Joining MUN!

I joined MUN a couple weeks ago as an admin and I have so far attended 2 meetings. Although admins do most their work during the actual conferences, we must attend all meetings every week. I have begun staying after school on wednesdays for the meetings to get a better understanding of how things will work.


What do admins do?
Set up the conference
Type up resolutions
Take care of supplies for all MUN participants (OSC is hosting the conference)


Being an admin for MUN will give me new experiences and make me develop new skills as I have never done anything like this before. This opportunity will also allow me to meet new people and learn how to work together with others.

Gecko INC. Community Basketball. 19th November.

On saturday we yet again had our weekly Community Basketball. This time we had about 40 attendants and we made over 8500rs profit, which is so far the best we have ever made. Good, intense games were played and people had a lot of fun.


As we are ending this CAS in december our CAS group has decided to have a tournament on the last saturday (10th December). This will be a nice end to the Community Basketball.


On thursdays meeting we discussed what we are going to use the money for that we have made from this CAS. We decided to buy sports equipment to a local school in need.
This is a post from the Gecko INC facebook page which tells more about what we are planning to buy etc.


Our main project this semester is going to be... S.W.R.D. BANDARANAYAKA VIDYALAYA
This school has 235 children (111 girls and 124 boys) and they do have a little playground at the back of their school. However, they do not have the proper sports gear to enjoy sport.

What we are planning to buy with your money:
Cricket bats
Cricket Wickets
Tennis balls
Netballs
Netball Hoops (hopefully)
Footballs
Badminton rackets and shuttles


Hopefully we will make anough money to buy these items :)

Saturday Community Basketball

Saturday 2-4pm   12.11.2011

We had community basketball again last saturday and this time about 35 people showed up. This is less than last time (50 people attending). We increased the entry fee to 100rs from 50rs which could have effected the amount of people coming to play. Even though the attendance was less this weekend, we made profit and the games were easier to manage with less people wanting to play. This weekend was yet again a success :)

Next weekend we are planning to keep the entry fee as 100rs and make no changes from how we have been running the games so far. On out thursday CAS meeting we will talk and decide on what we are going to do with the profit we have made. One idea so far has been to buy sports equipment for local schools in need.

Pictures from last saturday

Football!

Image citation:

Arnold, Bryant. World Cup Soccer Cartoon. Digital Image. Cartoon A Day Funny Business Cartoons and Web Comics. N.p. N.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

SAISA football is coming up next season and I want to get in shape for that. Avanti and I have started training together so that we will be fit and ready for the season. Today was a poya day and we decided to go to school at 10 to play for a few hours. I am aiming to develop new skills in football and show seriouse commitment to the SAISA coming up.

Last year our team came second in SAISA girls football and our goal this year is to finnish first and win gold! To do this we need to show that we really want to succeed and there for training early will help us to reach this goal.

We are planning to start asking other girls to join us to train, after all this is a team game where everyone plays a crucial role. If we start early, we develop our skills together working as a team and suppotting each others early on.

Gecko INC. Community basketball

Last weekend we had community basketball again an this time it was a great success! We had 32 people come to our school, both students from our school as well as outside of school. There were good intense games played and we mae over 4000rs profit.
After the event we looked back and thought of things we should improve on for our next community basketball this weekend. Here is what we came up with:

1. Have only one enterence from where all athletes enter from
2. Get payments from everyone when they enter and make a mark on their hand to show that they have payed. (this way it is easier to control the payments)
3. Have the drinks being sold near the courts so that athletes will buy more and we will make more profit.

By making these changes we hope to do even better next weekend. :)

SAISA Girls Volleyball!

Volleyball season is now over after a tough weekend filled with games. Our volleyball team attended the SAISA girls volleyball tournament for the first time and it was hosted by our school. Six teams including our OSC team attended the tournament and our team did very well winning second place!
The tournament lasted for 3 days (Friday-Sunday)
On friday we played two games, against teams from Nepal and Dhaka and we won both. On saturday we played three games agains the rest tof the schools, Chennai, Bombay and Lahore. We won two of these three games and lost to Bombay. This meant that we were to play two games on sunday. First game was against Nepal which we won and this win took us to the finals. In the finals we faced Dhaka and lost against them leaving us the second place of the tournament.
Over all this volleyball season and tournament was a great experience for me. It was the first time for me to ever play volleyball and I am happy for how I did. I have grown and developed new skills as an athelete through out this season and I am very happy that I could be a part of the OSC volleyball team.

Gecko Inc. First Community Basketball!

