I had the privilege to be one of the coordinators of the first edition of Monsoon Musing held at fountainhead school on the 1st of September 2018. It was a student-led event where we invited students from 7th to 11th, senior school teachers and parents to perform any literary work (From poem to stories anything in Hindi English or Gujarati ) that they had written by themselves.  Alongside the stag event, we also had a gallery walk which had students paintings displayed and we also had a Seva cafe which served food without a price tag on the dishes. All the money generated out of people gratitude was given to the charity. My responsibility was not only limited to assign tasks to volunteers or being a crises manager on the day of the event but it also made me help others in creating decoration, help in marketing, creating posters and also host the stage event.

I did identify my own strengths and weakness throughout the project. I understood that I can be a leader and help and guide others. My confidence and communication skills helped me to be the best of my ability. While hosting I discovered I do lack the stage presence and presentation. I understood I need to work harder next time while making my hosting speech and give it a lot of reads before actually going up on the stage (We created the speech just 1 day prior to the event).

Planning and initiating for this event was quite easier than the other events I have organized because even when it was student-led we did have support from the teachers. Whenever we were struggling we had them for advice so it was easy. For me the toughest part was marketing. Selling the idea and persuading them to come and be a part of it. We also had people who sent in their entries and were selected yet they did not show up on the day of the event. It is very important to know how to plan and initiate because I believe we are the change we want to see in the world. Everyone do identify loophole and complain about them, the way I see it is as an opportunity. So bringing the change and for speaking up initiation and planning plays a vital role.

Commitment and perseverance were very important for the event to go successfully and not fall flat on its face. Waking up early, meeting the deadlines and completing the task and giving the best quality to it was my aim. It was difficult for me because the tasks were dependent on each other, so even if task A is completed it will suffer because take B is not performed. This incident happened to me, I created the form to be rolled out to the participants within 2 days of the task assigned however they were not rolled out until 2 weeks before the event (the reason being whatever). It is easy for me to commit to things and I always try to give in 100% to the work I am asked to do.

I thought to work in a group would be a lot easier but turns out I was wrong. I thought that the work used to get divided and the burden would not be on just one person, which is true however having trust on your other teammates is really important. My experience in this event made the trust factor play a major role. Being a coordinator I did not think I would be doing all the work all by myself. I knew I would need to help others time to time but during the planning of the event, I thought I was the doing all the work. From planning to making the decoration to marketing, I did everything. As I pointed out earlier trust plays a very crucial role here, therefore next time I will try to build up my own team. I understand that I always won’t get the desired team I want so I need to learn which is something I will try to focus on during the next activities.

There were times when there were heated arguments but my ethics did stop me from screaming at my teammates. The first meeting itself we were not able to decide who should are target audience be and we had clashing ideas. I appreciate myself as I kept my cool and instead of screaming on others I tried to come up with a reasonable solution. This event also taught me the impact of language and the way you communicate should always be very respectful. From day one I made sure I convey my points across very respectfully and be very empathetic towards others.

All in all it was a fun and very enlightning experience. I discovered alot about myself and even about my other team mates.