Pie Day

Hey hey hey!

On 16th December, another beautiful event took place in Lyceum - Pie Day! It was not only a nice and cozy celebration for eating a lot of pies and feasting early Christmas, it also had a very meaningful purpose - money that were collected from selling pies were donated to poor children in Rwanda, Father Hermann Schulz's Mission. This year during the event, which was organized by our IB1 class, record amount of money was collected, thus we were very happy that we succeeded to organize such an amazing event. However, we had to put a lot of efforts and work in this.

First of all, in order to clarify our aims, the meeting with IB2 class, which organized this event last year, was held. They told us how they managed to do everything, what were the biggest difficulties and what should be changed. After listening to their advice, we made a plan of the whole Pie Day celebration and distributed the work. And there were a lot of it, since we were planning to hold not a simple day when everyone could buy pies and leave without knowing what the real purpose of this event was - we wanted to make clear that all the money would be donated. We also wanted a real celebration with interesting competitions, cozy places to drink tea, we also wanted to generate different activities for people like a nice wall decorated with beautiful paper pies were everyone can take pictures, or a table were people can ornament cookies with edible paint. We also decided to make the main hall with beautiful pie, candy and Christmas decorations. 

We had some meetings where different groups that were responsible for different jobs talked about their works, how and when they should be done. One of these meetings was the one for the group which was responsible for advertising Pie Day, encouraging people to participate in it. Me and three other girls were in this group. We figured that we had to think of an interesting and original way of advertising to draw everyone's attention to this event. That's why we created a small performance that we showed it to every class a day before the celebration. It was a funny but also informative show that a lot of students and teachers liked; it was clear that they paid attention to it and that was our main goal.

Another activity that I participated in was IB1 chorus that was created specially for Pie Day. It was organized by one of our classmates, Zivile, and surprisingly a lot students decided to join it. Singing in chorus or singing at all was quite a challenge for me, because I had never tried it before and I didn't even know what type of voice mine is - soprano or alto, but Zivile helped me to determine that and it appeared that it was alto. We prepared two songs for our performance. It wasn't much, but we still had a lot of work learning to sing together to get a nice sounding. In the end, it was really worth all the efforts, because our singing helped to create homey atmosphere and a lot of people really liked it.

In the morning of Pie Day, everyone was very busy preparing everything for the celebration, decorated the hall. It was so nice to see how everyone was concentrated, working together. We really managed to create a day to remember. There were a lot of bakers and consumers, many teachers came to see this event and it's program. We heard a lot of positive comments about Pie Day and we collected so much money which we donated to children of Rwanda and this all made that day so special. 

Organizing and participating in Pie Day made us all work together with a lot of concentration. It also let us try new activities ( for some - singing, for others - organizing, making decorations, working together with others). The purpose of this event also made us to think of other people who are poorer and to try to help them even a little bit. Overall, Pie Day is the wonderful event.

This activity integrate all three aspects of CAS - Creativity, Action and Service.

Let's Feel the Christmas!

Hello there!

It's true that sometimes Christmas spirit just takes over you out of the blue, but most of the time you have to create that convivial mood yourself. That's what we did in the afternoon of 9th December, when we were decorating our class coordinator's and IB coordinator's doors.

In the beginning we had three ideas of how to decorate our class coordinator's door (we had to adorn only one door at first), so we arranged a voting. It was strange because two ways of decorating collected an equal number of votes, so we decided to carry out Christmas spirit on two doors.

So on Monday, when our lessons were over, we started working. Some of us went to the shop to buy some material for decorating while others were planning the work. At first there were about 8 students wanting to contribute to this job, but in the end there were only 3 of us left. However, it was enough, because others would only be standing without work or wouldn't have a place near the door to work.

Even though we had the sketch of our ideas, we still had to figure out how to transfer everything on an actual door. It wasn't an easy job, because we wanted it to be not only beautiful but also stable that it could remain till the beginning of Christmas Holidays.

When the decoration was finished, we were really pleased about our work, although one of door had to be corrected many times till holidays. Our class and IB coordinators were really happy about their nice doors and we heard a lot of good responses to our decorations.

Thus, we really succeeded in carrying out Christmas spirit, also learnt to implement our ideas from the sketch to reality.

This work involved an aspect of CAS - Creativity.

Dance Marathon '13

Hey, everybody!

On 15th November me and nine other students from my class took part in one of the most exciting events that everyone had been waiting for months -  Dance Marathon. Although I didn't want to  participate at first, now I'm very happy that I did, because it was an amazing event that not only brought me and my classmates together, but also was a real challenge for me that I overcame.

