SERVICE

Christmas Bazaar

SUPERVISOR: Ms. Beata

DATES OF ACTIVITY: 25th November 2012

PLAN:
My plan was to raise as much money as possible for charity. To be more specific, my Christmas Bazaar team and I were hoping to raise around 200 euros. 

• In order to do this, we came up with several activities and games that would catch children's attention. If children wanted play a game, their parents could just leave them with us for a while and go shopping. When parents came back to take home their children, we would ask them if they were willing to donate some money for charity. = 1. PLANNING AND INITIATION

• This event also allowed me to interact with kids of different age and culture whose English was not usually very good but I still had to find a way to entertain them. Therefore, that was a challenge I decided to undertake. = 6. UNDERTAKING NEW CHALLENGES

HOURS SPENT PERFORMING ACTIVITY: 3 hours

PLANNED EVIDENCE: Pictures of "Christmas Bazaar" event

ACTIVITY SELF-EVALUATION FORM TURNED IN?: Yes!

REFLECTION:
Christmas Bazaar that was held at a market place was one of those events that give you a chance to help other people, who need your help. While children's parents were shopping, I played games with their children. I had several activities planned such as face painting or making tattoos, so children would not be bored. We also bought some nice prizes for children in order to motivate them. When the parents came to take their children home, most of them donated some money for  charity. I really enjoyed Christmas Bazaar and its positive atmosphere. 

• It is also necessary to mention commitment. Even though it was hard to play a game with certain children because not every kid was calm, we had to come up with something that he/she would find interesting. = 7. COMMITMENT TO ACTIVITIES

• Another important thing was to collaborate with my Christmas Bazaar team members. We helped each other every time it was needed. The Christmas Bazaar team and I eventually raised around 300 euros, which was more than we originally expected! It was an exhausting but certainly a very successful day! = 8. COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS

Advisory Committee

SUPERVISOR: Mrs. Galicia

DATES OF ACTIVITY: September - May (2013/2014)

PLAN: 

Being a member of Advisory Committee means that you are planning activities and/or organizing school events for other secondary students. 

• The main component of advisory committee is to plan an event, which would build team spirit. My plan was to come up with games that would bring students in each grade together, because even though they were in the same grade, they often did not know each other very well. = 1. PLANNING AND INITIATION

• This seemed quite challenging since it was much harder to bring teenagers together, who usually complained about everything than working with smaller children who are often more obedient. Therefore, my plan was to interact more with the students in my grade, ask them about their opinions on advisory and get some ideas from them. = 6. UNDERTAKING NEW CHALLENGES

• By joining advisory committee, I was planning to improve my accepting responsibility and leadership skills. = 2. DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SKILLS

One of the most interesting advisories we have organized was the one for Earth Week. Our goal was to try to get along 13 year old students with younger children. Since this advisory was done during the Earth Week, each group had to come with a project that would use only recycled materials. In my case, we wanted to focus on making T-shirt necklaces. We divided 13 year olds and 9 year olds into pairs making sure that each young child has an older partner. While older students' job was to cut strips from old T-shirts, 9 year olds were responsible for stretching these strips. = 8. COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS

HOURS SPENT PERFORMING ACTIVITY: 10 hours

PLANNED EVIDENCE: Pictures of the events organized by the Advisory Committee. 

ACTIVITY SELF-EVALUATION FORM TURNED IN?: Yes!

REFLECTION:

• Once again it was shown that 9 year olds are more responsible than future Secondary students. Even though both of them were supposed to bring old T-shirts, only 9 year olds really did what they were asked to do. = 7. COMMITMENT TO ACTIVITIES

Fortunately, 13 year olds realized they made a mistake and tried really hard to make it up. Therefore, they all made sure their little partner had a nice T-shirt necklace to give their parents. Overall, it was a great day full of fun and joy. Each pair made nice bracelets, which they were going to give their mother for the upcoming Mother's Day!

"Pancakes with Santa!"

