GIN & Clubs

See the event wrap-up video here!

What were the specific goals of this campaign?

The goal of this campaign was to get students of the Lower School engaged with the Habitat club’s aims and to help children be more aware of the importance of substandard housing.

How were they met, or not met?

The goals were met moderately. There was active advocacy apparent in the club, as there were photos of build trips and the destinations of money was clearly stated. Students would carry the photos around and explain to Lower School students why they are participating this event and what cause our club represents.

However, there could have been more pictures of the build trip displayed, and more student volunteers available to advocate, in order to reach more children.

How effective was the advocacy campaign, and how do you know?

The advocacy campaign was moderately successful. Although participants knew about the cause they were supporting, it could have been more actively advocated. This is because, when asked interacting with the children, many of them already knew why they were painting, either from previous year’s knowledge or this year’s new advocacy campaign. Some of the kids were either unclear on why they were at the event or what the money went to. This can be a point of improvement for next year.

What strengths of this campaign will you keep, and what learnings might be helpful to consider for future events?

Our volunteers this year were very enthusiastic and the kids seemed to have a great time at the event. The running of the event itself was very well organized, with a good organizational process.

In the future, there are two important points of improvement. Firstly, the advocacy prior to the event could be improved. This is because the advertising and advocacy in preparation for the event was very disorganized. Many parents did not know why this event was happening until later, because of the late posting into the school Flash.

Secondly, the advocacy component in the event should be improved. This can be accomplished by selecting and informing the participating volunteers about Habitat’s missions and goals beforehand, and have more print media of the build trips available. This will ensure more active advocacy next year.

A huge success to the public speakers of our community! On January 10th and 11th of 2018, the Young Masters Gavel Club and the GIN Clubs came together for the second annual Gavel x GIN Speech Competition, yielding great results. This year, we saw participation from all 10 GIN clubs as compared to the 5 clubs that participated in the last competition, providing equal representation for all clubs. The audience this year had also vastly increased, demonstrating that our initiatives have reached the minds of many in our community. Not only this, the prize pool had increased from the $1,500 of last year, to $3,000, all with the help of CISPA. With this increase, the Young Masters Gavel Club was able to award the top three participants, giving a little bit of help towards each cause.

In this speech competition, each GIN club nominated one member to represent their cause. They then worked together with members of the Young Masters Gavel Club where nominated GIN members would either prepare their own speech and acquire feedback from Gavel members, or have a Gavel member speak on behalf of the GIN club, gaining knowledge on their cause. Speakers from both GIN clubs, and the Gavel club, prepared their speeches and delivered it to audience and judges, revealing many of our community’s passionate speakers. This was a great opportunity for our community as speakers were able to spread knowledge of many important issues, share their own experiences of these issues, and promote the art of public speaking.

After some rigorous thought by our judges, the winners of the competition were decided, with first place going to Mana Mehta of the Reading tree, second place going to Pak San Fung of the Environment Club, and third place going to Jesse Wang of the Respect club. Congratulations to all of our contestants, and look forward to the competition next year!