Dance, Food & delight are three words that perfectly describe Garba Fest. Counteritively, chaos, laughter & enjoyment are three words that perfectly describe the process of organising Garba Fest. Garba Fest was on the 12th and 13th of October where people met, did garba and ate delectable, delicious food.

LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

The process of Garba Fest was a very fun one, however, one of the weaknesses I identified for myself was time management. However, to help with my weakness, I had my strength i.e. creativity. When we initially started with the decoration process of Garba Fest, we had a lot of ideas in mind and were all set to implement it, however, the idea we had been working on for a long time turned out to look horrible so we had to change it. This is where creativity came into the picture, we quickly changed the course of our plans and completed the work as fast as we could.

LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

One of the main challenges we faced during the second day of the garba fest was with the photo booth we had made with lined-up paper fans that matched the overall theme. We had planned to keep the same booth for the second day too because the attendees for both days were different. However, we forgot to move the photo booth inside the building and left it outside in the open. When we returned the next day, most of the fans had been blown away by the wind and all of us were panicking. With little time left on our hands, me and one of my friends rushed to the school store to find any ideas that we could. This is where quick-thinking skills came into the picture. While rummaging through the things in store, we found a sky-blue curtain which was big enough to cover 3/4 of the board. We quickly grabbed that and a few embroidered/dreamcatcher hangings and rushed to the board. We covered the board with the curtain and covered the space uncovered in the bottom with the leftover fans that didn’t fly away. In the end, we finished it off with the hangings and surprisingly it looked better than it did on the first day of the event.

Another challenge was to manage the crowd on the day of the event. We had made bands for the attendees so that no extra people could enter, however, people were coming to us and asking for an extra band which we could not do. Many people even sneaked in the event which was a little hard to manage as this was an unexpected causality.

LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

Garba Fest being my CAS Project, I was part of the planning process from the start till the end. We started the planning a little earlier than a month before the event. The main part of the planning process was decor and logistics. To kick off the project, we started by rolling out a form to get an idea of the number of attendees. Looking at a whooping response of 321 attendees, we split the event into two days which helped us manage the crowd and run things smoothly. To organise ourselves, we made a spreadsheet where we cultivated all our ideas so that we had a set schedule for the upcoming days in place. We spent a lot of time finishing our band and invite designs and completing our decor. Initiating the plan was harder than the planning process but in the end, it was all worth it.

LO 4: Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience

As I started earlier, we started planning for garba fest one month before the event. There are many challenges we faced in between, may it be for the selection of ideas or getting approval from the management, we did not give up and showed commitment and perseverance because we knew that only if we stay motivated, we will be able to make this event a success.

LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

Even though the initiating process was tedious, the team made everything better. We were a team of 6 grade 11 students who managed the whole event. From decor to logistics to marketing, everything was done by our small team of six. Working together helped us speed up the work and efficiently tick off the tasks on our to-do list. We were blessed to have such a fun and cooperative team; it was because of all the work we did together that we were able to successfully finish all the things on time and declare the event as a success.