The Laurel Heights Mascot Makeover was (in my opinion) the Biggest Leadership Event that a few friends and I ran in Grade 11!
Basically, after our school changed names from SJAM to LHSS, our school was in need of a new mascot to represent our new identity.
Well, what better way to show school spirit than to have the students compete to make the best mascot design?
So, we hosted an event where ANYONE and EVERYONE from our school could create and design their own mascot, and enter it into a tournament-bracket style vote for a chance to GO DOWN IN LAUREL HEIGHTS HISTORY!!!
Event still happening! To be determined!
My team and I had to prepare many things ahead of time to make sure that everything ran smoothly. We learned to schedule efficiently, create calendars, and develop a vision for our project.
Working with other leaders in a group, we were able to put our leadership training to use. We settled on using a Democractic Style of leadership, and divided up tasks accordingly so that everyone could play a role in our event!
The ability to persevere and finish a project is sometimes harder than starting it in the first place. Our event may still be in progress, but because of our planning and teamwork, I believe that our event will end in a bang!
A detailed explanantion of how we ran our event!
In the beginning, we had a hard time choosing an event to do. Many of the more popular ideas were already chosen by others, and I personally didn't want to do a repeat of a previous event, because as an Entertainer, I wanted to do something original.
Eventually, with some help from Mr. Steckley, our Leadership teacher, We got to thinking: What is happening at our school RIGHT NOW?
And then it hit me, we were in the middle of entire school identity shift.
So, we started to gather information about every part of this change.
What was already in place? School Name, Team Name, etc.
WHAT DID WE NEED? A MASCOT!
Our old mascot, Johnny Mac (Above) no longer represented us. With him out of the picture, we needed a replacement!
Timespan: Oct 3 - Oct 14
So, we got straight to work. We needed to figure out how exactly we wanted to run this event, so we asked ourselves the classic 5 W's:
What? A schoolwide contest and vote for a new school mascot.
Why? To show school spirit, and because we need a replacement!
When? See Schedule below:
Who? EVERYONE will be allowed to participate, students and staff alike.
Where? Hosted locally at our school of course!
With this done, we came up with 5 steps that we needed to complete.
First, we would need to get permission from all the higher-ups.
Then, we would need to advertise like the end of the world was upon us.
Third, we would begin the process of accepting submissions.
After, we would design a tournament-style bracket based on the amount of mascots coming in.
Finally, we would host the vote for the best mascot!
Timespan: Nov 16 - Present Date
One thing that stuck with me that we learned during the making of this event was that "Schedules can and should be dynamic."
This doesn't mean that you should change your deadlines willy-nilly based on your whims, but instead that you should use circumstantial evidence to shape your timeline accordingly.
If everything is on track to be finished ahead of time, you can shorten deadlines to avoid empty space. On the other hand, if tasks are too close together and you find that you are missing targets, you can adjust the spacing or give yourself buffers to help achieve future goals.
Many chages were made from our original schedule to our final one, as shown by the graphs here!
Timespan: Oct 18 - Oct 28
In order to run an event of such caliber, we needed the permission/cooperation/approval of the "authorities" first before we could continue.
So to convince them, we designed numerous pitches and slideshows detailing our process.
First, we made a structured outline to show Mr. Steckley that we had all little details covered.
Then, we created a "mock" vote as an sample of how the event would actually play out to give our Mr, Steckley and our classmates a taste of what was coming.
Finally, we made a presentation to convince the Principal and Vice-principals that our cause would be beneficial to the school, and why they should partner up with us.
With that all under our belt, we were ready to start the event off!
Timespan: Nov 15 - Nov 21
So first things first, we needed to get people's attention. We can't have a student participation based event without any students, right?
We got to work, and began making all sorts of media to advertise LHMM. Through hardwork and many revisions, We made social media posts, classroom announcements, emails, posters, and more!
You could tell that we had the attention of everyone, since you could even hear the teachers talking about participating.
We were definetely succesful with our advertising! If we weren't though, we had back-up plans and many alternatives prepared just in case, such as doing another round of more hardcore advertising, or contacting art clubs directly.
Timespan: Nov 22 - Present Date
Currently, we are in the phase of collecting submissions! We understood that it sometimes takes time for people to create masterpieces, so opted to give people extra leeway going into winter break to design their mascot for our contest. When we return to school in January, we will begin the process of making a tournament bracket, and we'll move on to voting!
Timespan: FUTURE
T.B.D.
Something will go here soon!
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