Get Involved! There is no harm in getting to know first years. They will form groups, and those groups will not include the leaders. There is nothing wrong with breaking those boundaries and getting to know students. Get in there, and get involved.
Attend the events! All of the events. Get involved with the academic stuff, the volunteer stuff, the marketing stuff. Get involved with it all. Even the stuff you don’t like.
Log the events! Get feedback afterwards and reflect on what went well and what didn’t. It helps to gauge the over all feel and plan future events. People like to be listened to so get feedback.
Success is different for others. Everyone has different goals - what one person wants probably won’t align with what I want. It’s important to learn what people want in order to best help them achieve it.
Locals doesn’t fit everyone. We start with about 200 members in Locals in the first week, and this rapidly drops off. Locals isn’t for everyone. We have had issues keeping mature students around (given the vast majority are around 18 years old this isn’t surprising). People will come and go - this isn’t a failure on our part. Locals is a constantly developing program with limted resources. Look at this as an aspiration.
Don’t be afraid of failure. Projects will fail and events might not go the way we want them to. Remember what didn’t go well, improve on it next time, and stop worrying about it.
Everything is volatile - things always change year to year. Prepare for things to change