Wordwise is an event conducted by the Monsoon Musings team that took place on November 27th. This is a literary event where people come to recite their pieces and as a volunteer I helped in planning, decorating and management on the day of the event. I’m someone who loves literature and has really enjoyed events like this in the past. When the opportunity to organize this event came up, I couldn’t pass on it.
L2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
This was my first experience of planning an event and I was able to learn a lot by being part of the organizing committee. One of the main challenges was to curate an event that was unique and different than last year but still preserved the theme and notion of Monsoon Musings. To overcome this challenge, we all sat together and brainstormed ideas and various themes like indowestern, dark academia, vintage, classic, etc. The team worked collaboratively to eliminate ideas and finalize on one. One of the new skills I developed is how to work under deadlines and with a team while planning such an event.
L3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
Planning is the most crucial part of organizing this event. We had to ensure that all of the decorations, stall details, literary pieces, flow of the event was ready prior to the day of the event. The crux of this event was to have a day where people can come and recite their written pieces, enjoy some sweet delicacies and spend an afternoon appreciating literary art. To ensure that the pieces were relevant and appropriate for a school setting, and that the audience doesn’t get bored of pieces with the same topics, the entire order had to be meticulously planned and each piece had to be reviewed by members of the literary team. Decoration was another big aspect of planning. A spreadsheet was made and organized with details for all the different resources so procurement could be done efficiently and properly.
L4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
This event was barely 2 weeks before I gave my SAT and towards the end there was a lot of work. I had to show commitment by coming in for early-ins, during free slots and spending extra time to prepare the envelopes, little momentos for the attendees and more decorations. Even though I had personal and academic work I showed perseverance by completing the work assigned to me.
L5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
One of the biggest advantages of working collaboratively is that everyone’s individual specialities were put to use to create the best experience for the event. Some people were better at making decisions and others were specialized with certain art skills. By recognizing everyone’s skills we could do something that we enjoyed, were good at and could excell at and there was appropriate division of labor and tasks.
L7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
One of the main themes of this entire event was sustainability, and to promote it by reusing decorations and recyling materials to create an event when did not damage the environment. A lot of the decorations used for the event were reused from past events that had happened at the school. I learnt how our actions and choices can affect our environment, and how we can pick plastic free decorations and try to use materials like jute, paper and fabrics and still create a beautiful atmosphere for all the attendees of the event to enjoy.
Evidence:
A playlist documenting the entire event: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0Yna4g2Yc2u723c-qqFWxfJ2sqYKZMB6
