Monsoon Musings was my CAS project which was organized in school by all the students of Grade 11 and our Language teachers. This was a literary event which was organized to give a chance to people in the school community who write poems, short stories, snippets etc. This event was divided into 2 categories; literary stage event and Seva Cafe. The literary stage was for all the guests who had come to present their works and the audience was people from the school community. The Seva Cafe served food and the visitors had to pay the amount they wished for the food. We also displayed artworks done by the students in the Seva Cafe. Some artworks were on sale and some were just for display. the visitors could buy the artworks on sale at the rate they wished and could put appreciation money for the ones which were displayed. We had invited teachers, students and parents to visit our event and be a part of it. Monsoon Musings was fully a charity event and all the money collected was donated for charity. The goal of this event was to add glamour to literature and give a platform to people who write to present their work in front of an audience. The aim was also to collect as much money as possible and give it to charity.
LO1 : Identify own strengths and develop areas of growth
While we were introduced to this project I knew I wanted to do it because I felt it was my thing. I am interested in literature and this was just made for me. I identified my strengths as my passion for literature, leadership skills, communication and Self-confidence. I realized with these strengths such an event could be done so I applied for the Event coordinator’s position. I luckily got selected by the teachers for this position by giving a written test about my knowledge on organizing events. After I got the position I knew I also had weaknesses to overcome. I identified my weakness as impatience, low tolerance and procrastination. Knowing these were very important to make my project a success because my weaknesses could ruin my work so I decided to work on them while planning for the event. We started to plan for the event before a month and I knew I had to stop procrastinating because a lot of work was on hand so I started doing all my work on time. There were times in the preparation process when I lost my patience and got angry but at those moments I reminded myself I had to overcome this and so I tried to be patient while the times of crisis and throughout the process. Knowing my strengths helped me choose the project and handle it with full responsibility and confidence.
LO2 : Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
The most challenging part was making this event an interesting and fun one. A lot of people have this perspective that literature is difficult to understand and boring. We knew we will have a hard time convincing people to come and share their work so we made sure to market this event well. Before doing this event I had organized events but not such huge ones so I was a little scared if I will be able to manage it but I motivated myself and so did my team to keep going and make it happen. Marketing this event well by revealing the actual purpose of adding glamour to literature and getting good funds helped us gain popularity and got us people who volunteered to present their work. Our teachers were also very supportive while marketing and a lot of word of mouth also spread. We made attractive posters to make sure everybody was aware of the event.
When this event turned out to be a success I felt very satisfied and proud of all my friends who became a part of our team and helped in making this event a success. I also realized that my confidence is greater than my fear of not being able to manage things and with confidence, I can do many such events.
LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
Like I mentioned above one my weakness was procrastination and overcoming it was not very easy. To overcome it I needed to be organized so I made sure I had a list of all the things I needed to get done in front of my eyes on the dashboard of my laptop so whenever I opened my laptop I was reminded to finish my work. Also, self-motivation to make this event not just a success but a memorable one helped me get all my work done on time because I knew if I won’t work I could not expect my team to work. I am usually not a very organized person and I tend to do all my work in the last minute.
We started to plan for this event before a month so we were able to do all the work on time. In the planning process, our teachers and the team of team leaders and coordinator listed down everything to be done and then we put them in order. We gave deadlines to all the work to be done and this helped us in initiating our plan. All the work got divided in the first 2-3 meetings and then we all started to work with our teams.
LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
Working with others is not a difficult job for me if I know the people in my team. For this project, we had 4 coordinators 2 (including me) from my grade and the other two were a year senior to me. I had to work with entirely new people to me who I had not even talked to before this project. Working with 2 new people sounded a little difficult but I kept a positive attitude and started working with them. During the preparation phase, we had some difference of opinions but we somehow worked I all out and were finally able to work collaboratively by using all the skills we had.
It is very important to work collaboratively with the team because only then the best of everyone comes out and the project becomes successful. In this project, we had a huge team including my entire grade and we all worked collaboratively and systematically which contributed a lot to the success of the event. leadership was very important in this project because everybody needed a direction to go in the beginning. Being a coordinator and a leader I had to make my team understand why we are doing this event and what is expected out of them and this whole event.
LO 6: Demonstrate engagement in issues of global significance.
As this was a charity event we had 2 people in the team responsible for finding a place to donate the money collected. We decided we will donate somewhere that helps in the education of underprivileged children. In my opinion, education is a right for every child and there a lot of children in the world who do not get proper education and end up having a bad future. We got a good amount of donation and the charity team did the research and decided to give money to UNICEF India education section and we also donated some money to a teacher in our school who educates poor children in our city. I felt really good that our team could collect and donate money for such an important cause.
LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
The originality of the pieces written had to be tested because we wanted the event to be ethical. To ensure that we requested all the participants of the literary event to submit their work prior to the event and we had a team which checked for plagiarism in their work. If any sort of plagiarism was spotted the participant was informed about it and was told to check his or her work.
Monsoon Musings was a complete success and I learnt a lot during the preparation and the event. I became a good communicator while I was coordinating with all the teams. I was also open-minded when I listened to all the ideas that came my way during the whole process. This event gave a chance to hidden writers to show their talent and also the collected money helped in the education of underprivileged children. The event was a successful one and made me feel really happy and satisfied. I learnt a lot about leadership in this event and I will apply all my learning in other events that I lead.