SUPERVISOR: Mrs. Garner 

DATES OF ACTIVITY: 8th December 2012 

PLAN: 
"Pancakes with Santa" was a special event organized for little children. I wanted to bring children and their parents together and celebrate magic of upcoming Christmas. In order to do this, each member of "Pancakes with Santa" team was responsible for one particular activity. 

• I was planning to interact with kids either by helping them make a Christmas tree from paper or by playing some other games with them. What I expected from this event was to get to know many international children of different cultures or religions. = 1. PLANNING AND INITIATION

HOURS SPENT PERFORMING ACTIVITY: 4 hours 

PLANNED EVIDENCE: Pictures of "Pancakes with Santa" will serve as evidence.

ACTIVITY SELF-EVALUATION FORM TURNED IN?: Yes!


REFLECTION:
The event "Pancakes with Santa" was held in hotel Crown Plaza in Bratislava. My job was to interact with children and help them with making a Christmas tree from paper. 

• I was very glad to see so many happy faces enjoying this day. Children were playing games either with their parents, friend or with me. After they tried each activity, delicious pancakes with jam, fruit and chocolate were served. An important part of this event was to maintain commitment. Even though we were hungry and wanted to have some pancakes too, we had to make sure that there was always someone free who could watch over and play with the kinds. = 7. COMMITMENT TO ACTIVITIES 

Then they were all impatiently waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus. At the end of the event, I asked children if and what they liked about "Pancakes with Santa." They all said that the pancakes were great and that they enjoyed playing funny games and making Christmas trees, which made me truly satisfied with my work. I got a chance to meet and talk to many international people, which made me very happy because that was exactly what I was hoping for. In my opinion, "Pancakes with Santa" had a great success and I cannot wait to repeat it again next year.

Prom Committee

SUPERVISOR: Mrs. Galicia and Mr. Farwell 

DATES OF ACTIVITY: throughout the whole Senior year (2013/2014)

• Committee meetings: Once a month
• Bake sales: Once a month

PLAN: Our plan was to organize a fancy prom in the end of the school year (31st May 2014) which all secondary students would be invited to. 

• In order to do this, we had to find a place and a photographer, take care of catering and DJ, make invitations and mainly - raise money! To achieve our goal we decided to have a committee meeting at least once a month where we would discuss our progress. Since having a prom requires a certain amount of money, we planned to raise money by having bake sales. To make it more interesting and attract customers (students and teachers), each bake sale would have a different theme. For example: muffins sale or cookies sale. = 1. PLANNING AND INITIATION
  

• Even though organizing the senior might look easy, it actually is not since you have to take care of so many things, especially when you are having IB exams in May. Therefore, being a member of this committee was a challenge I was willing to undertake. = 6. UNDERTAKING NEW CHALLENGES

• By organizing the prom, I wanted to improve my organizational and leadership skills and focus on team building as well as on collaboration with other committee members. = 2. DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SKILLS and 8. COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS 

HOURS SPENT PERFORMING ACTIVITIES: 15 hours

ACTIVITY SELF-EVALUATION FORM TURNED IN?: Yes!

PLANNED EVIDENCE: Posters that play an important role in advertising this year's prom will serve as evidence. 

REFLECTION:
It is the end of April, and I have to say I am satisfied. My prom committee and I were managed to follow our well-written plan, which was composed of the following points: 

• to raise 450 euros (by having bake and Oreo milkshake sales)
• to find and reserve a place that is suitable for this type of an event
• to design and order prom tickets
• to make prom posters (one with general information, one with dress code, and lastly one informing people about Prom King and Queen)
• to buy crowns
• to design and order backdrop
• to order a red carpet
• to find appropriate supervisors
• to start selling tickets
• to hire a professional photographer

We still need to take care of the last bullet point, which is to hire a proffesional photographer though. Other than that, we have done everything as we originally planned. 

Even though it might not seem like it, being responsible for organizing the Senior Prom is quite stressful experience. One of the reasons for it is that we still rely on prom tickets sale. To be more specific, in order to make enough money to pay for the prom and all extra costs, we need to sell at least 65 tickets. Even though we have put lot of effort into advertising in order to attract students, we have still not sold 65 tickets. At the same time though, it is only the end of April and therefore, people still have time to buy a ticket.
In conclusion, so far everything looks very good. All the learning outcomes mentioned in the "plan" section have been achieved. Hence, 

it seems like Prom 2014 is going to be a huge success!

