Creativity: Event Crew

I joined the SAISA Badminton event crew in the hopes that I'd be given a task which would increase my creativity of CAS and challenge me in a way I am not used to. I was put in charge of HOUSING as well as other smaller tasks when possible. The housing task was the most important for the tournament, without placement of houses the athletes would not have a place to stay throughout the tournament. The first thing that was to be done was to find enough houses to host at least 56 athletes and 8 coaches. This was more difficult than i thought it would be as when announced a couple times, we had no more than 8 houses. This process took a long time, and was not completed until the week of the tournament as a lot of people in this school community had things going on which prevented them from being able to host. The second thing that had to be done was getting all the names and information from the traveling schools and putting them together in an excel document. Although this wasn't super challenging, it was time consuming as the information had to be  typed in individually in each column and couldn't be copied and pasted. The next thing was to be able to match up the athletes with their host based on gender preferences. Then, we had to double check the athlete pairings with pets and allergies to find the best matches. This was difficult with the limited housing options we had. As well as that, the information from one of the schools was sent into us very late which made it very difficult to be able to match up the houses. After this long process, the athletes and coaches were finally placed with appropriate hosts. The next thing to be done was for me to call the mothers or fathers of each family to confirm their ability to host and whether appropriate transportation were going to be provided. This was a huge responsibility and I am super relieved that I were able to, my myself and some advertisement help from others, complete this task. 

Even though this took up most of my time, another thing I was put in charge of finding cell phones in order to give to the coaches. Even though I was not given specific instructions, I myself went and organized the information of each school into one of the phones, and after receiving sim cards, was able to give the phones to the event crew before the first teams arrived on campus. These phones are for calling the hosts where the athletes will be as well as to use for emergencies. We thought it'd be effective for us to provide these as it is always a challenge and expensive to use their own phones and find the information themselves. 
This was all work that was completed before the actual tournament, once the tournament starts i will be involved with Line Judging as well as helping other members of the event crew with any tasks they might have difficulties with. 

ACTION BASED

Since I was not involved in any of the Saisa this or next sports season, I still had to find a way to fulfill the Action based part of CAS. Therefore, I got a membership to a gym called "Lifetime Fitness" located 2 minutes from my house. There they have great equipment and at least 3 trainers to come around and help you as well as train you based on your goals. I have been going regularly twice a week with ixana, a friend, and sometimes a third time if i have free time on the weekends. My sessions last between an hour and 90 minutes. During this time I do all sorts of things from cardio to muscle building and exercises for joint problems I have. I am very satisfied with the personalized work out created for me and the motivation given to me at the gym. i plan to continue regularly for the next year. 

GECKO INC LOCAL SCHOOL VISITS

The Gecko Inc. thought that it would be good to build up a relationship with a nearby local school. One not even 2 minutes away from colombo. As a group we travelled there two times in the hopes of being able to communicate and teach local students. To our surprise we were greeted by the cricket team training at that time. This was an unfamiliar situation and both our group and the cricket team felt a bit uneasy. We decided that this session we would have the cricket team try and teach us some basic throwing, catching, and batting skills of the game of cricket. This was definitely a risk to take for most of us as communicating with local boys older than us didn't particularly fall under our comfort zones. An amazing job was done by Jack, who went off on his own to talk privately with two of the cricket players the entire session and learn more about the sport without being shy or holding himself back. This was definitely a good example for everyone to follow. This session was simply to introduce ourselves and get familiar with the school. The second time we went we were again, only given time with the cricket team. But this time we decided to split up into mixed teams and play games of football and frisbee. We really felt as if we had the potential to build up a relationship with this school and wanted to invite them to the OSC campus for the next session. 

Here are some pictures of the second session taken by myself

Although, the next session, our hopes of being able to build a relationship with this school were put down when we did not get a visit from the group we'd been working with, but from the principle and athletic director. 

They came bearing a list of equipment and decorations that they wanted us to buy for them for an event they had coming up, prices on the list added up to over 200,000rs. 

Of course we did not agree to this request and decided to cut off communication with this school and try and move on to a new one. This was a disappointing yet great lesson for everyone in the group. To teach us how certain actions we may see as helpful, can be perceived very differently from the other side. Which is why now we are working on finding a new local school with which we can do educational and fun physical activities with for the remainder of the semester.