1. Interact Club:
Rotary
Your name: Vidisha Singh
Your homeroom: 10R
Your supervisor’s name: Ms. Krengel
Your school: Beijing BISS International School
Year: 2012
Word count: 2,418 words
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2. Table of Contents
1. My Goal page 3
2. Selection of Sources page 4
3. Application of Information page 5
4. Achieving my Goal page 6
5. Reflection on Learning page 7
6. Bibliography page 8
7. Appendix pages
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3. My Goal
Rotary is a service club that has been involved with helping people around the
world, since its earliest days. Rotary has been committed to help children and the
communities in need. In 1960, the organisation had a new approach to youth services,
the Rotary President Harold T. Thomas encouraged Rotary clubs around the world to find
ways to encourage service among youth and foster their active interest in community,
especially to offer them such opportunities to develop leadership qualities.
Interact is Rotary International’s service club aimed at young
people ranging from 12 years to 18 years old. Interact is a short
term for International + Action. The Interact clubs are indeed
sponsored by individual Rotary clubs stationed in each country.
These Rotary clubs stationing in each country only provide support
and guidance, while the rest is placed on the student’s behalf to
work out. Each year, the Interact clubs accomplish two Community&
Service (C&S) projects, one which involves traveling away from their
community, this enhances international understanding and goodwill.
Through this, the Interactors develop a network of friends with both, local and overseas
clubs and understand the significance of:
• Developing leadership skills and personal integrity
• Demonstrating helpfulness and respect for others
• Understanding the value of individual responsibility and hard work
• Advancing international understand and goodwill
Gathering all this information, I had decided that I would partially introduce the
idea of Rotary and start a club, by partially starting an Interact club I meant I would work
in the Marketing area. By that means, I would make a recruiting video and poster to
encourage people to join Interact Club. This way it would help me certify if students are
actually interested and if idea should run by the Rotary stationed in Beijing and all the
paperwork should be done or not. This topic falls in the category of Community and
Service, because this whole topic is about serving to people in need and all I am doing is
kind-of promoting it through a video and a brochure but it is still a project of helping the
communities in need, hence the Area of Interaction is Community & Service. For more
information, my guiding question partially introduces the point of Rotary, and the
question is, How can we interact with new faces while being helping hands for a
community in need? So basically it says that Rotary helps you interact with people from
all over as well as help the people in need.
My goal for this area is create a recruiting video that contains the plus points of
joining this club as well as benefits of traveling to Kazakhstan every school year.
Hopefully from this video, students would be motivated and would prefer
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4. joining the club. Besides the video, I have also created a flyer that emphasizes the plus
points and extra information if any students are interested. And to find out if the my
product was successful or not I thought that during the exhibition I would ask some
people to take a survey whether they would join the Interact Club, if BISS ever decides to
start one. So that way, my supervisor and I would know the exact measure of people
interested as well as find out if my product did have an impact on them or not.
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5. Selection of Sources
To answer my guiding question, I had to investigate the Rotary and understand it.
To begin the process, the first step was to find enough and useful sources that would
give me an idea about the Rotary and if this service club meets my guiding question. So I
had to do some research and I realized that the best website to look for information
about the Rotary would be the Rotary official website. So I navigated through the whole
Rotary website, until I came across the Interact section, which explained all about the
Interact part of the Rotary, the requirements and about the official paperwork. So I
decided to explore more of the Rotary, so I wandered around and I found a Rotary
Handbook, which has the documents and brief information about starting and operating
a Rotary club in a school. So those were some really helpful websites, as well as I found
some with extra information with examples of service work done by other schools.
One interesting fact I found out was that Dulwich has a Rotary too (first school in
Beijing) and there’s a meeting every Tuesday in the Kempinski Hotel with contacts. With
that information, we were able to visit their meeting for reference, from there I had a lot
of
support from the Rotarians, especially from the
president and the vice-president soon to be
president of Rotary in Beijing. These sources were
really helpful as my research and visit to the
meeting helped me understand a lot them. Later
on, the Dulwich Rotary supervisor came to our school for a talk (see the appendix for the
notes). They helped me with going through the process of starting a Rotary and provided
a little background of Rotary and how the Interact club started in Dulwich. They were
enthusiastic and supportive about starting one in BISS, they even listed the benefits.
