April 15th – Afterschool (3-7pm)

Event Participation:

My role for the Family Fun 2 event was to help with the cookie decoration activity. In the weeks leading up to the event, I helped bake the cookies during ESS and prepared accordingly. On the event day, I stayed after school to help prepare the tables, icing, and cookies in the foods room. I also hid the easter eggs throughout the school with everyone else. During the event, I was actively involved with the kids during dinner time and engaged with them further during cookie decorating. After the event, I washed all the trays used for the decorating, cleaned the foods room, returned items to the office, etc.

Curricular Competencies:

The two curricular competencies I used were: Theme 4, “Understand the importance of knowing your audience in terms of how others receive your message,” and Theme 2, “Develop an understanding of the relationship between organization, efficiency, and stress”.

In my course goals, I mentioned that I would like to work on my organization and efficiency. This was shown through this event by an effective team member, and finding quick solutions to adamant children. As the children were quite messy with the decorating, it was key for our group to constantly stay organized and learn to quickly clean in between the groups.
I also chose something out of Theme 4 as I was dealing with a new demographic (children), and it required me to understand when kids wanted assistance, a person to talk to, etc. I found myself pairing with a table and being heavily involved with a few kids rather than jumping around and overwhelming them.
Within my course goals, I mentioned that I needed to manage my stress. I took action in this event, knowing that I could not partake in being a group leader (walking around with the children), and took on a role of being in one room for the whole event.

Before:

Up until the event, I attended most of the meetings (I missed one in March due to personal reasons), but even with a missed meeting, I made sure to always stay in reach with my point people and stayed updated on teams. On April 9th, during ESS, I helped roll out and bake the cookies that the group had made prior to us. Right before the event, I stayed after school to help set up the school. With my group members, we strategized how to efficiently set the tables so that each child can have enough space to decorate with their parents. We knew the number of children per group, and split up the racks into the appropriate number of plates so that transition would be as quick as possible! As Ms. Bablitz’s children required gluten-free cookies, we also made note of that prior. After setting up the foods room, I went to help hide the easter eggs for the scavenger hunt.

During:

While all the families were entering, Brandon, Yoosong, and I held the doors open and greeted everyone entering to create a warm welcome. During dinner, I got to introduce myself and meet the kids. I made sure to adapt my approach to different kids so as not to scare the shy ones and to get the outgoing ones excited. I adjusted my methods and squatted down to talk to certain children and made sure to keep a constant smile on my face. I was able to interact with many teachers and introduced myself to many families. My group members and I left a little bit early to go prepare the tables for the first group of kids who would visit for cookie decoration. Brandon and I timed the icing well (as they were meant to be kept in the fridge for as long as possible), and we cut the tips for the icing and laid them out onto 3 trays (1 per table) for easy access. During the cookie decoration activity, I made sure to interact with and encourage the kids to channel their creativity. I paid close attention to certain kids and handed them whichever colour icing they wanted, while constantly complimenting them on their work. It was so cute to see the children having so much fun and overloading their cookies with sugar. When Ms. Bablitz’s children came in, I made sure to personally hand them the gluten-free cookies and ensure that they did not get mixed up with the regular cookies. Similar to the start of dinner, I was required to change my approach to the kids appropriately to have the most fun. I complimented the younger ones and spoke in higher pitch and joked around with the older ones.

After:

After the event, I helped clean off all the sprinkles and icing on the tabletops, stack the chairs, and make sure that the room was practically sparkling. Brandon and I took the lead and washed off all the icing-covered trays, and washed anything that needed to be washed.  The dried icing was a little difficult to remove, but we were able to remove it with a wet cloth. We even took out brooms to pick up all the runaway sprinkles left on the floor. After cleaning the food room, I left to go put away the sanitary gloves back to the office, and brought certain items back to room 109.

Evidence:

Me near the front getting low to interact with the kids!

Brandon and I cutting out the cookies to bake!

February 14th – Lunch Time

Event Participation:

For this event, I had two roles: being in charge of marketing with Hanh and Heela and being present on the day of the photo booth. For marketing, there was not much to do: a poster and one reel. Hanh primarily made the poster on canvas, and I just went over it and added small details before checking with Rachel (our point person) for confirmation. The posters were put up around the school by Ryan, Minseop, Sean, and me during lunch a week before the event. For the reel after one of the meetings on Wednesday, where we just went over the basic details, I made sure to edit the video so that it would be easy to follow for the people looking at the Instagram page. I sent the reel to Mr. Lee on the Monday before the event, and it got posted for maximum popularity! On Valentine’s Day, marketing was in charge of managing the line up, so Hanh, Heela, and I took turns doing that. I also decided to step up on the day and connected my phone to play music in the foyer. I chose some songs that people would have liked!

