Resolving Issues on Basketbal Club

Creativity + Action

There has been an underlying issue existing in the basketball club. Some members treated the club like a free space to play basketball which it is to certain extent but it is also a sport club which requires some discipline.
The conflict of stakeholders of the club arise during my abscence in the club due to illness. As the club manager I quickly started to draft plans and most importantly asking those stakeholders (students and supervisor) what the expected in the club. After listening to both sides and consulting some websites I made a new plan for the basketball with some set rules and activites routine to maximise the club activity.

On the first page I outlined the general infomation of the club gathered from my own experience and club register.

 
On the second page I outlines two possible solution to the conflict. I tried to compromise the needs of both group allowing, as much as possible, discipline but not fully giving up on the free spirit of the basketball games.
After making the plan, I sent it to the club supervisor and we reached an agreement on the plans and now looking back, the plans really worked.
I believe through this action of resolving the conflict I have indetified the strength and areas of growth of the club; collaborated with others; planned and initiated an activity; ethical implication (resolving the issues, talking calmly and logically two both stakeholders) and developed a new skills of leadership and problem solving as a club manager.

Final International Day

Planning

 Initially my year group was assigned to help the newcomers to IB. Since it was a good chance for them to meet the CAS objectives. However, there were some issues with activities, especially the one which had a theme of China, where they didn't have enough people. So the other Chinese student asked me to help him so I did in addition to my other duties.
 I have learn from the past that a good activity on the day needed a good plan. So I scheduled 10 minutes sessions with participants for brainstorming.We came up with few ideas such as origami, speaking Chinese and writing Chinese characters.But after considering the time each small activity takes, she shortlisted them and ended up with three core ones: power point on China, writing and speaking Chinese.
 Furthermore, in order to make the day to happen, I had to find some sheets designed to write Chinese calligraphy and pencil but lucky I found some in my house. In addition, we had few small activities reserved as plan B such as teaching them a Chinese tongue twister.
 Finally, my initial duties were helping out in the hall to serve food to the rest of the school. The gym was set up by us the day before in order to be used on the day.

The Day  

"China" 

The Chinese themed activity started great. The power point made by my partner was entertaining for the participants which helped to warm up the atmosphere. As initially planned, he has fully responsible for it and I have responsible for the second part which was writing.
 

Me waiting to write the next character

My part was to teach them how to write basic Chinese characters. Improvising a little, I started with three characters which constructs the sentence "I love you" when said together. This helped to keep the activity interesting.

Students writing characters 

At times, some participants said it was too difficult to write, but I tried to show them that Chinese character are just like any other script is easy to write. I wrote them step by step, waiting for them to see the progression of Chinese characters.

Students participating in a quiz  

To make it more challenging, I made a small quiz on the characters that I have already taught them. It was a joyful learning atmosphere and they seem to have enjoy it.

The international lunch 

Right after I finished the activities, I rushed down the stairs to help out in serving food. Many people contributed by bringing their national food to the school. Big thanks to those parents and students because the food was amazing.

I replaced my friend who had some other duties in the stand. With friendly approach I served some Bulgarian food which I later found out was very delicious. 

The Talent Show 

On the day, organizers asked all year group to bring a chair to the gym so they have somewhere to sit. I and my classmates took 2 each for the parents that were coming that day. 

Final set up

Hosts on the Talent Show

 After all year groups took their chairs and gone to their tutor rooms, year 13 helped to roll up the carpet, move the stage blocks and any musical instrument or equipment that was used in the show. 

Reflection

• Increase awareness of your strengths and areas for growth: In understood that I had strength in planning and improvising for the entertaining purposes. I could be more involved in the overall planning and tried out different types of activities rather than ones I am strong at. 
• Undertake new challenges: I have done a different type of activities which involved explaining and demonstrating compare to the previous year one.I felt that was a good challenge to my nervous nature. 
• Plan and initiate activities: I have planned and initiated an activity which went well and as planned. 
• Work collaboratively with others: I have worked with my classmates and my activity partners to come up with ideas and initiate necessary actions depending on situation. 
• Show perseverance and commitment: Using lunch times and my personal belongings I have made the activity possible.
• Engage with issues of global importance: I tried to break the invisible barrier many people have about Chinese. Due to relevance of China in the global economy, I feel that Chinese soon will become a international language similar to English. Therefore, breaking this fear of complexity hopefully with lead to interest in the language.
• Consider ethical implications: Since I am senior in the school, I tried to show the other year groups how IB students must behave in activity days like international day. I was always doing something and asking if I could help.During the activity, I asked students who were shy in order to give everyone a fair chance.
• Develop new skills: I have develop my skills in presenting and teaching others which were lacking comparatively to last year. I have became more proactive in helping others with addition of friendly attitude to everyone on the day. I would like to keep those new skills and improve them in the next activity.    

