Newspaper club - January (2 months late I know...)

Activity: School Newspaper
Date: January (Wednesdays)
Time: 1 hour 45 min a week (4 times a month)
Type: Group (with the Newspaper ECA group)
Organization: School 

Hours:  3 hours - Creative
              3 hours - Service


Haven't updated about this in a while...
Long story short, our school has canceled it indefinitely due to... reasons (our school was very vague about it) so there is only one month of it for January
(we had Chinese New Year break for two weeks and it was canceled the week before it, so I didn't count the month of Feb, since it was only one meeting).

I will try my hardest to get it back up! In the mean time, since the website is blocked with a password and it isn't viewable to everyone, here are some screenshots of the things I did!

The home page:

Photo was taken by our schools photography club, chinese translations done by another club member. The email and twitter account (basically all communication) was run by me and classmate
Here is another photo:

Sports section:
This was a page I helped to format and find pictures for. The scores and information came from several of the Y12 members who helped out as time keepers or as team players.

(I blocked out the names of the younger students since I haven't asked permission from them to post it on my CAS blog.)

World News section: 
 This is one of the sections I personally helped write. It is news from the October- November issue since I realized that since the website is down, I need to show evidence for last terms stuff. It is actually much longer than this, but I didn't want to post every single page of it (it is quite long).

Book section:
I was personally in charge of this section of the newspaper. I had 3 students in my part of the team and I helped with brainstorming ideas, having updates and editing their work.

This is the book challenge page, where I chronological my quest to read 52 books this year!

This page is a "Books vs Movies" review, where we compared books to the movies to see which one was truly better! We also had lots of book reviews done by members in the club, which I won't post since there are just so many and I only helped edit them.

School news section:
Lastly I helped to edit and find pictures for the school news section, with the information being written by people from our school. Again I chose to show the Nov-Dec issue of the newspaper since I need evidence for it (also it looks nicer and is more festive!)

So that is all for now, hopefully the school newspaper will be revived some time in the future! I'll be posting the reflections HERE soon!

-Rebecca

Year 9 Options evening

Activity: Year 9 Options evening
Date: February 12 - 13, 2014 (Thursday and Friday)
Time: 3 + 4 Hours
Type: Group (with classmates)
Organization: School Event

Hours:  7 hours - Service

On the 12th and 13th of February, I helped set up for our school's Y9 Options evening (where Y9 students and their parents discuss with teachers about their IGCSE and GCSE options for Y10)

 

On Thursday, I helped set up the signs and table, bring down the electric kettles (hot water for the tea, coffee and milk tea) and all of the food, as well as moving the chairs and tables so that they were ready for Friday. I was also involved in the video that was shown to the Y9's, in which I gave advice about the IGCSE and GCSE exams and Y10 and 11.

On Friday, I was at the sign in desk greeting parents and Y9 students when they came in and giving them their information packet for the meeting, which contained things such as the subject choice form, information on the new courses our school offered (Global Perspectives and Psychology) as well as a floor plan that showed where each of the subject teachers would sit.

At the end of the day, I worked together with my classmates to put all of the tables and chairs back so that the hall looked the way it did before we got there.

My reflections:

4) Worked collaboratively with others
During the options evening I had to work with my classmates and other fellow prefects to set up everything in the hall and make sure that all of the students and parents had all of the things and information they needed in order to choose the most suitable classes for Y10 and Y11. In particular, I helped with the setting up of the signs at each table and organizing the chairs and tables according to the floor plan we received from the teachers.

By dividing up the tasks, we were able to complete them more effectively, as one student would point or read out where a table should go, and the other students would quickly place them down and surround them with chairs.

On Friday, I also worked collaboratively with the teachers by helping them pass messages to other teachers, while also getting them tea, coffee and other refreshments from the snacks table(since the event went on for several hours). At the end of the day, I once again worked with my class mates to clean up everything and put all tables and chairs back.

5) Shown perseverance and commitment in my activities
Since my involvement in this event took place over two days, I had to persevere through many hours of helping students, moving tables and chairs, setting up signs, handing out information packets etc... while remaining as helpful as possible from start to finish.

In fact my involvement in this event started even before these two days, as I was part of the video they showed to the Y9 students, where I gave advice about the program and how to best select classes (mainly, not to choose subjects they believed would be "easy A's" as there weren't any...).

 This involved me working together with our school photography club to find a time where everyone could be filmed, and showing commitment to my involvement in the Options evening months in advance.

