I’ve completed a term of Humanities Magazine this year as a leader! It has been the most rewarding experience, especially having been a part of the publication process for two years prior as well.
One of the biggest challenges was learning how to manage a team and get the work done. Although I had ideas about how I wanted to run the activity with my co-leader, it was much easier said than done. It is a fascinating and valuable process of planning timelines, roles and sponsorships before the opportunity of implementing and working on them. My co-leader and I have experimented with different meeting layouts to ensure that everyone is productive and engaging with the work. It’s been rewarding to take that responsibility and figure out how best to organise the team according to everyone’s work habits and personalities, as well as our own.
I will admit, we are a bit behind schedule currently. Unfortunately, due to G10 mock exams at the end of the last term and people leaving early for holidays, we had a 3-4 week period with low attendance and productivity. So we are trying to plan how best to catch up with all the work and meet our goal of sending the finished magazine to printers in early March. It’s been somewhat challenging to balance the stress of our publishing timeline and acknowledge that at the end of the day, we are all high school students who have other things to do. It’s reasonable for people to not prioritise an activity outside of school subjects. In an ideal world, everyone would complete all the work in the time agreed on, but that isn’t realistic. So, it has also been a good learning opportunity to practically and effectively plan tasks and deadlines to allow leeway for missing elements.
In terms of victories, we’ve secured a sponsorship for our magazine that was an exciting accomplishment since we coordinated it entirely on our own without teacher support! We got to plan and negotiate a proper transaction, something new to us. We are also nearing the start of season 3 for activities, so we are excited to see if new people join and what roles they may take on. I’m hoping that after the lunar new year break, once attendance comes back to regular, we can get back to collaborating and communicating effectively to get this magazine complete!