Curricular Competencies:

This time, I focused on two curricular competencies: Theme 5, “Work as an effective team member,” and Theme 4, “Understand the importance of knowing your audience in terms of how others receive your message.”

• In my course goals, I mentioned that I would like to work on my communication and adaptability. This was shown through this event by being a flexible and effective team member and putting myself out in situations even when I was not required to.
• I also chose something out of Theme 4 as I was a part of marketing and promotion for this event, and it required me to understand how we could portray the event to best promote our photobooth! (The reel, poster, and also the music that was played in the foyer during the event).
• Within my course goals, I mentioned my personal limitations and requirements, which I was able to understand while being an effective team member. Although I didn’t need to be as involved on the day of the event (as I was just a part of marketing and promo), I still felt as if I should pull my equal weight and contribute more, which I believe helped out my group.

Before:

Before the event consisted mainly of focusing on marketing (making the reel and poster), which we worked as a group and effectively got it done after our Wednesday meetings. This is where I was able to use the Theme 4 curricular competency as we had to create some variety in our marketing so that it would stand out to the student body and people will be reminded to visit the photobooth.

During:

During the photobooth, I was not required to help set up, but as I wanted to follow my curricular competency, I was an effective team member by showing up early and helping the others set up the board, table, props, etc. Theme 5’s curricular competency was often visited as I took the speaker out from the medical room, and it was effective as lunchtime approached. I had connected to that speaker before, so I decided to be the one playing music from it. When people started lining up for the booth, Hanh, Heela, and I took turns guiding them to stay behind the line and create a neat lineup to ensure that we would not be taking up too much space in the foyer. When some of the leadership students wanted to take photos with their friends, I was effective in quickly volunteering to take the pictures for them, especially when the people on photo-taking role wanted pictures taken!

After:

After the event, we cleaned up the foyer, put the props back into the bucket, pushed back the bulletin board, and took the tape linings off of the floor. Although my point people told marketing and promo that we were not required to stay for set up and clean up, I decided to be an effective team member and stay back so that the job would be done faster for everyone!

Evidence:

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.

This is the actual event,, I hope you can see Ms. Sale’s face while shes getting wrapped!!!

All my outfits for spirit week! Had lots of fun with this one!

November 27th – Lunch Time

Event Participation:

For this event, I had two roles. I was originally assigned a “trivia-making” role with Yoosong, Jayden, and Matthew. We started off by sharing a Word document that included the four of us and the two hosts/MCs for the trivia event. On that, we briefly outlined how we would prefer the trivia to run and made 5 questions/answers per person (questions about Pinetree), for the grade 9s to answer. We also discussed how we would want prizes to work and figured out the ideal prizes with Ms. Rioux. When coming up with the trivia game, we realized we would need floaters to assist in the game, and that was my second role. I started by handing out the plastic Pinetree water bottles to the students who wanted one and then led a group of 4 grade 9s for the trivia game. During the game, I tallied their points and kept track of their answers, and luckily my group won 2nd place!!! (I’m pretty proud of them).

Curricular Competency: 

The two curricular competencies that I chose for this event were “Demonstrate and apply problem-solving skills” and “Work as an effective team member.” These two competencies fall under the title “Project Planning.”

• In my course goals, I mentioned that I wanted to grow in my conflict resolution and problem-solving abilities. Although conflict resolution is not a complete match, I believe problem-solving runs very closely to it. It shares similar aspects of understanding emotions, being quick on my feet, and handling tight situations.
• I made working as an effective team member one of my competencies as communication and understanding was a huge point in my course goals. During this event, I was exploring my requirements while working with others, as I wrote in my course goals that it was something that I wanted to grow in.
• Within my course goals, I mentioned that I may find difficulty in balancing my life and how hectic things become especially in November, but said that I still wanted to allot time to Leadership and get all my duties completed. With that in mind, I achieved my competency of being an effective group member as I knew when to spend time discussing event details, and anything about Leadership.