   

Babysitting

SUPERVISOR: Mrs. Garner

DATES OF ACTIVITY: 30th November 2012


PLAN:
I always liked spending time and playing with children, so I found babysitting as an useful opportunity to help others. Parents of children are often busy and they also need to take a rest sometimes. Since I have a little sister I have had experienced what the working with the kids feels like. 

• Once my school organized special event for parents called "Wine & Cheese." Most of the parents wanted to come but they didn't know where to put their children. So I suggested that I could babysit them. My plan was to use one of the QSIB rooms located as a place for babysitting children. Then I got an idea that I could ask PSG (Parent Support Group) to provide us some snacks and drinks for the kids too.  I also made sure that the room was full of toys, table games. Students who were also watching over the kids and I even brought a plastic slide for smaller children. One of the most important elements was to make it safe, so we naturally made sure nobody could hurt themselves. = 1. PLANNING AND INITIATION

• By babysitting children, I wanted to develop organizational skills and improve accepting responsibility skills. = 2. DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SKILLS

• What I also wanted to demonstrate was the commitment to the activity, because babysitting is not just about looking after kids, but you should be playing with them too. = 7. COMMITMENT TO ACTIVITIES

HOURS SPENT PERFORMING ACTIVITY: 3 hours

PLANNED EVIDENCE: Pictures of children playing while I was babysitting them.

SELF-EVALUATION FORM TURNED IN?: Yes!

REFLECTION:
This event made me realize how difficult it is to keep eye on 10 kids at the same. First, they were quite hyper, especially the boys and I was worried they would get hurt. Fortunately, they did not. After a while, they all calmed down. Partly because they got tired and partly because I told them so. My plan worked out very well though. Children and I had lots of fun together. No fights, no tears and nobody got hurt so everything ended up just fine. When parents came to pick them up, they all thanked us for taking care of their children and were truly happy that their kids had a good time too.    

           

Trip to Banská Štiavnica

SUPERVISOR: Ms. Moriarty

DATES OF ACTIVITY: 16th to 18th October 2013

PLAN: Trip to Banská Štiavnica was a big challenge for me since I have never been on a trip like this before. 

• My plan was to help the organization, which repairs Calvary (a group of chapels built on the hill) as much as I could. I was hoping to see some improvement after my visit and in order to achieve this I planned to dedicate my full energy to this beautification. = 1. PLANNING AND INITIATION

HOURS SPENT PERFORMING ACTIVITY: 5 hours

PLANNED EVIDENCE: Pictures from Banská Štiavnica trip

SELF-EVALUATION FORM TURNED IN?: Yes!

REFLECTION:

My job was to purified the roofs of approximately 7 chapels as well as their courtyards from the leaves. 

• Even though it did not seem like a difficult work to do, it took me a lot of time and patience to do it properly. Partly because leaves and the ground were slippery and partly because I wasn't tall enough to reach the roof. However, I did not want to give up that easily, which was good because after a while I came up with a tactic how to achieve it. Trip to Banská Štiavnica, once again, showed my determination and accepting responsibility skills. = 3. INCREASED AWARENESS OF STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES 

What caught my attention was that people living in Banská Štiavnica were not in a hurry at all, which created a big contrast with citizens of Bratislava. Surprisingly, I did not hurry either. Even though I really cared about my work with the leaves and wanted to finish everything on time, I was calm and did not stress about it. I achieved my goal and helped people from Calvary organization. At the end of the day, all of them thanked us and said we helped them a lot. Overall, it was a great experience and I would be willing to repeat it again next year if I stayed in Slovakia.

