HAN
TRUONG

Earlier in the year of 2016, my aunt on my father’s side had asked me if I could babysit my younger cousin for the duration of March break. I easily agreed, especially because I was promised pay along with my plan of already spending the March break at my father’s house. So, come March break, I was dropped off at my father’s house on the Saturday after the final day of school that week, and spent the week long break from school at my father’s house watching over my younger cousin.

Overall, the jobs expected of me were fairly simple and straightforward. As the oldest with two younger siblings, it was not difficult for me to fall into place and step with what my aunt expected me to do while I was watching my cousin. The only task I struggled with during my time babysitting was getting up early enough to start the day at the same time as my younger cousin. Besides that, my job consisted of making sure my cousin was fairly happy and that I fed him at mealtimes. I was also expected to play with him when asked, and to take him to the park a few times. However, the park fell through ask the day he wanted to go out the weather was overcast borderline rainy.

Though I did not learn many practical skills, I eased myself into more readily agreeing to give-and-take conversations as young children are more often than not, not interested in listening to someone unless they are getting something in return or they are afraid of the person asking someone of them. The time I spent babysitting my younger cousin also tested my patience and multitasking skills. My patience was tested as my cousin is much younger than me, and as such, acts different than I do and this required me to stick it out and try to understand him patiently. My multitasking skills were tested as I was also doing my own thing while my younger cousin was playing in the living room, which meant that I always had to keep an ear out in case something happen or he needed something from me.

In grade eight, during middle school, there was a group voted by my grade to become what we all called, “L Crew”. The group was made up of dedicated students who showed leadership skills and were popular amongst our peers, and I was luckily voted into said group for my final year in middle school. ‘L Crew’ was similar to Central Peel’s ‘Link Crew’ in the sense that it was to provide younger students with role models and support for their first year of middle school and to help transition them from elementary school to middle school.

My job as a ‘L Crew’ members was – as mentioned previously – to provide the younger students with a role model and a friend that would provide them support as they learned the ropes of middle school. ‘L Crew’ specifically worked with the newcomers to the school, the grade sixes. As an ‘L Crew’ member, I was also expected to show new transfer students around and help out during school events. Another very specific job that was given to ‘L Crew’ was every member was given a grade six buddy. Each buddy was supposedly a student who needed to be provided ‘more support and emotional assistance’ and it was expected that every week we would meet with our buddies and talk about the previous week. It was also expected that if our buddy got into trouble, we would be there to calm them down and perhaps even work with them to get over the problem.

The biggest thing I learned from ‘L Crew’ was communication skills. As an eight grader, I was fairly confident in my ability to speak to peers and perform in a setting that required me to speak. However, the biggest challenge I faced was being able to level with my buddy and help them work through any troubles they had. At first, things were fairly shaky as I had not experienced the same things they had, nor faced the same challenges they had. As time progressed and I spent more time with them, I quickly learned how to communicate with them and how to get them to open up to me and by the end of the year, my buddy and I were fairly close.

Previously in time, whenever I look back on the times I spent in groups such as this one, I simply assumed that the groups were creating leaders. However, after taking this business leadership course, I have come to the realisation that the skills and expectations on us as student leaders are extremely similar to the ones of a manager in an organisation. Specifically, my experience as a leader that was part of L Crew relates to being an interpersonal manager and having human and interpersonal skills. While L Crew did not exactly follow the rigid definition of managerial roles and expectations, the same basis was there. We were expected to take care of and make sure that our buddies and the student body younger than us were – when we were hosting events – doing what they were supposed to be doing and were being productive in the loosest sense of the word.

This year and last year at the end of April and the beginning of May, I volunteered at a gaming expo named EGLX. It took place at the International Centre from April 29th to May 1st this year and was host to several gaming tournaments, booths, panels and more. The location was fairly large and EGLX catered to a few thousand people including visitors, competitors, vendors and more. As it was started only last year, EGLX is a fairly small gaming expo in terms of the people that come and the attention it draws, but with the success of both years, there is definitely a large amount of room for growth in the future.

