Farewell is something students of grade 12 love and eagerly wait. I had the opportunity to make this day a memorable one for them by becoming the event coordinator. Kanishka and I were in charge of the entire event. We got to know on 17th January that we were in charge of planning the farewell, and so we started it as soon as possible. In the first meeting, we decided the sub-coordinators that will help coordinate each department like dance, games, food, music and decoration. As soon we had decided these, we sent out a form to our grade students to choose in which department they would like to work in. Within 5 days we were able to gather responses from all the forms and so, we decided them equally and appropriately according to their choices. Once this was done, we made several hangout groups :of each department, of the sub-coordinators and a group common for all. Then, we unanimously decided on a theme: Masquerade Ball with a touch of Bohemian.
We asked all the teams to start working and get ideas till the next 15 days. We constantly kept a check on the progress of each group.We also planned different ways to give them invites. We gave them three different types of invites all were decorative and were present at different locations in school. One of them was a small treasure hunt which lead to the venue where the invite was placed. One invite had scratch cards made by the arts group with their name and meaning of their names on that. They had to guess their card by the meaning of their name and scratch it see if it is their or not.
We had various meetings and called each team early so that we knew where they were heading and till when we can be done with everything. Along with this, the teacher incharges also kept track of what we did. We had to be ethical at all times and so we made sure that all our ideas were original and ethical. Side by side, we managed to keep the costs of decoration, food and cake within the budget. We went to various places to find out the cost of the resources we needed so that we could get the resources at a cheaper cost. By 15th February we were ready with the flow of the event and we finalised the games, decorations and food as well. We were given entire 2 days to rehearse and have a run through, wherein the decoration team was getting the venue ready for the event, while others were having a run through. We sent an email to all the students regarding their on-the-day roles. It was a brief email with every single of the event. On the day of the event, this is the 22nd of February, we rehearsed once again and were all set. Everybody had their phones, which made our communication easier. Our seniors were expected to come by 3:00pm and so we managed to keep everyone ready on their positions by 2:50pm. At last, the event was successful and it was loved by all. We made our own song for them that was about the hardships faced by an IB student. Our seniors loved it and we were successful in giving them a memorable night.
LO1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
During the whole event and before that I identified my strength of leadership and delegation. During the first meeting all the students who applied for any coordinator jobs were asked who they wanted to make the project coordinator and I was surprised that many people agreed that should be the project coordinator. After this I made sure that I maintain the belief that my classmates had in me and made sure that I did my best for the event. After being appointed as the project coordinator I was more confident while managing the event. After knowing about my strength of being a leader, I feel that I will be willing and capable of taking any responsibility in the future.
Not only strength but I also identified one weakness in me. Losing my temper. I get aggressive very fast and this was my weakness I knew before the event and the weakness I am trying to overcome. I feel with time I am improving the project was a huge task for me. I used to get angry during this project especially when someone did not work while others were working hard to make this event successful. During these instances my partner in the project came to my rescue and sorted the situation out but still I became angry one or two times because of few people. After the event I feel that I was able to control my anger to a huge extent but this was only possible because my partner and other classmates.
LO2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken developing new skills
While planning out a big event with so many people involved it is impossible that there will be no challenges especially for the project coordinators. Both of us had few common and different challenges but all the challenges were overcome by both of us. I will talk about 2 major challenges I faced.
The first challenge which both of us faced was delegation of students into different groups. After receiving the form responses and preferences of everyone we had constant requests about change in preferences. We decided not to change any preferences. After this while finally delegating people in different groups 2 groups, games and decoration, was flooded with people but groups like video making and dance had very few responses. So, both of us decided to divide few people as per our own based their strength and requirement. After final distribution people were furious as they did not have their desired group choice but we said that no groups will change. This lead to people approaching teachers to change their group and people did change their group without informing either me or Kanishka. This was sorted out by clear instructions that no one is allowed to change the group without the consent of either project coordinators or the teacher incharge of the project.
The second challenge was faced by me but caused troubles to my partner in coordinating the event was my unavailability. Because of a shortage of people in the dancing group I chose to be a part of the dance group and also manage all the groups. There were around 3 dances in total and for a dance performance to look good constant practice was required. Many times had to miss the dance practice because of some managing work and miss or delay other work because of dance practice. This caused problem to the dance group and my partner both. There was no definite solution to this as I was needed at anytime for some managerial work or sorting out issues. The only way to overcome this was to take the corner position in dance so my mistakes were not highlighted and surely apologies to everyone.
LO3- initiate and plan a CAS experience
This particular project was one which required the maximum amount of planning across all of my CAS experiences. Planning was required at each and every stage of the project. The plan started with making a form for all the students involved and knowing which group they want to be in. The second major planning part was while invites. Every year the previous batches have been continuously raising the bar in terms of giving the invite. We had to achieve a high bar, so we decided to give three different invites. All the invites were different and personlized and we had to plan each and every part of it. In one of them we wrote the meaning of each and everyone and asked them to identify their cards.
The most important part of the planning was planning the flow of events. The flow of events was altered minimum 15 times and each time one or the other thing was missing. There were few problems while initiating the flow of events as the time while planning were estimates. Finally one activity which exceed the time was covered by one activity which took place in less time.
LO4-commitment to and perseverance
A lot of commitment was needed in this project as we had to wait and commit to the event. There were few weeks which went while we used to come early and commit onto all the activities planned. Coming early was not an easy task. We also used to skip other work and work on the project. We were mostly on time and the event was going as planned.Handling a few students who were roaming and not working needed patience. We also had to cover up the mistakes made by each other. There were more than 2 stage practice and being on time and making sure that everything went well was necessary. At the end we were successful as the seniors liked the event very much.
LO5-. Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
Working collaboratively helps most of the time. In this project group effort lead to suggestions of different and creative themes for the event. The themes suggested were very unique and I personally did not even knew a few themes suggested. Working in group not only gave different suggestions in deciding the theme but also while deciding the activities to be planned. The most creative activity according to me was a song recreated for our seniors by our classmates. Collaborative working also divided the task and workload.
With me, Kanishka was also the coordinator and there were two teachers also, responsible for the project and to make sure both of us were doing work properly. This personally helped me to make sure that any decision made was not vaguely decided as there were many inputs before any final decision was made. This led to less stress and less worry of making a wrong decision as making important decisions alone tend to make me sick.
LO7-Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Being ethical and dedicated to the project was necessary as this was the only one day when our seniors were expecting something good for us. We also wanted to make sure that their farewell goes well planned and successfully as it will be one thing for which they will remember us and we made sure to give our best.
We also had to be ethical while sticking to budget and not wasting any resources. We had a limited budget and wanted to make sure to do the best out of the budget and not waste the money on things not required. Also, considering being a huge grade we had to make sure that the resources which we get by our school was to be used at its best with the least wastage as wasting resources is not ethical according to me.
The project was very demanding but at the end our seniors loved it which made our day. There were many challenges and problems but our teachers helped us a lot and were key factors for the event being successful. The event made me more responsible and dedicated to any task I undertake in the future. The event was not only fun and many memories were made.
