Farewell events are one of the most awaited events in schools for juniors to put their communication, organizational, self-management, and creative skills to work. Organizing events has always been fascinating to me and this was my first experience organizing an event on a larger scale. I’ve organized birthday parties or anniversary parties for my family member and this was my first-time experience being part of an organizing committee. I was on the organizing committee handling the backstage, performances, and flow of events.

LO1: Identify your own strengths and develop areas for growth: It was a huge event so everyone had to be divided and were given a particular job. I was managing and handled the backstage, performances, scripts, and flow of events. While managing the whole event I identified my own strengths and developed myself in a few areas. I was quickly able to manage spreadsheets and decide and plan the flow of events and I was easily able to identify the drawbacks of a few plans. I lacked communication skills but I managed to communicate my ideas to the volunteers and get them to work according to the plan.

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process: I developed communication skills, creative thinking skills, and organizational skills throughout the course of planning the event. I communicated my ideas to the volunteers and teachers and took feedback. I had to communicate my ideas to the core committee and I was able to communicate better in the end and I developed my communication skills. I organized different schedules and my time management skills improved as I managed my timings and schedule with my academics. The team used the spreadsheet to organize their individual tasks and get things done. We had different tasks every day to complete and it was all updated on the spreadsheet for the teachers to view.

LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience: The CAS project of planning and organizing the event started out with a random discussion with my peers. We discussed our ideas in the group eventually our ideas were selected for the event. I gave my ideas from my past experiences of organizing events and the resources required. I collaborated with my friends to form and initiate the process of planning the event.

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences and LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively. I used to take regular updates from my volunteers from all the scriptwriters and dance crew. Communication sometimes was difficult with teachers, other OC members, and the volunteers hence there was a sheet where everything was updated and everyone can follow through. When some students had their free slots, they practiced and similarly, I used to work on planning and organizing the flow of events and other tasks during my free slots. I committed worked on the spreadsheet and worked even with the decor team. The decor team required more resources and hence, I helped them manage more resources in a short period of time. The decor team was occupied and I’ve helped them place orders and take resources at the point of time they were required. In my absence sometimes, other OC members took on my responsibilities such as stage management and rehearsals while I was occupied with the decor team. I took on some responsibilities of other volunteers or team members such as writing some parts of the script or getting resources for the activities. The team worked collaboratively to move forward with the event. The event was a huge success in the end and it was the way we planned.

LO7: recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions: In the middle of the hosting practice, due to overlapping events like a student was dancing and hosting as well which was causing difficulty in the flow of events and it wasn’t very smooth rather clashing. I had to make the choice of replacing the host which made others quite upset due to the replacement. I made 2 replacements in the hosting team which made my team feel disappointed in me but at the end of the day it was all in sync and the dancing and hosting teams went hand in hand without clashing. I had to keep a person for team management when I was not present but it also caused clashes as she was not aware of a few things as she joined later and a few things were not communicated to her.