Garba fest is an event which allows the students and the staff to integrate with the cultural stance that Gujarat signifies, which further creates a sense of inclusivity and diversity with people from all cultures coming together to celebrate a dance style from the Gujarati culture.
As a Gujarati, I am passionate about my culture, and what this dance form signifies. How it not only allows the integration and conformation of our culture even in the modern society, it further allows various groups of people to get together without any of the social cliques, rather creating an inclusive society and building a new lifestyle for merely a few days. This event not only gives me the opportunity to integrate with my culture, it allows me to connect through the traditional decor, food, attire which overall leads to a cultural vibe. I was able to pariticipate in the dance itself and how each movement develops upon my style and further boosting my energy and engaging in cultural adn artistic expression. Such creativity based on the Gujarati theme connects me to my culture and allows me to give this opportunity to others as well by organising this event. I possess skills in managing and collaborating in a team, where we would be able to design and curate the event as we can bounce off various ideas and plans while also being able to execute them together. Not only being able to develop ideas to suit the event, but also collaborating and opening several ideas making the overall event to be highly creative. Garba Fest acts as a cultural medium engaging me creatively and actively as I participate in teh traditinal dance forms, designing cultural decor, and contributign to the overall aesthetic of the event. The dynamic dance further acts as a physical acitivity increaseing my fitness simentaneoulsy combining it with my culture.
LO 2- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
The greater challenges faced during the event were self-managment skills including time-managment skills and creative and critical thinking skills to certain extent. Due to lack of initial planning, the execution was not allowed proper allotment of time and wasn’t effective as a process and caused time-crunches. The efforts put in initially by the team were limited causuing disruption to a certain extent at the end, however was still manageable as the time called for immediate collaboration and creativity as well as proper management of the event. Through extra efforts and meetings for the development proper process to be put in effect, the team was able to divide roles and responsibilities along with creative ideas showcased revolving around the cultural theme and with the assistance of the staff and responsible teachers, the event was given a push ahead creating a proper flow of execution for different responsibilities in terms of decor(lighitng, posters, main attraction, photo booth, food stalls, music equipment, small decor pieces placement, etc) and overall functionality of the event.
The main challenge here was the time management and responsibility division initially which was not properly fulfilled, yet with time, this challenge was overcome as each member took proper responsibility and increased productivity with external assistance. The event turned out to have proper preparation and implementation. Through this experience, I was able to challenge and understand the importance of self-managment skills and collaboration in a team through which proper event management can take place. In the future, I will be able to conduct an event with a productive team where planning and execution of events takes place from the beginning rather than last minute time crunches.
LO 3- Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
Initially, I organisied myself by taking up one reposnilbity and working on hte same for hours. This was thought to increase efficiency in the work itself and each team member would have different roles increasing efficiency in that role. However, this method wasn’t as effective as thought to be since smaller tasks were given more significance and wasn’t able to look at the bigger picture of what all tasks need to be done and begin with the back in mind.
As we realised that there is a time crunch and this method of prioritiisng smaller tasks wasn’t effective, we decided to look at the bigger picture and divide tasks to each person with smart effort rather than hard work into smaller tasks. This showcased how initially I lacked orgnaisational skills in terms of planning and then required to speed up the process by giving more time and effort into categorised tasks after looking at the bigger picture. I was able to learn organisational and self-management skills with different methods of planning and execution done effectively as these methods will further help me in the planning of the other events.
It is important to know how to plan and initiate an event properly in order to achieve the desired result since improper methods will lead to insufficient tasks, thus an unsuccessful event. With proper orgnaisational methods, such tasks can be achieved easily therefore showcasing a successful planning and initiating process.
LO 5- Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
I am usually able to work with different people in social situations where I contribute to the project by putting forth ideas that might help fulfil the goal efficiently. In this experience, the major responsibility was for appropriate and creative decoration suiting the cultural expectations the event requires. This role was achieved successfully since the team was able to collaborate together planning the different requirements and tasks and how each task is allocated to each member which is then collaborated together to develop the final design of the event. Through this experience I was able to collaborate with different people with different ideas wherein the various tasks allocated were designed as per hte various ideas and then allocated. I was able to come up with creative ideas and share such ideas with all the team members. I don’t usually face issues in social situations and am able to effiectively contribute work in these situations.
It is extremely vital to work collbratively in a team to work towards a common goal since the team allows efficient and creative process along with decision making and problem solving which make the event easier to handle as per the specilisation of each member. In this event, we were able to divide roles as per the decor where different people contributed their various ideas and such ideas were then executed with efficiency with different members working on a specific task. We were able to cater to the requirements of the event through team work itself since everyone handled a specific responsibility therefore being able to cater to all the tasks in the event.
Conclusion
To conclude, the event overall was successful through effort put in through collaborative and effective work where we were able to see how our ideas were executed with assistance and hard work. The result really surprised us as the decor and the organisation turned out as if it all created a cultural flow integrating the participants and the venue to be one whole vibe. Through this event, I was able to display myself as a Thinker, Communicator and Open-mided, as I able to critically and creatively come up with effective ideas to design the event, communicate suhc ideas and effectively discuss the plan for the event then accept such ideas and execute them as per requirement by allowing everyone to input their thought process and vision for the event.
I will be able to apply such skills in future events as well as the orgnaisational methods learnt in order to plan an effective and engaging event in the future.