HOUSE Project - Hospital

SUPERVISOR: Ms. Moriarty & Mr. Priestley

DATES OF ACTIVITY: Over the whole Senior year (2013 - 2014) 

• House meetings: Once in 2 months
• Individual sessions: At least once a month 

PLAN: I was chosen to be one of the three leaders of our house that included approximately twenty students of different ages. Other two leaders and I had to collaborate together to come up with a project that would be worthy to put energy in. As our house project, we chose to interact with children who suffered from cancer since we thought it was really necessary to help them. 

• Even though we were focusing specifically on the group of children with cancer at the local hospital called Kramare, cancer and fighting this extremely serious illness could be considered as a global issue. To be more specific, nobody on the whole world has ever come up  or discovered an actual 100 percent effective treatment for it. Therefore, we are all equally vulnerable to it. = 4. ENGAGEMENT WITH GLOBAL ISSUES

• As we started to plan it, I realized how challenging this project was. Despite that, I was determined to help children and thought I was prepared for the consequences. = 6. UNDERTAKING NEW CHALLENGES

• Our plan included three parts: beautification, entertainment and "wishes come true" event. As one of the leaders, I did not want to force any students to do something they wouldn't like to do. Therefore, we decided to let them choose whether they wanted to do beautification or entertainment for children. = 1. PLANNING AND INITIATION

• For the last part, "wishes come true," we came up with an idea to buy Christmas presents for children in the hospital. In order to achieve this, we had to raise money by organizing bake sales. We also planning to ask several churches to help us with this.  Since we had to organize a meeting with the hospital, as well as to plan each house session, I was hoping to get a chance to improve my leadership, organizational and decision-making skills. = 2. DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SKILLS 

HOURS SPENT PERFORMING ACTIVITY: 25 hours

PLANNED EVIDENCE: Pictures of me and other leaders working with these children and of our House.

SELF-EVALUATION FORM TURNED IN?: Yes!

REFLECTION: 

It did not take us long to figure out that the second part of this project - entertainment is not going to work. This is due to fact that it is almost impossible to get to interact with sick children. This is not because they did not want to play and spend some time with us, but because of possible danger.

Here is the list of challenges/restrictions we had to face:

• age limit: 18 years old (students younger than 18 were not allowed to interact with children at all)
• hygiene (you had to make sure that you were perfectly healthy, even coughing could have fatal consequences) 
• training (in order to talk to children you had to undergo a special training with the psychologists working at the department of oncology; the training had two parts: written test and discussion)
• limited number of people (maximum of 2 people were allowed to enter the department of oncology at once) = 5. CONSIDERATION OF ETHICS 

These and many other restrictions prevented us from achieving the "entertaining part" of this project. Fortunately enough, Talah (one of the house leaders) and I have after a long process managed to meet all the requirements and got to meet with the children. We even had an English lesson with one 15 year old girl Dominika. Talking and playing with these children made me realize what really matters in life. Moreover, even though nobody besides the patients can really imagine what it is like to being diagnosed with cancer, spending sometime with these kids certainly did help me understand their feelings better. = 8. COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS

My house was, however, able to accomplish the first part of the project, which was beautification. In April, after meeting all the requirements, we went to the hospital and painted a beautiful castle on the wall of one of the emergency rooms.             

Even though the consultant of the department of oncology did not like the idea about us - high school students coming to the hospital and painting walls at the very beginning, in the end she, however, said: "I hope your school will continue to cooperate with our hospital. There's a bunch of other walls that would use some nice paintings." She was truly happy and thankful for what we have done. The fact that she was satisfied with our work was really important for me because it meant that I finally managed to show them that we take this project seriously and that we really care! = 7. COMMITMENT TO ACTIVITIES 

Being one of the leaders was more challenging than I expected though. Even though I tried to motivate other house members to help and to try, there were many individuals who just did not care. Working with other students from my school clearly showed is that they lack responsibility and commitment. Of course it is easier to give up, but that does not help you reach the goals. = 3. INCREASED AWARENESS OF STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES 

In conclusion, I have to admit that being part of this project was useful to experience. I cannot necessarily say that I enjoyed all the moments of it, but in the end it was worth it. All the obstacles I had to break through and all the pain and disappointment I faced did teach me a lesson and helped me grow as a person.