Operation Smile concert

Last night was Operation Smile's "Smile Concert '12".
It took place in the school Arts Centre: the auditorium was where the performances were going on, and the reception was in the lobby.

In the lobby, we had a stand selling drinks as well as SMILE-themed food (e.g. cupcakes with smiles on them and half-moon pizzas). We also had tables for the audience to eat their food, but on each table, there were information cards about Kenyan children's stories: they had undergone their operations, and they told what it felt like before and after getting their cleft lips and palates repaired.

(At the bottom of the information cards, the contacts are as follows:
info— christabel.onyona@operationsmile.org
office cell— +254-735-788969 or +254-729-087925
website— www.operationsmile.org )

We had a third stand, where we were selling Operation Smile T-shirts and baseball caps, (all the money received went to Operation Smile), and where we had a donation box for those who wished to help.
(If you want to help but don't know how, view this post and follow the links!)

We were aiming to raise enough money for one operation, and if we were lucky, two. At the beginning of the event, a few students were slightly nervous, because not many people had showed up yet. However, in the next ten minutes, the lobby had filled itself up with an audience: they were buying food, drinks, hats, shirts and donating, and it gave us hope that this event would be fruitful and a lot of fun.

The performers did very well, and I know that everyone enjoyed the show.

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By the end of the event, we had sold all of the refreshments and most of the clothing. Our donation box was more than half full, and it was the Operation Smile members who left with smiles on their faces.
Today, we found out that we had collected 145,000ksh overall! That's $1,745! With that, we can give not one, not two, but 7 children smiles!
I truly believe that that was the best part of this whole event: knowing that we were really helping people.

ISK Prom 2012

The ISK Prom night, "Walk into Wonderland" took place last night.
The Decoration committee (of which I am co-chair with Sara L., as seen in the keyhole) along with a few other Prom committee members spent the whole day preparing for the event.
We had asked for the club to lend us decorations and props, such as fairy lights, drapes, tables, chairs etc. but most of the props and decorations came from us, lent by students or bought with the money we have accumulated over the year.

Many of the decorations were handmade too: for example, the cocktail tables with the mushroom table cloths were made by us, the lanterns hanging above them, the crazy colourful signs: all painstakingly hand made.
As all of these photos were taken in daylight, it might be hard to imagine what the event looked like at night with all the fairy lights twinkling, people chatting and dancing.

The prom was so much fun, and I think that this year's seniors truly enjoyed it: after all, the prom was for them, even though students from other grades had the opportunity to appreciate it.













As you can see, all the photos of the venue have a watermark on them, even though they are students' photographs. This is because the club didn't want people outside of ISK to know what the venue was like. However, these photos were taken before the venue, and they won't be shown to anyone outside of ISK, so problems with copyright issues have been resolved.

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I forgot to post that I also made the ticket for prom, as well as the video that played on a continuous loop on a backdrop (which can be seen in the photo above to the right). The video was meant to be hypnotising, and have an 'Alice in Wonderland' crazy feel to it. For the video, I used a few clips downloaded from the internet as well as excerpts from a video made by Shaheel P.
The actual video was 14 minutes long, though it was repeated again and again, with different quotes from ALice in Wonderland, such as "We're all mad here", "Off with their heads!" and "Curiouser & Curiouser".

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The Prom ticket's design was based on an old fashioned luggage tag, as I wanted to give the seniors a sense of elegance and charm: the theme is totally mad, and so there was no need to blast them with craziness from the start, as they would surely receive their dose of madness and fantasy once they arrived at the venue.
I used photoshop to create the ticket, and I used calligraphic handwriting for the words. At the bottom of the ticket, I inserted a quote from the novel: "Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right directions". I didn't use quotation marks, however, so that the students coming to the event would get a small notion of the craziness that is Wonderland.

Once the ticket was done, I tried to find ways to make the ticket look more original. And because the entrance to the prom was a keyhole, I had the idea of using a key in the ticket, to simulate 'unlocking' the door to Wonderland. I came across this picture from 'White Whimsey' (see below right), and so we attached a paper key (attaching real keys would sadly have been a little too expensive) to each tag.












It feels slightly unbelievable that a whole school year (and some) of hard work, fundraising and planning could amount to one evening that didn't last much longer than 4 hours. Of course, all this work didn't amount to nothing: our goal was to please our fellow students and ourselves, and I think that we achieved that goal quite well.

GIN elections

In ISK's Global Issues Network, we had elections for next year's official positions (2 co-chairs, secretary, treasurer). I ran for co-chair, as I am really passionate about global issues and the environment, as well as how we can conserve, protect and restore our global environment. (After all, I want to study Ecology & Conservation or Medicine at university)

I think that 6 of us ran for co-chair, though only one person ran for secretary, and only one person ran for treasurer, so their positions were secured in advance.
We all made short speeches as to why we want to be co-chair/secretary/treasurer, and why we would be the best person for the job.

After that, we didn't know anything for a few days, and then a sign outside Mrs Lavender's classroom (One of the two GIN supervisors) went up announcing who is filling the positions for next year.

The verdict was:
Secretary- Rhea C.
Treasurer- Chloe L.
Co-chairs- Bernice L., Alexander R. and Emma V.

There are three co-chairs because it came to a tie.
I'm really happy that I am now one of GIN's leaders for next year (especially seeing as it is my last year...), and I know that we will do all that we can to improve our club and do as much good in the ISK community, the Kenyan community and the Global community as we can in one year.