Another Week, Another Point :D

Week 5 

This weak was a good workout for the me and the club. First let's start with the club. From the last week's change to the format, this week's games were even across the board. I believe this is an indication of effectiveness of team making, not forgetting about the 1st 3 week's data collection process. 

 

The format is the same one, because it was easier to used the template which I have constructed last week. 

All the data has been updated through excel and word processing. I have learn those skills from previous years in ICT classes which are very handy when it comes to data analysis.(Thanks Mr.Bailey and of course Vlad :D)

Behind the scene

Now I want to show you some of the data processing I have done in my worksheet. 

Formulas such as SUM function and IF function are used to automatize the calculating process. In this case the member's score will be added together and then using the IF function I can sort them accordingly for the High score.

Here is how the program calculate the points for win/tie/lose. The "I" column is hidden usually, because it is not necessity to show the column but it is essential to the calculation. 

 In conclusion, I want to discuss about my personal growth in playing basketball. From last week's 2 points to this weeks 6 points, I have improved in my accuracy, but not by myself alone. Before this week started, I asked my teammate and good friend Johnny on some tips. He told be that the long shots are not for me, at least for now. I should shoot close range, near basket shoots. Lay ups would be good as well if there is a gap in defense. Following those tips I scored more, but there is still a long road ahead of me. Now I should focus on my strengths in basketball and look for potential places that I can grow, of course never forgetting to collaborate with teammates and pass as often and as accurate as possible. 

 My goal for next week is to score 8 to 10 points for my team. As for the Club, I will add a section on my worksheet to accumulate the weekly points to a table. 

 At last, a few food for thought: the road to passionate life starts from doing what your are interested as often as possible and still be able to continue.How do you imagine your passionate life?  

Basketball Team Games!

Creativity+Action+Service

The new format

By observing the quality of the games, member's skill level and people's feedback, I came to a conclusion that the format of games should be changed. Instead of having training session, I felt that shooting and passing practices are not in demand, and by forcing it would result in members leaving. Due to this possible issue I have reoriented the club to a game focused one. 

 My plan was to make 3 fixed teams, each being approximately equal in strength,so they could compete every week toward a championship title or something along those lines. About time management, I though it would be good to have 4 sections of 3 games, allowing each team to play two each section. Between sections there would be a interlude period, when players can drink water and rest a little bit. 

  

 This is first 3 week's personal shoot statistics. 

Even though this is more professional, but I feel that our club can't accurately record this, because for accuracy one person should be dedicated to do that. Nevertheless, this is good evidence of personal skill level of each player which I have incorporated in team making process. 

The Week 4 games 

Last weeks games went accordingly to my plan. Most members were happy with the new team, but like any collective of human beings there were some complains, mainly focused on refereeing. On this problem I would try to assign few people, who have potentials to referee as just as possible or ask some teachers. 

This is the final product which has been put up on the wall. For the layout I got the inspiration from the football club.(Thanks guys!)

I have accordingly filled in the colours for each team and added an overall high score for all the members.(Right side). 

Overall, this was a exciting experience and I felt more confidence into it because of past experiences gained throughout first 3 weeks running the club. 

I still have many things to improve on, such as my own skills (I only scored one, very disappointed) and mastering the the new routine. 

I believe I have achieved:

• Increased Awareness of strengths and areas for growth: through analyzing club members' performance and making the new teams.
• Undertaking new challenges: by experimenting with the new team and calibrating from incoming feedback.
• Planned and initiated activities: by planning the new teams and putting them to use.
• Working collaboratively with others: through listening to feedback and involving others to refereeing, time keeping and score writing tasks.
• Showing perseverance and commitment: I have listened to feedback and have attended the club regularly, even disregarding my opportunity to play the game. 
• Developing new skills: I learn how to make displays and manage the club at the basic level.  

ALLEY OOP!

First attempt

 From the last Monday, when I and my fellow basketball members realised that the basketball club manager is no longer here, we have decided to run the club on our on. Last week, even though it's a bit late to say now, but we have did some basic planning for the first session of the new school year.

 Basically, we made a rough draft of a plan, involving the possible activities we will do on the session and how the game will play out. Frankly, I wasn't involve as much in the first draft of the planning but I sure was involved applying it on the day (last Wednesday).

 As the result, the day was fairly good, but there were some complaints from the members and the whole section lacked structure.

