This was one of my CAS experiences in which I focused on the strands of creativity as well as service. In this experience I volunteered to help organise as well as host a drama show for kids. The main event was today’s and consisted of about 20 hours, however the planning and preparation overall took about one week where we had to set up the performances, understand the stage and prepare the script.
Learning outcome 1 was a major part of this experience where I had to understand my strengths and weaknesses when it came to children and overall organisation of children. the especially applies to the main days on which the event took place where there was a lot of chaos and I had to make sure that every performance went smoothly and that the children were not uncomfortable. Through this experience I understood that one of my strengths was to communicate with children and and especially their parents, that their kids are doing fine and have taken care of backstage. although I also realise one of my weaknesses which was that I wasn’t as good at handling children as I thought I would be so I had to ask help from my friends to make sure the children don’t go missing and were prepared for the performance beforehand.
Learning outcome that was a part of this experience was a learning outcome in which I had to take challenges. In this experience one of the biggest challenges I staged was to maintain a level of coordination between all my friends who helped me handle the children as well as the other volunteers who are handling the props in backstage equipment. This is my India challenge because I have never done anything such as this and So being my first time I had to understand to be patient especially with children and not lose my temper to rehearse their lines again and again.
L04 was one of the biggest issues for me in this experience where the play took place around the time of my term exams. Everyday that I spent working on the play I was always conflicted whether to leave this and study for my exams. Nonetheless, since I had committed to this task from the very beginning, I decided to go through with it and help as much as I can while managing my time studying.
Another Learning outcome in this experience was LO5 since this was a big play with several volunteers and participants. Throughout this experience I had to constantly deal with people of different age groups and try to understand them and express myself without causing conflicts. A few times however, there were heated arguments due to stress and chaos which resulted in miscommunication, such as people leaving the auditorium without information, the situation was still handled and fortunately we managed to cover for others.
My final takeaway from this experience was that I became well versed with handling children without getting frustrated and I also understood the technicalities of how performance related events take place .
