Round Square Conference 2010 Steering Committee Meetings

What does the activity involve?

This activity involves meeting with 15 other committee members twice a week to discuss and prepare for the 2010 Round Square Conference which we will be hosting at the Regents. I am the secretary of this committee so as well as sharing ideas I will also be taking notes on all important matters we discuss. This is an ongoing activity which I will be involved in up until October of 2010 when the conference is being held.

The official logo design by Pau yr 11

What were my aims?

My objectives for this activity are to get actively involved in the discussions which we have at these meetings. I hope to become more confident by sharing my ideas with everyone else. As well as this I hope to take good notes during our discussions and then send them out via email to everyone as soon as possible after the meeting is over.

What did I do?

This activity has not yet ended but so far we have already gotten a lot done. The latest project we completed was preparing for a performance which 8 of our members would be performing in India. This was a huge success and we got a lot of positive feedback from the audience. Recently we launched a website for our conference and we have also created a countdown board at our school. We have also met with all our keynote speakers that are attending our conference next year. Another idea we had was to divide our committee up into smaller sub committees which we have now done. This way we can all focus on certain, more specific aspects of the conference. The main thing we have done is agreed upon the theme We Walk Together and we launched a logo competition and picked the winner.

The whole committee

Did I achieve all my goals?

Since this activity is not yet over I have not reached all my goals. I have though been getting involved in our discussions by sharing my ideas and I hope to continue to do so at the rest of our meetings. I have taken notes at all our meetings however some of them I sent out a little late. For next term I hope to get all the notes sent out on time.

Were there any problems encountered along the way?

So far the main challenge we’ve come across was preparing for our performance in India. We had a lot of ideas but the problem was putting everything together into a 15 minute long performance. We decided that in order to get it done we needed to assign people specific tasks. Some people were in charge of the presentation and others worked on the Thai dance. We learnt that delegating tasks ended up being a very wise and successful decision. Everything got done much faster and people were less stressed. We are definitely going to use this strategy in the future.

What have I learnt?

So far I have learnt that the best way to run these meetings are to have a leader to run them so that not everyone is speaking at once. This is useful because I can apply it to any future meetings I have e.g. during barazza sessions which we have a lot at our school. I have also learnt that the best way to take notes during these meetings is to quickly scribble them down as they are being discussed and then to type them up neatly once I get home.

Check out our website: http://www.rs-wewalktogether.org/

Check out our India presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M83W38m_zis

Pattaya Players Halloween Event

Painting kids' faces

What was the activity?

For this activity I had to help out at the annual Pattaya Players Halloween Event. I mainly helped out with the setting up of the area and was in charge of the face painting stall.

What were my aims?

My objectives were to help in making this event as successful as possible, help raise a lot of money for charity, make this event as enjoyable as possible for the participants and develop my face painting skills.

What did I do?

Throughout the evening a lot of people came by dressed up in costumes and everyone actively participated in the events available. Many kids came forward to the face painting table and were extremely happy when they got their faces painted. I can therefore say that I successfully managed to raise a sufficient amount of money for charity and helped in making some kids very happy, thus reaching my objectives.

Were there any problems along the way?

Seeing as I had never face painted before, the biggest difficulty I encountered was to overcome this problem. We had no pictures to work or get ideas from and because we were working at night, the amount of light available to us was far too little. We had to overcome these problems by resorting to two small flashlights and by making up different designs to paint off the top of our heads. At first I was a little nervous as I was scared the children wouldn’t be satisfied with the outcome, however throughout the night my designs were definitely improving and so was the popularity of the face painting stall. There was also an issue with language since a large number of children were Thai and found it difficult to describe to us what the designs they wanted. Luckily I had come across a similar situation before during the Croston House walk (described in paragraph of Croston House Prep and Walk) and thanks to this I was able to overcome the difficulty through the use of hand gestures.

What have I learnt?

I now know that if I ever am unfamiliar with a certain situation I should not panic and do my best to work with the resources which are available to me.