Valentine's Day + Disco = Creativity + Service

Every year, on Valentine's Day, all Year 12 and 13 would organise a Valentine's Disco. We would also have a Valentine's box where students can send a valentine's card to their friends or their lovers or if they gave a crush on someone. Me, Sabina, Neda and Mark were the ones who took care of the box. For every card, we would charged them with 30roubles and cards + chocolates would be 50roubles. Again, this is all for the guide dog.

Another thing that I planned was selling cupcakes and cookies on this day. So, I told Mrs Grey about it and the Year 11 girls also wanted to participate and the Year 8 girls as well. So, I made mini chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting and M&M on top. This was actually my first time making a frosting and frost a cupcake. I was happy with myself after looking at the cupcakes that I have decorated. So, on this day, we used the English room to sell the cupcakes and cookies that we had. The Year 11 and 8 girls helped me to sell them and I was standing and calling everybody to buy them. It was a success and we actually raised about 7000roubles.

One other thing that I did during Valentine's Day was helping selling the sandwiches during the disco. Me and Daniel would take the order and Shaun, Mantas, Thibaut and  Francesco would make the sandwiches. For the first 5minutes, nobody came, but after that, it was a chaos for the rest of the disco. But we were under control, so it was fine. Eventhough it was actually hard to remember the orders, but I tried my best for it. It was funny how I actually said to Thibaut "one sandwich with ham and cheese...without sandwich", when I actually wanted to say without ketchup. I didn't even realised until Matanat told me and when I looked back, everybody was laughing at me. That made our day actually during the chaos.

The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved during Valentine's Day are :

• Increase awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth as I have never decorated cupcakes before and never made that much money by selling cupcakes
• Planned and initiated activities as the Year 12 and 13 planned the disco and I planned the cupcake and cookie sale
• Worked collaboratively with others when we were selling the sandwiches as me and Daniel took the order and Mantas, Shaun, Thibaut and Francesco would make the sandwiches
• Considered the ethical implications of my actions 

CAS Plan

CREATIVITY

• I will continue learning how to make more desserts
• I will make covers of songs with my brother

ACTION

• I will join the fitness club during lunch on Tuesdays
• I will continue with Badminton Club

SERVICE

• I will continue working with the DownSideUp Organisation
• I will involve in the organisation of disco
• I will help in fundraising activities

Festive Disco = Fundraising

On Friday, 16th december, we had a Festive Disco. Again, we are doing this to raise fund for the guide dog for blind people. In order to raise the fund, during the break and lunch, we did our best selling raffle tickets for the hamper that have been organised by Shaun and I also helped promoting the Lolly Guess that have been organised by Thibaut, Gregory and Jiwon.

I really thought that by helping Thibaut and Shaun with the Lolly Guess and the hamper, I have built up my confident by shouting around promoting both of them. And I also almost lost my voice after that as always.

But losing my voice was worth it because we raised a lot of money and I am still happy with myself because again, I was being very confident.

Before we started the disco, all of the Year 12 and 13 had to decorate the gym to make it look like a disco and we did our best and again, it was a success decorating it. 

During the disco, we continued selling the raffles ticket for the hamper and promoting the Lolly Guess again. And of course, I was shouting all around the disco and running with the candy jar promoting it. 

In the end, we made a huge success.

The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved during this day are :

• I worked collaboratively with others as we were helping each other selling the raffle tickets and promoting the Lolly Guess
• I undertaken new challenges by shouting around the people to promote and to sell

Jumble or Jumbo?

It is Jumble Sale! All of us got confused with the name of the sale. Half of us thought it was a Jumbo Sale and half thought it was a Jumble Sale. The aim of having this Jumble Sale is to raise fund for a guide dog for blind people. 

So, on Friday, 25 November, we had a very successful Jumble Sale eventhough we failed for the first time on Tuesday. Eventhough I really had nothing to bring at first, I begged my mother to give me something that she does not use at all, and she found a lot of things, such as handbags and a lot of accessories. That is why I brought a lot of accessories on the day we had the Jumble Sale.

