Over the Winter holidays, I didn't manage to do much service, but instead I spent a lot of time doing christmas related creative things and activity (in another post). One of the many creative activities that I did was baking, an example of which is seen in the picture, where I attempted to make a gingerbread house. Although in the end, it did resemble a gingerbread house, overall it wasn't so successful.  The dough turned out much stickier than I expected and didn't easily come of the forms (which resulted in the wart-like texture of the walls). Although it didn't turn out amazingly (okay, it was a fail), I enjoyed making it and I would definitely try it out again.

As running club is not going to be taking place during the winter due to the cold weather and dark, I decided that it was the perfect time to do a reflection of my progress so far and my goals for the time that it is not happening. I will actually still be running whenever I can on the weekends in the morning when it is not so cold and dark. This means that I can continue to improve even without going to practice in a club (for now).



I've already seen big improvements just over the two-three months that I have been attending so far. The most obvious is my stamina. During the first run, I had to stop and walk every few minutes, but now I can easily run for longer without stopping. It's not a massive difference, but I definitely notice it. Honestly, I'm a bit worried that it will be difficult to keep this up during the month or two that I don't attend the club.

I can't wait to start going again.


Learning outcomes:

(1) As I attend running club with a group of around 10 other people (not all come each week though), I am able to see that we all have our own strengths and skills. On top of this, we all have indivisual areas to improve. Although I also notice other peoples mistakes, I also manage to identify what I am doing wrong in comparison to them. At the start of the club, I was running much quicker than the others, but I also had to stop much more often. This made me realise that if I slowed down to their pace, I would have to stop less often and it worked!

(2) Although running club didn't present as big of a challenge as I anticipated, it was unusual for me to run long distances after doing athletics for most of my life, which consists of much shorter runs. Long distance running is something completely different for me and I enjoy seeing my own progress over time

(4) I attend running club every Monday after school (best way to end the worst day of the week) without fault. The only times I would descide not to go is if it was raining very heavily or if there was a blizzard (however unlikely the latter is here in Germany)

(5) When joining running club, I did not anticipate that there would be anything that would involve working collaboratively. In the past, running was something I always did individually. Now that I have been attending for a few months, I see the benefits of having others to run with.

With the first term over, I think it's about time for a new CAS Plan. Many things have changed
, but others have stayed the same.

Creativity:
- Playing piano (attending weekly lessons, every Sunday)
- Creating an art sketchbook with a certain theme to lead up to a final projects or series, no set hours
- Baking, for certain occasions, no set hours, around 1x every week or two

Activity:
- Running (training on weekends, attending running club at school)
- Yoga (practices on weekends)

Service:
- Helping in lower school maths club (every Thursday)

Project:
- Cystic Fibrosis Project: Fundrasing for charity

My goals for all projects have not changed, except that I have found that it is difficult to regularly work towards my art project. I still want to create the portfolio, but I have decided that I will not make it an obligation, but rather something that I do only when I have some time. I want to develop my skills and techniques and also learn many new ones.

Changes:
- I am no longer attending basketball club
- I now help in maths club for Year 3 to Year 6 rather than homework club

This was our first sub-project within out goal to raise money for the cystic fibrosis charity in Cologne and it was a huge success. Our plan was to sell hand-made christmas cards, including calligraphy and small christmas drawings, and waffles to go with them.


It turned out that most people only wanted the waffles and they sold out much quicker than we expected. This lead to me having to run (actually run) down the the nearest shop to pick up more waffle ingredients and quickly make more batter before the last batches were all used up. In the end, we were out of batter and there were only christmas cards left. This is why we saw a few disappointed faces.

Although the christmas cards were not selling as quickly as the waffles, we did manage to sell them all in the end. To make sure that we got as much profit as possible to donate, while still keeping people interested we set the prices quite fairly. We sold the waffles for 1,50€ and each extra topping (except for powder sugar, of course) was 0,50€. As the cards also had to be printed and designed, we decided to sell them for 2,00€ each.


Overall, it was a great experience and it was a massive super duper huge SUCCESS! We managed to make over 250€ profit from just under 2 hours of work (not including dragging around and setting up the tables and equipment). Personally, I think that we should definitely repeat this and in order to make the most money possible, we should make a few small improvements, namely:

• Bring enough waffle batter to avoid last minute baking (which leads to much more cleaning up than is necessary)
• Spread out the tables to avoid huge crowds of people around one area when they are waiting for the waffles to be made
• Use more waffle irons (two is not enough for the huge demand)
• Bring a bin for people to throw away their used plates and napkins
• Assign specific jobs so that each person knows what they are doing
• DO not get waffle batter and powder sugar everywhere (especially my school uniform)

I chose to join the running club offered at my school because I had been running on and off for around a year, but never regularly or with any goal in mind.