Before:

Before the event consisted mainly of planning and laying out the trivia details. As we were first assigned our roles at the beginning of November, I quickly created a Word document with everyone in my group. It was our role to come up with the game and the logistics of it, along with the 20 questions. On November 16th, we were asked to send in a solid idea for the event. After speaking with some of my group members, I was an “effective team member” and posted the idea to Teams. Following that, I continued being an effective team member by posting the trivia questions/answers by our deadline. As we were not 100% sure of some of our answers, we “applied problem-solving skills” by taking in Ms. Rioux’s comments and asking certain teachers for the correct answers. After creating the trivia game, there was not much left to do, but I felt that I could do more to reach my competency of “being an effective team member.” Knowing this, I asked where the karaoke machine would be and how set up would work on the event day. Ms. R said that the karaoke machine is left in the medical room and that our group should bring it in a day prior to the event. With this in mind, the Tuesday before the event, Yoosong and I asked the office ladies if we could grab the machine. We took it up to the library storage room so that it would be ready for the event on Wednesday.

During:

On the event day, I went up to the library 15 minutes early to help with set up and getting the area organized. This was the end of block 3, which meant many off-block students were in the library. Due to this, we asked all non-leadership students to pack up their belongings as we needed to move around the space for this event. As we previously brought the karaoke machine up to the library, I took the initiative to plug that in and set it to the preferred sound level. When that was completed, we started organizing who would be at the door for security, floaters, etc. As it seemed pretty hectic, and I had the competency of “working as an effective team member” in mind, I decided to take on the role of handing out water bottles as everyone else seemed preoccupied and I was not yet assigned a clear role. After Ms. M and I took it out of the CLC room, Yoosong, Brandon and I set up a little station for it and Mikaela and I handed them out to the grade 9s. During the event, we ran into an issue of realizing that the marketing could not have reached the grade 9s well and we lacked many participating students. This is when I applied my “problem-solving skills” and took the lead to go down to the cafeteria to do some last-minute advertising. In the cafeteria, I approached some tables that I believed were grade 9s and asked them if they were interested in trivia and winning some prizes. Thankfully, when these students heard prizes were involved, they were inclined to come up to the library, and we ended up getting 8 more students from this! For the rest of the event, I was an effective team member by sticking with a group of grade 9s by taking their answers and tallying their scores. As gathering a group of students took a bit of time, we were not able to run through all the trivia questions, but I am glad that the students seemed to be having fun and tried their best for the prizes.

After:

After the event, we cleared out the grade 9s from the library and started moving around the tables and chairs to the original space they were in. I turned off and unplugged the karaoke machine and Yoosong helped me put it back in the library storage room as the after-school activity group was going to be using it later. Although the event was over, I decided to be an effective team member by double-checking the area and picking up any plastic bags (from the water bottles) as I did not want to leave a mess in the library.

Evidence:

Grade 9 Trivia Draft – LDS

The Word document is a piece of evidence of when I used my curricular competency of “working as an effective team member.” I created the document and shared it with my appropriate team members, leading to better organization of the trivia game.

This picture is Yoosong, Brandon and I running down to the cafeteria right at the start of lunch in our best attempts to grab gr9s that would be interested in participating in trivia. This focused on our problem-solving abilities as we needed more students. (We ended up getting roughly 8 interested students!)

This is evidence of my “effective team member” competency when I volunteered to be the one handing out the water bottles to the students who wanted them. I lightly assembled them, as the lids were in a separate bag and we needed to put the lids with the bottles.

This is the group of 4 grade 9’s I was in charge of (I asked them if they were fine with being on my edublog post and they all said it was okay). They won second place:)

October 31st – Lunch Time 

Event Participation:

I played a part in three sections for the Halloween Photobooth Event (Polaroid). My first role was in marketing, where Minseop, Sean, Jayden K, and I had to decide how to promote the photobooths so that students around the school would feel more inclined to participate. We ended up creating posters, Instagram posts, and Instagram reels, all leading up to the day of the event to maximize participation. An extra role that came by and that I was willing to take on was the general school announcement for all of Hallo-week. This announcement was pre-recorded a week prior and announced to the school the Wednesday before Hallo-week. The final role was Timmy the wolf on the day of, but this was a rather short and last-minute idea, and there was not much planning for it.

Curricular Competency:

The curricular competencies I focused on for this event were “Understand the importance of knowing your audience in terms of how others receive your message” and “Create diverse and interesting announcements, posters, and other media to get information to the student body or intended people”. These two fall under the title “Public Relations and Forms of Communication”.

