TALENT SHOW 2012 - St. Francis College - Student Guild
Reflection
The school already has a Talent Show once, organized by the student guild but more officially by the years 10 and 8, from which I was the class representative. The event was composed of a show where teachers and students would participate and present their talents, such as singing, dancing and others; it was also a dinner and a art auction. It was extremely hard to get done and most of the people where very doubtful rather it would work. All of this happened in the St. Francis site at Belgica, so before the school split into two sites.
After the secondary school moved into the Pinheiros site there were discussions about having a similar event, although it never left the discussion table and became something concrete. As secretary of the student guild, now in year 11, the other officers and I had the same ambition to put this event in practice and settle our reputation as a group with the power to make it happen.
The goal was to plan an event where students and teachers could perform there various talents and have the participation of parents with some type of dinner. The Talent show would have the purpose of creating an event where the community would be brought together. The tickets would be sold, so that the money could be used in other and bigger events.
The process of organizing it was very complicated and we encountered numerous obstacles, Thiago, Pedro and I thought on giving up on the event more often than we have imagined would happen. The first problem we encountered was lack of interest, since the school did not have a community tradition of participation in these events, it was extremely hard to make people want to help and participate in this event. This was when I discovered one of my strengths, which are the power of convincing others and be contagious about my excitement. For example the year 12s were not interested in participating at all, so during lunch I sat with them and discussed the reasons why they did not want to participate, then talked about their various talents. By the end of this conversation I left with another three acts for the Talent show.
This was the first project of the Student Guild and I did not have loads of experience working collaboratively with Thiago and Pedro, I new a lot of their personality (since we were in the same class for years) but very little of how they engaged with others. Because of this lack collaborative experience among ourselves, when planning the event we were a little rough as to who would be doing what, and because of this there were many tasks that it was unclear who was responsible for what. It was then the case where we would argue over small details and spend about half an hour discussing chairs layout, people involved, etc. At the time I figured we were just loosing time, but this gave us so much experience working as a team and facilitated the overcoming of other obstacles in future activities.
We as a team were still uncertain about our strengths and weaknesses among ourselves, and how we could use each strength to our maximum capacity. Gradually we knew where we were most confortable at, and sharing responsibilities became easier.
Such a big event involves many people, especially since we decided to sell snacks instead of offering a proper table dinner, in order to fit more spectators in the auditorium. The food was then prepared by the Diploma CAS students, making all those people know and perform their task was incredibly challenging, this is where I acknowledged the need for leadership. Because I worked better with people, in terms of motivation and performance, I was the one (out of the three officers) that dealt with the food and all students responsible for it. We also acknowledged Thiago’s ability with the logistics and how he would then lead all the managing and organization of the auditorium and the different acts.
My availability in terms of spare-time to prepare the event was extremely tight, since I had loads of different commitments going on at the same time. It would often be the case where the boys would stay after school to sell tickets and advertise the event to parents and students, and I could not, due to other afternoon activities such as practice. I felt guilty for letting so much in there hands, so when it was getting closer to the event I would work on the preparations during lunch and any other free periods which I had, so that I compensated this lack of availability. Being able to balance out commitments is one of my great issues, I always have the sense that I am able to participate in everything, to try and maximize my experiences and skills. In order to successfully participate in them all, I had to compensate this weakness with a intense level organization, where I would never be lying around, and I would always be occupying myself with one of my compromises, thus creating another strength, organization.
In my perspective we achieved more than our objective, we were very much praised by all the parents and especially the principle of the school, which was very satisfying. The day of the event was very intense, due to the excitement of all the participants and seeing the parents arrive and the students all dressed up for there presentations, made effort worth it. There were minor problems such as the amount of chairs did not fit the number of spectators, since many people believed tickets would be sold at the door. A similar problem happened with the amount of food, it ran out quicker than we expected. Other things we did not envision happen, such as the people who had already performed where figuring out means to watch the current presentation, so they made a lot of the noise by the side of the auditorium looking through the window and going around the backstage into the audience.
If I was to do any thing differently it would be plan out the day of the event more thoroughly, so that everyone knew what do to in each minute of the event, which would mean, not having me running around after people during the different acts. Another thing would probably be the decorations of the auditorium, maybe do a theme for the talent show, which would dictate the decorations (not specify the acts) but just to enhance the entertainment. Besides those things, the event worked better than I expected it was amazing and I was proud of the Student Guild for coming up as a team and proving to the community what a promising student body was now present.