When we started the sale, I was doing the first half shift and I was selling items that cost 50 roubles I actually made a lot of money by selling all the 50roubles items but I don't really know the exact amount because I didn't count the money I made. Also, the items that were on my table finished. I was super happy with myself because I successfully managed to be a sellperson.

In the end, we raised 4500roubles by selling all the items that we had. 

The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved from this Jumble Sale are :

• I undertaken new challenges for being a sellperson.
• I worked collaboratively with others as everybody knew when was their shift.

DownSideUp = Service

Before the term break, we have been given a list of organizations that we might be able to contact and choose an organization that we are interested in helping the organization. So, during the term break, I chose an organization called 'DownsideUp' because I have a friend that used to help the organization but now she has gone back to Malaysia. I have sent them an email asking what I can do as a volunteer at the organization and also I ask for some details about the organization. I really hope that I can help them as best as I can.This is what the fundraising manager answered to me.

Dear Aina,

Thank you so much for your initiative! Who did you find info about Downside Up? 

We do need volunteer help as well as additional funding for Early Intervention programs.

Volunteers usually help us around the office: preparing fundraising activities, mailing packages et.c.

Right now we have 2816 children with Down Syndrome in our programs, and their number is constantly increasing. We have shourtage of 7 mln rubles (around 165 000 euro) in our 2011 budget and only 2 months ahead of us to attract new donations. So we will be grateful for your fundraising ideas and donations!

Are you in Moscow right now? We can arrange a meeting at Downside Up premises. 

Best regards,

Ksenya Chernyavskaya,

Fundraising manager

Weather Club

Weather Club has being held at BIS for a long time by Mr. O'Connor. I have done it before when I was in Year 11 and it was actually fun. We have to take readings every 24-hour and we do it at 11am everyday. But not everybody have to take readings everyday because we have been divided into groups and in one group we either have 2 people or 3 people and I'm in a group of 3 with Nasha and Yein. We will have to take readings once every 3 weeks. We are doing the Weather Club because we want to know whether global warming is happening or not by looking at the difference between the average temperature and the actual temperature throughout the year. I really hope that we have the accurate results everyday and we are going to be able to know whether global warming is happening or not. 

The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved by participating in the club are :

• I worked collaboratively with others as I'm taking readings with Nasha and Yein while Nasha and Yein take the readings and I write them in the Weather Club book
• I'm going to show perseverance and commitment in this activity as we do it every once every three weeks
• I engaged with issues of global importance as we are taking readings which can be used to study the climate change throughout the year

Children + Homework

During the term break, I decided to make a free tuition for the small kids. I called all the parents from the Malaysian Embassy and told them the plan. I told them that I will do it on Wednesday, 19th October. I told them that I want to help the kids do their homework, not by doing the homework for them but helping them answer the questions that they are not good at.

So, on Wednesday, 7 kids came to my house with all the homework that they had including maths, science, english, and more. I tried to help them as the best as I can, and when I really didn't know how to do it, I would ask my brother to help as well. It was actually really hard for me to help all of them but at the same time and I had a lot of fun with them. I also learned some things that I never knew before in science, which was kind of embarrassing actually but at least I learned something. 

After helping them with the homework, I gave them chocolate cookies which I made the night before especially for them. When we were waiting for the parents to pick them up, we played a Malaysian game called "Congkak". They made a lot of noise by playing this games, some of them were cheating and if someone realized they started to shout at me and I would just disqualified the kid and let others play. 

I really had a lot of fun by helping and playing with them. They also showed a lot of enthusiasm with doing their homework. I hope that I will have the time and opportunity to do this again with them. 

The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved during this activity are :

• I planned and initiated activities as I was the one who planned this activity and I think I did a good job by helping the kids.
• I considered the ethical implications of my actions as I told all the parents about this activity.