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)