The school already has a Talent Show once, organized by the student guild but more officially by the years 10 and 8, from which I was the class representative. The event was composed of a show where teachers and students would participate and present their talents, such as singing, dancing and others; it was also a dinner and a art auction. It was extremely hard to get done and most of the people where very doubtful rather it would work. All of this happened in the St. Francis site at Belgica, so before the school split into two sites.
After the secondary school moved into the Pinheiros site there were discussions about having a similar event, although it never left the discussion table and became something concrete. As secretary of the student guild, now in year 11, the other officers and I had the same ambition to put this event in practice and settle our reputation as a group with the power to make it happen.
The goal was to plan an event where students and teachers could perform there various talents and have the participation of parents with some type of dinner. The Talent show would have the purpose of creating an event where the community would be brought together. The tickets would be sold, so that the money could be used in other and bigger events.
The process of organizing it was very complicated and we encountered numerous obstacles, Thiago, Pedro and I thought on giving up on the event more often than we have imagined would happen. The first problem we encountered was lack of interest, since the school did not have a community tradition of participation in these events, it was extremely hard to make people want to help and participate in this event. This was when I discovered one of my strengths, which are the power of convincing others and be contagious about my excitement. For example the year 12s were not interested in participating at all, so during lunch I sat with them and discussed the reasons why they did not want to participate, then talked about their various talents. By the end of this conversation I left with another three acts for the Talent show.
This was the first project of the Student Guild and I did not have loads of experience working collaboratively with Thiago and Pedro, I new a lot of their personality (since we were in the same class for years) but very little of how they engaged with others. Because of this lack collaborative experience among ourselves, when planning the event we were a little rough as to who would be doing what, and because of this there were many tasks that it was unclear who was responsible for what. It was then the case where we would argue over small details and spend about half an hour discussing chairs layout, people involved, etc. At the time I figured we were just loosing time, but this gave us so much experience working as a team and facilitated the overcoming of other obstacles in future activities.
We as a team were still uncertain about our strengths and weaknesses among ourselves, and how we could use each strength to our maximum capacity. Gradually we knew where we were most confortable at, and sharing responsibilities became easier.
Such a big event involves many people, especially since we decided to sell snacks instead of offering a proper table dinner, in order to fit more spectators in the auditorium. The food was then prepared by the Diploma CAS students, making all those people know and perform their task was incredibly challenging, this is where I acknowledged the need for leadership. Because I worked better with people, in terms of motivation and performance, I was the one (out of the three officers) that dealt with the food and all students responsible for it. We also acknowledged Thiago’s ability with the logistics and how he would then lead all the managing and organization of the auditorium and the different acts.
My availability in terms of spare-time to prepare the event was extremely tight, since I had loads of different commitments going on at the same time. It would often be the case where the boys would stay after school to sell tickets and advertise the event to parents and students, and I could not, due to other afternoon activities such as practice. I felt guilty for letting so much in there hands, so when it was getting closer to the event I would work on the preparations during lunch and any other free periods which I had, so that I compensated this lack of availability. Being able to balance out commitments is one of my great issues, I always have the sense that I am able to participate in everything, to try and maximize my experiences and skills. In order to successfully participate in them all, I had to compensate this weakness with a intense level organization, where I would never be lying around, and I would always be occupying myself with one of my compromises, thus creating another strength, organization.
In my perspective we achieved more than our objective, we were very much praised by all the parents and especially the principle of the school, which was very satisfying. The day of the event was very intense, due to the excitement of all the participants and seeing the parents arrive and the students all dressed up for there presentations, made effort worth it. There were minor problems such as the amount of chairs did not fit the number of spectators, since many people believed tickets would be sold at the door. A similar problem happened with the amount of food, it ran out quicker than we expected. Other things we did not envision happen, such as the people who had already performed where figuring out means to watch the current presentation, so they made a lot of the noise by the side of the auditorium looking through the window and going around the backstage into the audience.
If I was to do any thing differently it would be plan out the day of the event more thoroughly, so that everyone knew what do to in each minute of the event, which would mean, not having me running around after people during the different acts. Another thing would probably be the decorations of the auditorium, maybe do a theme for the talent show, which would dictate the decorations (not specify the acts) but just to enhance the entertainment. Besides those things, the event worked better than I expected it was amazing and I was proud of the Student Guild for coming up as a team and proving to the community what a promising student body was now present.