• In Course Goals I mentioned I wanted to be more flexible and adapt better. The second point resonates with that, as I needed to understand different views and needs when brainstorming for different marketing/promotion tactics.
• Spoke on how it is a goal of mine to get out of my comfort zone. Understanding the importance of my audience was key during the day of the event when being Timmy (mascot) as some people wanted to say hi and some wanted to stray away.
• In my course goals for personal development, I said I would sharpen my ability and knowledge to think critically and assess situations from diverse perspectives. This relates to the second point of my core competency in this event. The diverse perspective was putting myself in the shoes of the student body and adjusting to their interests.

Before: When we got the Teams Channel all set up on 10/09, Sean K, Minseop, Jayden K and I all volunteered for the marketing/promotion role. Our roles were to complete two reels covering both photobooths and making posters. Making the posters on Canva was completed very fast as it was not a demanding task, but brainstorming for reels took time. Our group understood how important it is to make advertising “on trend” which falls under both the curricular competencies I am using. With the curricular competency of “knowing your audience” in mind, for one of the reels we did a recently trending idea called “subtle foreshadowing” as we knew it would gain a lot of laughter and positive attention. (Evidence on PTSS Instagram). As I was a part of Marketing/Promotion, we were exempt from the decoration meetings at lunch. Instead, we used that extra time we got to brainstorm ideas.

During: On the event day, I went to the foyer 10-15 minutes before lunch started. At that time, I saw that the photobooth groups already had many helping hands. So instead, Ms. Rioux asked me to grab the cash boxes from the office, and so I did that. I also pulled out the mascot suit with Ms. Rioux and got changed into it right before lunch started. Being in the mascot was really out of my comfort zone, but it touches on my first curricular competency point. To me, it mattered that the student body would enjoy the event, and so I pushed myself knowing that it would put a smile on a few people’s faces! With the “importance of knowing your audience” in mind, I really did not want to step out of the costume too early, but I had to consider myself and how hot and claustrophobic it was getting in the suit and foyer and decided to get out of the mascot suit once I felt like enough people have seen me and waved, etc.

After: After getting out of the mascot, I could not connect much to the curricular competencies as I was no longer assigned a role for the day other than the mascot. After the event, Arisa (our point person), posted a shared reflection sheet. On that sheet, I wrote a couple of points on what was good, what could be improved on, and ideas for next time. Although I was not able to see much during the event (being in the mascot), I thought it would be helpful to everyone to even add just a tiny bit of input.

Evidence:

Reel #1 Reel #2

The dates of these reels posted match with the competency of knowing our audience. One was posted on October 24th, roughly a week before the event date, and the other was posted on October 30th, a day before the event. With Mr. Lee’s help, we could align dates to post these reels to ensure maximum popularity for the photobooth.

When preparing for the school announcement (in the office), I prepared in advance and sent my script to Morgan, which was checked with Ms. Rioux. I practiced multiple times, making sure that everything made sense, was audible, and brought attention towards all of Hallo-week.

Being in the mascot taught me a lot of lessons. There is a picture below of me interacting with people and again, knowing my audience. I was pretty overwhelmed while in the suit, but I wanted to make sure that the message I was getting across to the student body was full of joy and excitement for the day. It is a shame I could not stay in the suit for long, but I am glad that a lot of people enjoyed taking pictures, or waving to me!

This year, I was honoured to be the MC for the September 2024 Spirit Assembly. In my role, I worked closely with Jerome and all of the point people to effectively get the assembly running.

Before and throughout the assembly, there were road bumps and learning curves before and throughout the assembly, but overall, I believe it was a fun and engaging event. A theme in the curricular competencies I found myself using the most was teamwork and principles of leadership. There was a lot of back and forth, with people pointing out what we should do to improve or run things smoothly, using a lot of communication throughout the whole assembly.

All crews had a pretty intense time crunch, but with communication and awareness, we were able to manage a lot more. Jerome and I communicated a lot with gestures or talking to adjust to either grade group as our audience was much different and had to improvise in some areas where we needed work. I was able to recognize why it was so important to be a team player and be understanding and empathetic of my peers or audience’s contribution during this whole event.

Within this event, I learnt the significance of thorough communication and learnt how to deal with unexpected situations as a team, instead of working on issues alone. Overall, I would call this event a success and I am proud of the work that Leadership put out for the school to be a part of!