The "new plan"

 Therefore, I have made a newer version of the plan yesterday, just before the second session. In this plan, I have redesigned the warm up section into more detailed drills which is an improvement from the last time. I addition, I have also added a register for the club, in order to see how frequent and punctuate are the members of the club. Finally, as sort of a manager ( I guess I am the manager, I don't fully know) of the club, I have delegated some of the work to fellow members. Those delegations involve: 

•  Splitting the people into two groups, thereby making the drill be more time efficient (delegated the work to the other leader of the group)
• Assigning special tasks (recording the score-miss table for each participant, taking a video (still working on this) and recording the score) to the players who are not playing at the time, because two out of three teams will play, leaving one team to watch. 

 Those delegation shows that I have allocated the work to others in order to make the club run normally, otherwise I could not have done everything myself due to the fact that there is not enough time to perform them alone. 

 Today was a busy but exciting day. After the school has ended, I hurried to the gym to start the plan. In beginning, I was a bit nervous, due to my shy nature, but I found some courage in myself and started the club my announcing few important elements that my new plan had. 

Firstly, I took the register which I have made yesterday, and guess what; it was a great idea to know how many people came today, which will be helpful when it comes to splitting teams for games. I have also added two new member of the club, 2 year 8 girls. I guess my plan for the sign up sheet worked. Anyway, I found out the number of people and began the drills, everything went smoothly, until I and my friend found out the amount of drills was too little for half an hour. In panic, I quick asked one the older member of the club, if she had any good ideas, and luckily she had one. Next time I have something to improve on. 

 When the game has started, I took the responsibility of refereeing the first game, simply because it was my duty. Even though it was my first time doing this, but I did a pretty good job, hopefully not overly biased here, because of the times I watched how others refereed last year. 

 The part about recording the score-miss sheet, people picked it up very willingly, so there was no problem with that. Everyone was very collaborative today which really made happy and I hope this will continue throughout the year. 

 At last, it’s time for some criteria meeting session:

• I have successfully identified the weakness of the last plan and has improved upon it, but still open for further improvement. 
• The managing a club is a brand new challenge for me, because I have never done anything this size before. 
• I have successfully planned the activities and enthusiastically initiated it as much as I could.   
• On the route to today's small success I have learn the importance of collaboration.
• I have shown perseverance and commitment throughout the last year in basketball club and this will continue this year as usual.
• This maybe under considered, but in my posters I have welcomed everyone to join, regardless of the year, gender, which to certain extend attributes to the global issue of discrimination.
• Concerning about ethics, our club will always play fair games and trying hardest to minimise injuries and any form of bullying. 
• At last I have developed some managerial skills such as announcing news and applying theory into practice. 

Welcome to the basketball club!

The planning process

I have produced a poster for the basketball club after I decided I was going to run it. The poster was a sign which indicated the existence of the club so people can join. Although we already have some old members, but inviting new members to join is what a successful club should do in beginning of every new school year. 

Here is the poster and the sign up sheet which I have produced. I have been creative in making the poster, since there were many clubs doing the same thing. 

 By making the poster for the basketball club I have achieved:

• Planning and initiating activities
• Develop a new skill (making the poster)

P.S. a new post of evaluation and reflection will be up soon.

New school year, New plans

I am now in year 13

 This means that by journey to finish the IB is halfway through. As the new school year has started for few weeks already, I think it is a good time to revise the old plans and make new ones. (Side note: the shortage of post over the summer was due to limited access to Internet when I was in China, my apologies). Lets get back to the CAS.

Project: Basketball Club

In this year me and few of my classmate will take over the basketball club, since the our old CAS 

Coordinator and also manager or the club,Mr. Gray has sadly left the school. From the bright side, this opens an opportunity for me to be more involved in managing the club and initiating activities. This project will go as long as we, year 13 students, have time to manage it before the exams. I hope in this project I can learn some new skills and fulfill the necessary criteria for CAS. For more information, I will post regularly,once a week hopefully, on the recent changes and planning process of the project. 

Old activities 

Of course I wouldn't forget my old activities. Those are there to show my persistence to CAS. In this week I will reconstruct a new time table for my old and new activities as part of planning process. 

Currently, I am searching for good activity for Service part, if you have any good suggestions leave a comments. Even though the management of the club counts as service, but to fill on of the criteria for CAS, I need additional activities. Hopefully I will find it soon. 

For conclusion, I want to say to those who are doing CAS right now, CAS is a way to ameliorate yourself from the nonacademic side. In addition, CAS should be fun and new, where you try out new ideas, activities and where good fundamental qualities, like determination and persistence, are acquired. At last, for myself, I just want to say, that the blog will be updated more frequently as now I have Internet access, and I will try my best to enjoy and accomplish CAS.