LO 1 Identifying own strengths and develop areas for personal growth
LO 6 Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
LO 4 Show commitment to and perseverance in your CAS experiences
LO 5 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
The final 4-6 months of service in grade 11 were rather unusual; due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Firstly, we had to remain in classrooms for the time that we were in school and could not visit the shelter due to safety restrictions. However, this meant that this was great time for personal reflection and group reflection; we were able to effectively discuss and determine what some flaws and strengths were, both for the group and for ourselves. I was able to understand what my strengths were, being part of a service as such, as well as identifying areas for improvement such as communication and better time management when it comes to planning activities and ideas. Furthermore, after we were forced to go online I feel that having such conversations became a lot easier, even though we had to be online; I think that it had come to a point where we trusted each other enough as service group to recognise where we lacked and where we could do better in a lot of scenarios. Being online consisted mainly of discussions regarding some touch ups of the website, which was my job as communications chair, as well as plans for next year. Here is a link to the website that I developed for the service.
Being able to have such discussions were fruitful in that we were able to go back home and do some more research for the next sessions to really see the places in which we could make the biggest impact. In other words, we felt that we were engaging with the issue on quite a big level, because we poured time into researching the biggest issues faced by our target audience as well as brainstorming some of the best ways that we could help with this issue. Our service leadership team was the one meeting constantly and staying in touch over the online period, so we were able to talk about some plans that we would put in place in order to correct some of the mistakes we had made for our 12th Grade experience in this service. The biggest part of this was really doing some good research that helped us engage with the issue by bringing more awareness to us about it, but also by finding ways to bring more awareness to the community.
Commitment and perseverance were like no other in our service; everyone was more or less always there and on time as well, and when we planned to meet online to discuss things such as how the website should look, or what sort of systems we should implement for the next year, our leadership team was always committed to giving ideas and having great discussions.
Nothing was more important than collaboration in this process, in my opinion; without such a strong sense of teamwork, we would never have been able to experience some of the success that we did during our first year with this service. We understood how there can be so many benefits to brainstorming and experimenting in a group, because it gives us a chance to hear everyone’s ideas for what can be done for the service. It leaves us confident that we will never run out of ideas, and we will always have a good team to back us up with brainstorming and implementation of certain activities. I am really looking forward to continuing this service next year as well, for my NYAA award.