On Saturday 1st of October we held our first community basketball. We had 10 attending from what 4 people were from outside our school community. All players paid rs50 and many people bought drinks and snacks that were available. What sold the best was water bottles and energy drinks, which was expected. Snacks did not sell as well and this is one area that we need to discuss in our next Gecko Inc. meeting, should or should we not sell fruits and small snacks if they are not selling well? Will we lose or gain money by selling snacks? Is it worth it?
As a leader of this CAS I did most of the organizing before the actual event. I made all orders on drinks through the business office and filled in necessary paper work. I also am now in charge of all money related aspects and as well as all blue gecko cafe items that are being sold.

The first Community Basketball held was a success as we made profit and had good basketball games played. The next time Community Basketball will be held is on saturday the 29th of October. Unfortunately it is this late as SAISA is held next saturday, and the two saturdays after that are during the October break and most of our Gecko Inc. members are not present.
In the next Community Basketball we are hoping to have more people attending, especially from outside of our school. We will work on advertising this event and getting good basketball games played!

Creativity

Last week I helped Tanya, the SGA president, out in sewing the spirit flags together into one big spirit banner. I have a sewing machine at home so I was able to do this after school. This banner will be hang up in the gym during the SAISA volleyball tournament to add gecko spirit to our school. This is counted as creativity for my CAS.

Gecko INC- Service

After a few Thursday meetings we have now decided on what we are going to focus on in this CAS. We have planned to have Community Basketball on Saturdays at 2-4 pm for people 14 or older. Each person will pay 50rs so that we can afford a referee for the small games that take place. We are planning to inform other schools about this possibility to come and play as it is a good way to bring people together from other schools and play sport in a proper manner. We will also set up snacks and drinks up at the blue gecko cafe where the players from both, community basketball as well as community football can come and get refreshments. Each person part of our CAS has been assigned a task what to do and I am in charge of the blue gecko cafe with Shanthi. During this week we are going to inform as many people as possible about this Community Basketball through posters as well as just informing people about it. Chrishni and I are making the posters which will include all information needed.

I was made the leader of this CAS with Chrishni which shows that I am actively involved and can make our group work well to achieve our goals.
Having a leading role in this CAS was one of my goals for this semester and I am happy to have achieved it.

Sports day

We had our schools sportsday on Wednesday the 7th of September. I was actively involved in this event and enjoyed the day very much. I took part in all sport categories (except swimming) and these included: football, volleyball, basketball and kickball.  The team I was a part of was the blue team which in the end of the day won second place.

Playing basketball. Blue V.S Green

IB Orientation, Beginning of After School Activities and Goal Setting

IB Orientation

On Thursday 25th of August our whole grade left school to go on a IB orientation trip. On this trip we were introduced to the IB program and we learnt what was ahead of us, what the requirements were and we also did some outdoor activities to get to know each other better and learn new skills.

On the first day we mostly participated in out door activities such as rock climbing and boat building and team-based activities. Rock climbing was a new experience for me and I enjoyed it a lot. It required us to trust out partners who we worked with as well as communicate well and listen to directions. After a few slips and bruises I was happy of what I had accomplished in the activity. 
The boat building exercise required teamwork and creative planning and this is what I feel our team could have done better in. Out of two boxes our team created one bigger box, which turned out to not work very well, as expected. 
During the whole time on this trip we did many other team activities which also required team work and planning, such as the tower building and 'getting over the string as a team with out touching it' activity. The team and outdoor activities were my personal favorites and it allowed me to get to know some new people on my grade. 
We also went through some IB related topics and they helped me understand the IB program a bit better than before.

These pictures are from the IB orientation. First picture is from the boat building task. Here we are testing how the boats worked, as you can see our was not a success..The second picture shows one of the group activities we had.

Beginning of After School Activities

The after school activity I decided to join this year is Gecko INC. This is a new ASA that just began this year. It is based on the gecko athletics in our school and we plan new things to add or improve in the athletic department in OSC. In our first meeting we brainstormed what exactly we want to accomplish in this CAS and what could some of our future goals be. Here are some ideas that we thought:

•   Saturday Basketball for primary kids. 
•   Improving the hospitality of OSC when teams from outside of our school come and participate games and tournaments.
• Informing parents and encouraging students to come support OSC teams at games/tournaments.

We still have not set the final goals nor decided on what idea/ideas we are going to concentrate on as we have only been at one meeting.

My goals for After School Activity

• Be active and committed in the After School Activity I am in.
• Work well in a team and listen to all ideas made.
• Make sure that we don't only plan, but also implement.
• Possibly reach a leading role in the CAS

My goals for next two years of IB

• Develop new skills during the year in all subjects
• Develop time management and responsibility
• Be actively involved in sports and SAISA's. I am planning to take part in Volleyball, football and badminton.
• More later