Unlike previous events I have participated in and previous opportunities that have been presented to me, EGLX was not a role in which I was given with the expectation I would be a leader from said position. My role within the expo was to check passes, help vendors, visitors and competitors, handout free drinks, among many more jobs. None of said jobs were particularly heavy in terms of expectations and the volunteer coordinator was fairly laid back in terms of expectations as well. Overall, I had a lot of free-time on my hands during the slow times of the expo, which were quite often. This gave me the chance to observe the leaders and power-holders that came by time to time and see how they handled themselves. It also gave me chances to ask and observe the older volunteers who had more experience handling crowds, tickets and other things as such. At the end of the two days, I had observed and learned a lot from my surroundings. There was a lot of people at EGLX, and that meant a lot of people for me to observe, specifically, a lot of older men and women who were both more experienced and more important than I was as a volunteer. In a small amount, I learned how to coordinate people as volunteer coordinator often came around and asked about people, if they wanted to switch places and as the opportunity was given, I often tagged along with her to travel from station to station to observe the differences. As with previous events, I also learned the importance of organization – not just with papers and folders, but with people – and the importance of communication was also reinforced within me as there was a lot of running around and telling people to do this and helping people with that. However, the main thing I took away from my time at EGLX was confidence in myself. Though I played a majorly small role, the volunteer coordinator often talked about how I was a good volunteer and how she was glad to have me around. I also walked away from the expo with more confidence in myself because I was stationed at the virtual reality centre for a good part of two hours or so and that required me to be assured in myself when I was mushing people in and out of the small, cramped room. That – out of all my experiences from EGLX – was the one that I think spawned the most growth in me and allowed me to come out of my shell a little more in terms of outgoingness.

Looking back on the time I spent volunteering under EGLX, there are several connections I could possibly make between this course and the expo itself. However, I will stick to the first and main connection I made between the course and EGLX were the differences and developments of the management of each volunteer and worker as a whole. When we were first introduced to the set-up for this year’s event, everyone was expected to pick positions that they were comfortable with and were to be set-up at that specific station for the duration of the expo. This type of management follows a very classical and scientific approach, having everyone set up at a certain station and specialize in the jobs to be done at each job. However, as time progressed with the expo, I look back and notice how that the volunteer coordinator moved away from that sort of thinking and became more modern in her approach to handling volunteers and work. Looking back, it was clear that the volunteer coordinator developed a habit of following what I assume to be a more evidence-based management style. This is because she focused on people and team orientation, moving people who were comfortable together to and from each station and consistently asking people at each station if they would like to be moved from one station to the next and allowing a lot of flexibility in terms of moving people from place to place, allowing for each person to experience each station at least once, and allowing them to grow as a volunteer at the expo.

Central Peel’s student activity council has – generally – always been a hustling and bustling place of brainstorming for the student body. The past two years have followed the same criteria, but to a slightly lesser degree. However, this year’s student activity council has not been toned down in any regard. Student activity council this year has been a hub of activity, from small events such as games in the cafeteria to the semi-formal dance being run for the first time in many, many years and everything in between. Central Peel’s student activity council has been successful in all its endeavours and we can give that thanks to the president and his council, of which I am on as an executive of student activity council.

My job as an executive majorly revolves around handling whatever the president or staff advisor hands off to me. These jobs range from running messages from one place to the next to organizing and running events to – at one point – doing announcements. Some jobs are ones that can be on-going, some jobs get passed off to others because as an executive, abuse of my power is something that comes with the fake job title. Realistically however, my title as an executive is nothing more than a glorified title and while I have had a hand in planning, organising and running events, I have not necessarily been more important than other members of the student activity council in any which way. There are those that have done much more than me, and those that have done much less.

Overall, student activity council has been another experience where I observe leaders better than me, and one such leader is obviously the current student council president. Though the current president has a tendency to be rather closed-off in terms of his thought and planning process, it was easy to see and observe his actions and interactions with the people around him from his executive council to the general council to the teachers around the school. It was quickly evident throughout the year how important proper planning, organization and communication were when it came to making sure events ran properly, and it was also clear that positive relations with council members and constant forward thinking were extremely important as well. The latter of which I am generally attempting to work on with only minor success.

As previously mentioned, school clubs and activities are grooming students to not only be proper leaders, but great managers and student activity council was no less than an example of that. Student activity council was the biggest test of my leadership abilities that I have ever had and truly incorporated many different skills and traits that business leadership has taught me. From the basic functions of management to understanding different types of leaders to the different types of planning processes, so many things were used to have student activity council succeed so greatly this year it would be impossible to list them all. However, to name a one big thing that was extremely useful and emphasized during the year, is the process of planning. Time and time again, student activity council proved as a whole that their planning processes – though perhaps rushed and quick at some points – are undoubtedly successful no matter the event that we took on. Specifically, with the talent shows, extensive planning was not needed to make them run smoothly, but without the basis – knowing when sign-ups, auditions and practices were going to be held – the event would have, no doubt, fallen through if we did not have such an outstanding group of members in student activity council.