Having sought solace in books and literature all my life, I’m always rather eager for all opportunities to translate my love for literature into events and exhibitions. Literary Musings, a unique to Fountainhead School event, is an annual ode to all things books, poetry, prose, literature and beauty. For the event, we have teachers, students and support staff come together to perform spoken word, poetry or just read out a few lines close to their heart- while an eager audience hangs onto every last word. Having been an admirer of the prior iterations of this event, participation in the Organising committee was an incredible experience.
Activity: Literary Musings
Role: Co-anchor and Organising committee member
Time Duration: 23 July 2024 – 3 August 2024
Learning Objective 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
For this event, as the core team and I worked on tasks that called for a different area of our collective strengths and weaknesses. I identified that I excelled at framing crisp dialogue and editing sentence structure for the script, and proceeded to take the lead in all script related activities. However, I also came to realize that my voice modulation and pacing could use improvement, and prioritized rehearsals in front of audiences to work on that.
Learning Objective 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills.
The primary role I played for this event was to anchor the proceedings, and also write the script and design an engaging flow. Personally, the task of not only speaking but also coming across as in control of the event on a stage, in front of a large audience was a daunting task. I had never before had to perform such a task, and I was faced with considerable nerves, and was overcome by the fear of stuttering or miscommunicating on stage. However, I realized soon that having shied away from such opportunities in the past had given me nothing but regrets, and that it would be in my best interest to prepare myself for the occasion as best as I could, and leave the rest up to fate. With this logic in mind, I spent the three weeks prior to the event seizing every opportunity I got to rehearse my lines, and to ensure that I was so prepared and confident about the event that small D-day fumbles and improvisations would not throw me off at all.
Learning Objective 5: Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively.
This event was throughout a collaborative and combined effort, since the event took place at two separate venues, with each venue having a pair of anchors. It was our responsibility as members of the core team to ensure that the event was consistent and both venues, and that we all played to each other’s strengths and communicated effectively. I especially ensured dialogue with my co-anchor, and made sure that we discussed all the things we planned for the event, to prevent being surprised by our partner’s actions on stage. Having ensured effective communication, the event’s success benefitted by us bouncing off each other’s energy on stage, and ensuring an engaging and dynamic experience for our audience.