School Secret Santa

It is Christmas in the heart ♥︎ that puts Christmas in the air ❄︎

From experience in my previous school, the senior students used to conduct a whole-school Valentine’s Day rose delivery for students who were eager to send a lovely surprise to a close friend or partner. I have always thought it to be an elegant idea to organise such an event, allowing others to express their gratitude or love for someone else with a flower delivered through an intermediary. Therefore, I hatched an idea to apply the same concept to another theme… instead of expressing your love for Valentine’s Day, why not spreading Christmas cheer for the upcoming holiday season!

Activity Planning

As a small class, my friends and I were eager to do this CAS activity together - Class CAS! However after consulting with our CAS Co-ordinator, this seemed to be unreasonable, since when we chose roles, it could play out unfairly in the activity. As a result, we voluntarily decided to divide our class into two smaller groups, one will be responsible for the Christmas Chocolate Delivery (aka Secret Santa) and the other will be managing another Christmas related CAS activity (blog post on that very soon). In this way, both groups are in charge of their respective activities, but we will all participate in both projects by offering helping hands.

Well, what is Secret Santa? It is a simple way of showing someone care, appreciation and wishing them a Merry Christmas. We will open up a stand by the main entrance of our school and welcome people every morning for two weeks. It is during the mornings of these two weeks that the senders are able to approach us to send a chocolate santa claus (or more if desired) to anyone in the school of their choice. In exchange for 3€, the sender will be provided with an A6-sized card (designed specifically for Secret Santa) where they can state to whom it is for, which class the receiver is in if they are a student, and sign their own name, which they are naturally welcomed to omit if it is to be a secret surprise! On the penultimate day before the school holiday, Santa Claus’ helpers, i.e. our class, will deliver the santas to every person who has been sent one (or more). From our side, this means coming to school extra early to be ready to take orders in and receive an excuse from class on the delivery day.

The essential purposes of this CAS activity is…

1. To learn how to organise a whole-school event collaboratively with classmates which requires a good deal of thought, organisation and dedication in order for it to be a complete success.
2. To kick-start the holiday season by sharing care and spreading on the merry mood to close friends and terrific teachers. This would benefit the receiver, as he or she shall get a special gift happily on the second-last school day before the Winter break.
3. To raise money for our charity fund as we have officially decided as a class to collect all the profit of our current and future Class CAS projects. It will finally be donated to a good cause of our choice, at the end of our 18 months CAS program of the IB DP.

The four of us main event planners had to discuss and confirm all the important details in our first meeting that lasted for about two hours. We talked about the means of communication for the project to be heard, which included A3 posters, Facebook post on the school’s page, a notification in the school’s newsletter, introduction tours for the primary school classes and last but not least, a direct announcement during the school assembly.

Next, we allocated deadlines to our tasks such as when to produce the posters by, when we will start taking orders, when to hunt for the best chocolate santa prices in supermarkets etc. Finally, we decided on roles in general to make sure we each have a justifiable part in the activity. As for myself, I will be the graphic designer to produce the posters and the christmas cards.

Check out our Secret Santa poster featured in the school newsletter! 

And check it out featured on the school's Facebook page!

Reflection

Within the meeting, we got a chance to brainstorm the details to state in the official posters. Altogether, it took more more than five hours to work on the entire layout and structure of the A3 posters, the A6 cards, an ordering form to keep track of our orders as well as an A1 sized poster for our Secret Santa stand. It was a slow process but the all work payed off!

Secret Santa's teaser poster

Thinking about it now, I believe I should have taken time beforehand to sketch my initial ideas on paper before commencing work on the computer. Whilst I played around with the images I found online, ideas popped up spontaneously that inspire me to create the final poster. The resulted in loss of time but ultimately gave the best product!

Secret Santa's main poster

Organising a large-scale project does invite many obstacles and as a group we tried our best to solve them. The first of those issues was the involvement of primary school students. We were aiming for a younger target audience because we believed they would be more eager to participate in such events. However, upon presenting our idea to the primary school principal, it was unfortunately a no-go this year. We were told that such wonderful events can in fact inevitably lead to social tension within the classes, i.e. jealousy and frustration could erupt due to chocolate injustice. This made us reconsider our entire project but soon enough - we have never felt more persevered to accomplish the activity.

More cutting and editing had to be done on the posters - literally!

Half of the Secret Santa organisers together

After more poster editing, hanging them up around the entire school campus, more group meetings, e-mail distributions, we finally began the week of ordering on Monday, the 1st of December. We scheduled two persons together for each morning shift over the 10 days, thus involving the help of our friends from the other Class CAS project.

The second major issue revolves around backup plans. It was in the morning of one of the shifts, when we received an apologetic text from a friend who had not realised they were to attend a doctor’s appointment that hour. After some thought, I offered to come in early at the last minute and made it to school in time for the shift. This made me think about having a back-up plan in case unpredictable issues may arise. In future activities, I will work towards having such a plan so as to avoid as many avoidable mistakes as possible - even if it may be impossible.

Nevertheless it was a delightful experience to meet and greet so many familiar faces every morning. Seeing someone - anyone at all - smile at the start of the school day shows just how simple it can be to improve the (arguably) dreadful mornings! Initially, I felt good to be in my comfort zone standing behind the table greeting good mornings however I soon learned that to be insufficient and decided to switch up a level. I wore a classic santa hat and bought three example chocolate santas to use as a display on the stand in order to attract our customers. Engaging with people as soon as they walk by glancing at the stand, showed our dedication and whilst we explained clearly what the gist was, the orders were taken. Sure enough, our teachers and close friends became interested as well - the more the merrier!