I found out about Dance Marathon about two months before an actual event, when one of my classmates told me about it and offered to participate in it together. Even though I dance for about five years now, I'm kind of afraid and a little bit shy attending such events, so I told her that I didn't think that was a good idea. However, I couldn't stop thinking about it, and after all I decided to face this challenge, gather a group of students and participate in the show.

First task for participants of this event was to prepare a dance. We started practicing about a month before an event. To do that, we had to find people who wanted to be a part of it. To be honest, there were a lot of them and at the outset we had a group of about 15 people that was definitely too much. However, when the real rehearsals started some people just didn't show up, hence in the end only a team of 10 committed people were left.

Another challenge was to decide on a music for a dance, since we all had different opinions about how our performance should look like. Trying to compromise, we split into two groups (6 and 4 people) according to our taste in music and ideas of the show. This way we created different dances and then joined them together with an idea of two battling crews.

I was the one who had to create a choreography in our group and it wasn't difficult for me, since I had done it many times in my dancing lessons. Furthermore, I had to teach the rest of the team that dance routine and it was a bit harder, because I hadn't done that before and other girls were dancing other dance styles in their free time. Nevertheless, I would say that we succeeded and in the end quite a nice performance was built up.

When the day of Dance Marathon came, we were all really nervous and had been practicing for about 3 hours that day. The result of  our efforts was really loud applause from spectators of the event and that was an amazing feeling.

Another task for participants was to create another performance, but this time in 15 minutes with given music and chosen teams. We managed to do this really well and once again attained a great support from viewers.

The final task was to improvise by the music played by organizers. I was kind of afraid of this task, but when I heard house music playing I decided to try and improvise a little, since I dance house dance for 3 years or so. And it went quite well.

All in all, Dance Marathon was a nice event and I was happy to be a part of it. I learnt to face the difficulties and nervousness, to work together with my team and, of course, I had a great time!

This activity integrated two aspects of CAS - Creativity and Action.

An Afternoon in the Antakalnis Cemetery

Hey, fellows!

On 23rd October, together with IB2 class, we were cleaning the environment in the Antakalnis Cemetery. It was actually kind of fun, and we really made an impact working together.

Once again, our CAS coordinator informed us about this possibility. Last year, she did this project with her class (current IB2) and this year she decided to take us together. We have been told that we would have to be prepared for a lot of work, including raking leaves and stuffing them into bags. And we were prepared.

Our journey to cemetery began quite funny, because instead of going from a bus station straight to cemetery, somehow we managed to get lost and instead of arriving there after 15min, we showed up after 40min... Thus, we had to start working quickly. And, to be honest, we succeeded. We were given rakes and plastic bags, divided into groups and told to clean particular area. It was not a very difficult task and easier than we expected, but we had a chance to work together as a team. We also got to know each other better during this project and, of course, we cleaned the cemetery. This way we showed our respect to all the people that were resting there and to their relatives, we made that place nicer and cozier. 

This activity included one aspect of CAS - Service.

Project 'Food Bank'

Hello there!

It's my first proper post about my first proper volunteering, so it's kind of big, isn't it? Well, it was a project 'Food Bank' on 19th October. It was organized to help those families who have lost their relatives and now are struggling to provide themselves. This year, the highest amount of money was collected - one million litas! Thus, it was really nice to be a part of such a special project!

Me and my class were put forward to join this project by our CAS coordinator. We met the organizer of this program about a week before an actual event and he introduced us to 'Food Bank' itself and to this particular project.  He explained that volunteers of this event would have to distribute flyers at the shops encouraging people to buy products for families of this project or to collect those products from donating people marking everything on given document and, of course, to thank people for their generosity. It all seemed very interesting and a bit challenging, so me and a bunch of my classmates volunteered at this project.

We met our coordinator on Saturday, she explained us how all this worked and we started! I had a chance to try out both responsibilities, but I preferred collecting products from donating people rather than giving out flyers. I don't mean that it was a bad job. It was interesting and really challenging, because even though some people were positive about these kinds of projects, others had low opinion about people distributing flyers, so they just walked away without looking at us or even said something not very nice thinking that it was only commercial and not actual help for people. On the other hand, I got an experience and understanding how all that worked and learned that preconceived opinion can be wrong. I found out how to be convincing, encourage people to donate, without being pushy. I also really enjoyed collecting food and being able to see how generous people are and to thank them personally. It really made me understand that there are many kind people who think about others and gave me an incentive to contribute some products myself.

Overall, volunteering in this 'Food Bank' project included one CAS aspect - Service.

A Little Bit About Me

Hey there, everybody!

I'm Greta Jurgaitytė and I'm 17 years old. I'm a student at International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in Vilnius Lyceum and I'm going to write my CAS ( Creativity, Action and Service) reflections here. Hope you'll enjoy reading it!