It has been about half a year of me doing this service, and things have definitely changed but in a good way! I am vice chair of this service which I a really interesting opportunity for me because I haven’t had a leadership role in a while and this has shown me that it does require work but it is still a fun and meaningful role.
All of our circus skills have definitely developed and we have done two ‘shows’ already- one for the infant school and a mini performance in our G11 CAS assembly. Although these were quite small performances, it still involved us doing things which we may not have been comfortable with. It also made us realise how useful regular practice is in maintaining whatever circus skills we have and also how there is always room for improvement and better organisation- this is because in one of the performances we did, we hadn’t really thought about or rehearsed much so while it was still an enjoyable show, it could have been better. This is something which as a service and club we will remember in future events such as the upcoming family festival.
One of the things which I really wanted to do as chair was to get better interaction between us and our service partners- the Muhammadiyah boys. They don’t come every week but when they do come there is often a bit of a divide and everyone kind of practices what they went by themselves. I found it quite challenging to start interacting because a lot of them already have good circus skills and I didn’t want to make them feel like I thought I was being superior in anyway by helping them when they didn’t want or need help. However last week’s session was really good for both us (East students) and the Muhammadiyah boys (I’m hoping).This is because even though at the beginning of the session we were all a bit separated, we managed to break the awkwardness and spent a lot of time with a few of the boys on the trapeze. I think it is important for me to remember that we aren’t here to necessarily always ‘teach’ the boys how to do things because they already have skills and also do like to try stuff y themselves or with their friends. Hopefully this continues throughout the year!
Final Reflection:
This has really been on of the most enjoyable services I have done, because it seems like there was genuine interest and effort put in from students from school and the boys who we were partnering with. This service seems quite unique in the sense that it was weeks before we even met our service parters because we needed to learn the circus skills ourselves! This experience has made me more open to really getting involved with and even taking responsibility in activities and service even if I’m not fully confident or don’t have all the skills required yet because I can develop these skills.