During my Secret Santa shifts... 

... I had an enjoyable time with my friends! 

We gave ourselves a week to purchase and prepare the chocolate santas by labelling them with the A6 cards. The third problem we faced referred once again to the point of a backup plan. Due to their absence, our group member was unable to purchase the goods from a wholesale supermarket and by the time they called, the chocolate santas from the brand we chose was completely out of stock. Utterly stressed out, we decided to hunt for the 97 santas individually after school in nearby supermarkets. Thankfully enough, they could find the chocolates after a short search. Immense relief washed over us and we were back on schedule!

97 Chocolate Santas for 97 Secret Santa orders

Day of delivery: We used our free period to label the santas and by the end of it, were all hyped up to distribute them! The best part of Secret Santa was undoubtedly the delivery as the warm smiles and countless ‘Thank You’s said it all - it is Christmas in the heart that truly puts Christmas in the air!

Santa's helpers ready for action!

By the end of this CAS activity I have achieved the following Learning Outcomes:

1. Increased awareness for leadership roles and public relations etc.
2. Undertaken a brand new challenge to organise a large-scale school event.
3. Planned and organised this entire event with my classmates.
4. Worked together efficiently with my classmates as well as teachers’ cooperation to use the free period.
5. Shown perseverance with a lot of hard work and effort dedicated to the activity.
6. Engaged with issues of importance such as marketing and advertising and its effect on the public etc.
7. Took the ethical concerns into consideration during planning stage.
8. Further improves my skill to work cooperatively with people and to keep organisation a priority throughout!

As another project ends, a new one commences. I wait with impatience for what the new year has to bring! Although I did enjoy my winter holiday comfortably first and was thankful for all the incredible experiences 2014 had brought along. I hope you, my dear readers, had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - may it be a successful and prosperous one for your family, friends and yourself!

Evita ☺

Water-Marbling Activity

Getting my creativity on with card designing!

This original idea sprung from an arty friend of mine, who proposed to firstly learn the technique of water-marbling, then to create water-marbled cards for the holiday season and finally to present our product for customers of our school to purchase!

Activity Planning

This purposeful CAS activity allowed us to teach ourselves a new art technique commonly used to create irreplaceable modern art pieces on canvas, fabric and even as nail art. Using special materials, we learned to professionally produce hand-made cards tailored to the forthcoming christmas season.

It was the same friend who organised the supplies for this activity. Next, we met together along with a few others to try out this technique. However beforehand, she tried water-marbling at home in order to test which method worked best with our art supplies. The plan was to stay after school for about an hour and a half during several Mondays in a month so as to buy us enough time to produce the water-marbled cards.

The Learning Outcomes which I aimed to achieve for this CAS activity include the following:

1.  Increase my awareness for my strength in this creativity project, i.e. comfortably use a pen-knife (aka X-Acto knife) to make detailed cut-outs on the water-marbled cards.

2. Undertake a new challenge to learn a new art skill and additionally sell the hand-made products.

4. Work collaboratively with my classmates, who also took part in this project, to successfully make and sell the cards together.

5. Share ideas and came regularly to the activity as well as prepared the materials beforehand each time.

8.  Obtain a new skill in arts and crafts: water-marbling technique!

With permission from the art teacher, Mrs Stammen, we commenced the creative session in an arts & crafts classroom on campus on Monday, November 3rd. She had also occasionally supervised us during the card-making process and helpfully provided us with some tips and tricks.

Reflection

Get your hand-made holiday cards right here!

22 days and lots of dedication later, we finally began the cards sale! After all the effort we have given to this CAS project, it made me very excited to present and sell our work for others to benefit from. Nevertheless, we experienced some difficulties along the way…

• Initially, we had problems with our water-marbled designs for they appeared too dispersed and uneven. Likewise, we were wasting perfect paint in the large basin that we used to create our designs. As soon as we realised that the size of the basin was the main problem, we attempted using several other sized dishes and at the end, it worked best with a plastic tray that previously contained sushi rolls - simplicity can truly be the key!

Cards, cards & more CARDS!

• Since this was the first time any one of us ever produced cards to sell, we naturally made beginner mistakes as the paint covered the sides of the cards which were supposed to be clean and plain. Therefore they did not appear professional. However, I used that problem to our advantage instead: After cropping out the water-marbled surfaces of the cards, I re-used and cut out fine christmas tree pieces from them by using designs on a printed piece of paper as my templates. Then, I simply applied them onto a clean new card - et voila! Christmas tree-themed cards perfect for the festive season!

Hand-crafted water-marbled Christmas cards

• During the course of the card production, we discovered that the waste oil paint mixture is toxic to the environment - especially if disposed of through the sink! This caused us to think more about our actions and consider the environment when we (or more generally the artists who) make such pieces of art that can potentially harm nature. Mrs Stammen instructed that we dispose it carefully at a waste removal facility. This matter was taken care of successfully by my classmates who volunteered to do the deed.

Ultimately, this had been a successful creative CAS activity that we benefitted from. With over 75 cards made in less than a month, we collected 120€ in total! This sum will be safely kept and added onto by future profitable CAS activities. As a class, we are deciding to  wisely select and donate the fund to a charitable organisation. This will most likely happen at the end of our two year Diploma Programme.

Personally, I have enjoyed the whole process of the project and achieved my goals accordingly. I spent about 9.5 hours altogether and am content with the outcome of all our efforts. I look forward to future CAS projects such as this one to work more efficiently with my classmates!

Evita ☺