it, but none the less we got a lot and we are looking for people
to run it at Regionals and the Champ.
We just made signs that say free hugz and went around saying funny quotes
Like “The End is Near. Repent and give free hugs!!!”
“Free Hugs. !00% more free. Moneyback garuntee!!”
lol…
anyone up for it? After you can send me pics of it and a list of all the people’s names and emails that went around giving free hugz!!!
I was one of the people in Hartford that hugged a member of the Free hug Alliance. But could I caution you a bit?
First of all, we need to be respectful of each other’s personal space. Some people are huggers and others are not.
We need to remember that some people have medical conditions that prevent them from wanting to be hugged. It could hurt someone to hug them.
We also encourage our FIRSTers not to show PDA.
Keeping this in mind, offering free hugs to people may be fine. Hugging people without their permission is definitely not OK.
Hmm…you have brought up an interesting point. I get the PDA thing, but as long as it doesn’t lead anywhere else I believe hugs should be fine.
and yes some people REALLY DON"T WANT TO BE HUGGED and I really don’t want to hug those people anyway, but what do we do when an entire team is pushing us to huge a mentor (including the other mentors)???
because a lot of them did that and so we hugged them.
This is why I need a dedicated team of leaders to lead this kind of thing and make sure others don’t step out of line with it. I don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but I can’t control everybody either.
That is why I am trying to get this to be an organized thing rather than the randomness at Hartford. At least if it was organized I could kind of lay down some do’s and don’ts ya know. Although they should have enough common sense to know what is right from wrong, but you always get those few who just don’t get it.
There was a kid trolling the lower floor of Buckeye hugging everyone in sight. Most people didn’t mind but one of my students was very uncomfortable after her third hug and migrated back up to her seat. He also hugged another girl on a team who after a minute of being held was trying to pull away and he wouldn’t let go until a teammate moved in and made him release.
I predict this kind if activity is going to lead to a sexual harassment lawsuit on FIRST. People do have a right to say no even if it’s in the name of “fun” and if their wishes aren’t respected they can take ANY action to put a stop to it.
Be mindful of that.
).