28th September 2015
This was my first time going to running club, where we ran a circuit near the school grounds which was 3.7km long. Although it wasn't as difficult as I expected due to the others attending the club, it was challenging after having a break from running for around 2 months.

19th October 2015
Running was much harder today having taken a long break (2 weeks for he holidays) and doing a lot of climbing which strengthened different muscles. This has shown me that I need to stretch more often, especially after doing exercise that makes my muscles very sore

26th October 2015
This was our longest run yet and although it didn't feel particularly tiring, I felt much more sore afterwards.

2nd November 2015

16th November 2015
This was the last time I attended the club this year, as it became too cold outside to run at this time of day and there were not enough participants. I intend to resume the club as soon as it becomes slightly warmer outside. This will probably be in February. During the time that I am not going to the running club, I will continue to run whenever possible, usually earlier in the day on weekend, and also to use a treadmill to keep up my running abilities that I have developed.

St. Martin's Day is a religious observance in Germany that is particularly popular with children . Many build their own lanterns in the run-up to 11th November. In the evening on St. Martin's Day there are the lantern processions (Martinsumzüge or Laternenumzüge) in towns and cities all over Germany.


Along with a group of friends, we are helping with preparing a banner for the school and will be assisting the parade. Beforehand, we spent a few evenings creating a banner for St. Georges School Cologne that will be carried by the children from our school during the parade. The parade itself is taking place on Monday 9th November.






For the banner, we decided to include a man on a white horse to represent the story behind the tradition along with the name of our school and the school logo (drawn and coloured by me). This is how it turned out:



On the 9th November, we all gathered at 16:45 to prepare for the parade, which then began at 17:00. We did a three kilometre walk around the local village, wearing bright fluorescent jackets. I was put at the back as the last martial. 







 
 Overall, it was a really fun and new experience for me. I have been part of the parade or watching it in previous years, but I have never helped with organisation or the procession itself. Although it took up quite a bit of time, I would definitely consider taking part in a similar event in the future. 

As my family decided to organise a small halloween party with some of our close friends, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to start practicing some of my baking skills. Although there was a lot to make in very little time, I made sure to try new things and experiment. Something that I had never made before was cake pops, because there was never an occasion and they are not easy to make. The cakes themselves turned out really well, but the icing was very difficult to work with and instead of being smooth, it became very messy. Some of it also didn't stick to the cakes at all. Overall, I am happy with how everything turned out, but there are many things I could improve on too.

For my project, I am going to be working in a group of around 7 to raise awareness and money to donate to a Cystic Fibrosis charity. I feel very strongly about helping those in need of help, so this is the perfect opportunity for me.

We began by brainstorming various ideas for ways to raise money for the project which will later be donated towards the cause. The ideas we are considering so far include:

- making tshirts
- doing a sponsored walk or run
- not school uniform day
- teachers coming in school uniform (pay to vote for which five teachers should dress up)
- christmas bake sale
- christmas card sale (calligraphy)
- assembley power point to raise awareness
- posters around the school
- candy cane post - students pay to send other students candy canes with a note or anonymously
- taking and selling polaroid pictures
- organising games or competitions in the sports hall at lunch

In order to make sure others know about what is going to be happening in that week, we will be putting up posters up around the school each Friday and doing the event the following one. This gives others enough time to realised that it will be happening and we can then have the maximum number of people participating.

Since I have been doing CAS for a while now and I understand how everything fits into my schedule properly, I have decided to set myself some more concrete goals to work towards whilst doing these clubs and activities.

Creativity: Piano, baking (and art)

My goals for piano are:
- Learn how read sheet music without hesitation
- Memorise a full song and play it without mistakes

My goals for baking are:
- Learn a new technique and apply it (successfully)
- Use my skills for a particular event e.g. party, celebration etc.

(My goals for art are:
- Develop my techniques by practicing more often
- Create a sketchbook documenting my progress while working on ideas for a final project with a particular theme)

Activity: Running and yoga

My goals for running are:
- To improve my stamina and endurance by running for at least 5-10 minutes without slowing to a walk or taking a break
- Manage to run 5km in under 30 minutes

My goals for yoga are:
- To regain my flexibilty and gain strength and focus
- To accomplish new poses: crow pose, headstand and splits (left, right and middle)

Service: Helping with lower school clubs

My goals for helping children are:
- To engage the children more in their work and help them with their understanding

Creativity
> Attending piano lessons, 1x a week for 1 hours
> Practicing piano, no set hours (around 30 minutes each day)
> Creating an art sketchbook with a certain theme to lead up to a final projects or series, no set hours
> Baking, for certain occasions, no set hours, around 1x every week or two

Action
> Running club, 1x a week for 1 hour (Monday)
> Basketball club, 1x a week for 1 hour
> Yoga practice, 1-2x a week (Weekend)

Service
> Helping with lower school clubs, 1x a week for 1 hour (Thursday)

Project
> Creating a campaign to raise awareness of cystic fibrosis, no set hours