As a part of the CAS Creativity Experience, I organized a stall at the Global Odyssey 5.0 held by Business Management and Economics students. I was assigned a fashion stall with Yashvi Shah and Suhani Agrawal wherein I sold fashion accessories including macrame keychains, lip balm charms, scoobies, earrings, and hair braids. A lot of the products we sold were DIY and we got a pretty good response. The entire experience included budgeting, purchasing the raw materials, making the products, deciding the selling price, and the d-day selling. We were able to set profit margins for each products in order to gain profit while also keeping the price reasonable enough for the market. On the day of the event, we displayed our products along with its prices and were able to get a lot of customers, especially for our star products including lip balm charms and earrings. We also learned a lot about business tactics and strategies throughout this process, along with collaborating with several people. The event was a new venture for me and I had a lot of takeaways and meaningful experiences.
LO 3 – Initiate and plan a CAS experience
This CAS experience required me to plan ahead of what all needs to be done in order to conduct the group in the right direction. I am usually an organized person and I required a proper systematic sheet for the all the work done, which I took charge of. I also ensured we had self-deadlines set for finishing the making of the products, budgeting, etc. It was difficult to plan since we were running short of time in making the products and were also not able to collaborate outside of school, however, we overcame that challenge and made amazing products. It was highly important to plan and initiate activities since it gave an effective flow to the experience and we could be proactive with tasks.
LO 5 – Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively.
It was a challenge working with people with different set of perspectives, however, my teammates were able to discuss and work on anything we had to get done. It wasn’t easy to collaborate and communicate, yet we tried our best and remained on the same page about several factors including the product list and prices. The teamwork was extremely necessary in order for us to create a successful stall and achieve profits, otherwise, with lack of communication, we would have cost our stall at risk.
LO 7 – Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
In this experience, ethical considerations were made while deciding the division of revenue along with the product lists. We were trying our best to divide the profits equally amongst everyone while also providing the expenses to each of us. There were certain products which only a few members had invested in, and they deserved their fare share of work done, hence ethical decisions were made during that time period. We sorted it out by making informed choices and implementing our problem solving skills as well.
Through this experience, I was successfully able to demonstrate the learner profile attributes of being a risk taker in terms of handling the finances; communicator in terms of collaborating with my teammates and teachers; and being balanced by ensuring all tasks are worked on with equal emphasis. I was able to implement ATL skills of social skills which were majorly showcased in the collaborative work I performed. I also developed self-management skills by ensuring the work is done on time and being mindful of the planning done. This experience has helped me learn a lot about handling a business by providing a glimpse of a small-scaled profit generating stall. I learned how to create an expense sheet along with what smart pricing strategies can be applied to achieve the most sales.
All in all, conducting a fashion stall in Global Odyssey 5.0 was incredibly beneficial and a learning experience!
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