- Rebecca

Flute and Violin (Jan-Feb)

Activity:Flute and Violin Class
Date: January ~  February (Flute on Sat, Violin on Wed)
Time: 45 min a week  (3h per month)
Type: Individual
Organization: Lotto Music Center (phone no. 2569 9110)

Hours:  12 hours - Creative (3 per month, 2 instruments, for Jan and Feb)

So I said that I would post videos (and I will!) it is just that I haven't yet and this thing is a month late... so I will type this up now and post videos in the future!

Jan & Feb flute
I am currently still studying with "Koehler Progression in Flute Playing: Opus 33" book. While I am still focusing on my articulation and phrasing, I am also practicing my "high" notes since they tend to sound "airy" whenever I have a low followed by a high note in quick succession.

Jan & Feb violin
I am practicing various Gavottes from the same Violin Method book I mentioned before. While my double stopping has gotten better, it still needs a lot of work... I also need to practice my sight reading more, since I often need to stop to read notes that are below the bar (flute, which I am more used to sight reading, has a middle c as its lowest note, where as violin has a low G as its lowest note), which messes up my rhythm.

Hopefully I will be able to post videos showing these things soon, but right now I am really behind on these CAS reflections and need to catch up fast before I am several months behind....

-Rebecca

Update 4

Sorry for the delays with the Christmas Carnival post (and another flute and violin for the month of January, which I haven't even touched yet...). Between all the mid term tests, added workload for all my classes and a history bowl competition, I just haven't had much time to do them....

So yeah, there aren't very many hours for January's CAS for the reasons above.

However, I have slightly more time this month due to Chinese New Year break so hopefully I will have time to do more activities this month.

I am current team leader of my house's inter house Battle of the Books team (GO RED HOUSE!) which is a quiz competition our school has each year about 5 English and 1 Chinese book, which I am pretty sure counts for CAS hours (need to ask supervisor though!)
I'm also thinking about doing a first aid course at Hong Kong's St. John Ambulance this month! 

Hopefully February will be a slightly more productive month CAS wise!

- Rebecca  

update (within an update, update-seption):
 ... I didn't get into the first aid course during Chinese New Year (class was full) oh well, I guess there is always the summer! :P

Also, the Battle of the Books meeting count for CAS, so I need to get a form. Also forgot to mention that I would help set up and run the Y9 option evening (need to do reflections)!

White Elephant Stall - Reflections

This is the reflections for the Christmas Carnival White elephant stall!
(If you haven't seen the first post yet click here.)

Also, I didn't count the time spent baking the cookies for the bake sale in my CAS hours, since I didn't have a supervisor for it (and it was for another year group's stall not ours so I don't think it counts) I left the cookie baking thing in the original post simply because it was a part of the carnival.

Also they are super cool looking and tasty! But I digress...

With that out of the way, here are my reflections:

3) Planned and Initiated Activities 
I helped to plan and initiated the White elephant stall by helping to gather the donated items, sorting them type (book, toys etc), placing price tags on the items, setting up the stall in the morning and helping to sell items at the stall for the entire day.

While I was helping to set up, many people came up to ask how much certain items were (such as the green toy story alien plushie, the Harry Potter book series, the winnie the pooh plushie etc..) and even asked if we could reserve the item or sell it to them before the carnival started so that no one else could have it!

I realized that many people were willing to pay MUCH more for certain items then we had originally priced them at. Thinking quickly, I got a few pieces of paper, wrote down the names of the most popular items, and put them on auction.

When someone wanted to by a "high ticket" item, I would write down their name, class, and number of tickets they were willing to pay. At the end of the carnival, we were then able to earn a lot more than if we were to just sold it to the first person who came to us.

4)Worked collaboratively with others 
During the event, I often worked collaboratively with my other classmates often to make sure the stall ran smoothly. In the afternoon, many children from the primary section of our school came, so we had to split up the stall, with each person in charge of there section, so that we were able to help all of the students buy the things they wanted.

I also worked together with my classmates to organize the stall to collect items and set up the stall in the morning before the carnival.

5) Shown perseverance and commitment in my activities
Since the event lasted for the whole day I needed to show perseverance and commitment to remain upbeat and helpful from the first student to the last! We also needed stay behind after school to organize the stall and price items, which demonstrated our commitment in making sure that the stall was as great as we could possible make it!

 Overall the whole day was filled with fun moments and excitement since we were having a great day with the younger kids while helping to earn lots of money for Operation Santa Claus!

-Rebecca