December Event – Spirit Week

December 16-20th, specifically 17th – Lunch Time

Event Participation:

For this event, I was granted the role of being a point person alongside Dowar, Mikaela, and Vera. Before the event, we started with a meeting with Ms. Rioux and how we wanted to conduct this week full of themes and events. We came up with very minimal ideas during this meeting, but the 4 of us created a group chat and discussed more on what we could do. With lots of ideas, we summed it down to 4 theme ideas and 4 event ideas. Knowing this, we decided that each point person would essentially “lead” one event per day. We were all flexible and understanding of each other’s availability and in the end, I got to lead the gift-wrapping race. The general idea of this game was a paired race (2 people on each side) and seeing who could wrap the item (t-shirt, water bottle, box, and a teacher!) the best within a certain time. For the actual event, I worked with Jayden, Hanh, Ethan, and Yousef. With these students as their point person, I split up the roles on how the game was going to work on the day. We had Jayden as our MC, and Hanh, Ethan, Yousef and I worked on getting the game going smoothly. During the game, we ran into multiple problems, which I will speak on below. Nonetheless, this game was very fun to lead and I was relieved to hear positive remarks from students and teachers as it was something new that Leadership was trying out!

Curricular Competencies:

The two curricular competencies I used for my December event were “Understand that successful leaders and teams develop strong relationships and incorporate effective group processes” under theme 1, and “Develop an understanding of the relationship between organization, efficiency, and stress” under theme 2.

A main point in my course goal was to be able to adapt to new environments or people. Being a point person for this event meant that I carried the role where I needed to adjust and be considerate of my peers. That created a path for my first curricular competency and being able to incorporate effective group processes as I pushed myself to get to know my peers and understand their needs and wants.
In my course goals, I heavily mentioned communication and furthering my skills in teamwork. This aligns with my second curricular competency as I could reach out to my other point people if I needed help. This created an understanding of being organized and efficient, but with the knowledge that plenty of people were willing to help me if needed, strengthening my teamwork skills.
Within the personal growth section of my course goals, I mentioned that Leadership would push me to understand my personal requirements. Being a point person is connected with my second curricular competency. There were times filled with a lot of stress, but I was able to take a step back and view the situation with a rational mind and critically assess situations mentioned in my course goals. This made me realize that I have my limits as well, but staying organized and communicative supported my requirements, as well as others.

Before:

Before the event consisted of many meetings and lots of communication on how this week would turn out. I had to juggle speaking with my other point people, Ms. Rioux, and my team for the day. The moment I was assigned the role of point person for this event, the 4 of us and Ms. Rioux had a meeting on how the week would look. Ms. Rioux already had some preexisting plans, but it was our duty to figure out the rest. As said in my curricular competency, we incorporated effective group processes by creating a group chat on social media including the 4 point people, so that it was easy to chat and make quick decisions. As we were all very busy and did not have many open days for lunch meetings, this is what was the most effective process for all of us. We decided on the events of (Monday – Christmas music in caf, Tuesday – Gift wrapping race in caf, Wednesday – Dodgeball in the gym, Thursday – Pictures with Santa and hot choco in the foyer). I chose to lead the gift-wrapping race. With this knowledge we had to strategically put our spirit themes on certain days as well, and this was mostly done by us point people and lots of support from Ms. Rioux. One thing that I am really thankful for is that my point people and I developed a strong relationship, like my curricular competency. We were highly communicative and always made sure that if any of us needed support with anything or the actual event, we will be floating around and ready to do so.

I used a lot of the second curricular competency and was highly organized when creating this event. I was honoured to work with 4 other leadership students and we narrowed the event down to wrapping a water bottle, t-shirt, box, and a teacher. Understanding the relationship between organization, efficiency, and stress, I created the Business Plan document in hopes that even if there was confusion during meetings, it would be cleared through this document. When we had the whole aspect of the event, I asked my team members what lunch day worked the best so that we can prep the items. Our initial plan during prep was to pre-cut the wrapping paper according to each item to ensure that we were not wasting large amounts of the paper, and it would be efficient for during the event. With the help from Hanh, Jayden, and Ethan, we cut the wrapping paper, and stored all the items in Ms. Rioux’s cupboard so that it would be easily accessible before the event.

During:

During the event, I mostly used the competency “Develop an understanding of the relationship between organization, efficiency, and stress”. Due to the leadership’s event being right after the dance club’s performances, we were left with roughly 15-20 minutes of lunchtime. Before lunch started, all of us gathered the materials that we had kept prepped in Ms. Rioux’s room and took them down to the stage/cafeteria. During this time, we also pulled out two foldable tables that we would use for the event. I let all my team members know that right after the dance performances, it would be a very quick turnaround and that we would need to stay alert for that. Initially, we were worried that we would not have enough time to wrap all the items, which is where the relationship between organization, efficiency, and stress comes into play. We were ready to remove items if needed, due to the time crunch, but we were able to use all in the end. A positive thing about the event was Jayden and I effectively communicating and deciding when and where time cuts were necessary, due to how we were short on time. During the event, we encountered an issue of how the precut wrapping paper was not used accordingly. The participants were supposed to use the smallest cut paper and move up in size (as the items to wrap got larger), but I believe that some leadership students may have gotten confused, or caught up in the busyness. As a point person, I do feel as if I fell short in the aspect of “successful leaders and teams develop strong relationships and incorporate effective group processes” as it was my duty to inform all team members on exactly what should be used when, as we did have a student that did not regularly show up to meetings. I am able to recognize that there were other solutions to writing meeting memos on teams so that student(s) who missed the meeting would stay in the loop. Nonetheless, the event was quite hectic, but received a lot of positive remarks and the student body seemed to have quite a lot of fun with it.

After:

After the event, we cleaned up the stage, unwrapped all the items, folded the tables, and put all the items back to where they originally were. Even with the event being over, as I reflected on being a successful leader for my core competency, I used the Event Reflection Feedback template and filled it out with my team members. Writing the event reflection definitely developed stronger relationships within my group as we were able to understand our strengths and weaknesses during the event.

Evidence:

Gift Wrapping Race Business Plan – LDS.docx

This is the business plan shared with my whole group, listing roles and necessary information on how the event was to be run.

Event Reflection Feedback.docx

The Event Reflection Feedback document which most of my group participated in creating so that we can have a better understanding of future events.