These sources really helped me with my video as I knew about the background of
the Rotary as well as the benefits, kindly given by the Dulwich Rotary
supervisor. To make sure my video would be useful, I had to think of the
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6. marketing strategy to sell my idea, so in the video I placed points like, appreciation from
the universities, job placements and well as CAS requirements, hopefully this charm
would work on students and encourage them sign into the Rotary. These sources helped
me fulfill my goal, as my video is successfully created and appreciated by my supervisor
as well as some of my peers like the idea, so I really think that information retrieved from
the sources were really helpful for my poster and the
video. As well as next year, if any teachers are
interested in pursuing my idea of starting an Interact
Club in BISS, then I could help them go through the
process because now I understand the whole process.
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7. Application of Information
As I mentioned in the previous section that not only did I get my information from
websites, but I also got them from Rotary members/experts or Rotarians as they say it.
The mentioned to me a lot about the benefits of Rotary Interact, so that’s the main
source of my information, while the information from the websites were used as an
background information, so I could get the main idea of Rotary and Rotary Interact. For
my exhibition, I will definitely use all the information I have extracted from the sources,
as I’m sure not many people are aware of the Rotary, so during the exhibition I will
introduce the idea of Rotary Interact and the proceed on. Hence, all the information is/
would be applied in significant situations, either in the product or the exhibition.
Throughout the process, I had few complications as my previous goal was to create
a booklet of starting a Rotary Interact in one’s school. But due to some legal documents
and applications, it was too complicated as those were copyright and it would be illegal
to use them on my product. So then my supervisor recommended a recruiting video, so
that solved my problem. Another issue was that during my video was the background
music, at first I used a song called I’m Waiting by All American Rejects, as it fit the
timing, tempo and the lyrics kind-of matched the theme but then my supervisor
remarked about the music and legal issues, so I was in a dilemma and skimmed through
the legal soundtracks from Apple provided in iMovie and found a suitable song, hence
problem solved. From then on, I marked in my notes about using soundtracks from
Apple for any movie I create (in the future), lesson learned.
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8. Achieving my Goal
Revisiting my final product, I really think that my video and the poster are quite
successful due to the fact that I am pleased with its quality, the background music and
especially the (convincing) message. I reviewed my video at least thrice before I had it
checked with my supervisor and some of my peers. The comments from my supervisor
gave me a relief as she liked the presentation as a whole and slides placements. She
thought it was a good work overall. She also gave me the idea of creating a BISS logo for
Rotary (if there ever is one) to put into my video and the poster. So including that I really
think that my product was an achievement. Still having some suspicions on my mind, I
asked some of my classmates for review, most of them liked the idea of recruiting video
and had great comments for the video and the poster, they also liked the idea of the
logo, as it was a creative task. While others commented on the idea overall, saying that it
is a creative, new and an original idea. Overall, I must be proud of my work as I got many
cheerful feedbacks, so I think I achieved my goal but I can test it out during the
exhibition with the survey I hand out to my visitors.
Originally for my specification I said, “My product would vary differently as I will
provide many evidence for my answer and present it all in the exhibition. By contacting
the Rotary Club:
• Get pictures
• Get videos (if possible)
• Record one of their meetings
• Go to the meetings and take pictures (for evidence) [FINAL]”
Besides that I also said that, “... I do believe that when I go to the Rotary Interact Club, I
will take my supervisor as well as some other witnesses with me, to prove that-yes I have
been there and done my part of the investigation...” From my specification I stated that
one part would be done during the exhibition, while the other one would be done as a
investigation. For the exhibition, I have the pictures and some videos ready to be
presented, while for the visiting to Rotary meetings in Beijing, Ms. Krengel (my
supervisor) and I went to their meeting and got ourselves familiar with the Rotarians and
the events occurring in the Rotary meetings, so I can say I have basically achieved my
specifications. So I have successfully accomplished my specifications. As well as I can say
that I have succeeded in carrying out my goal:
To manage and handle this project, I must ensure that:
1. I have enough information about the Rotary Interact Club
2. Locate the Rotary Club and find the nearest or the biggest meeting setting
3. Contact them via email or a phone call
4. Make an appointment with them
5. Head out on their day for one of their meetings (with Ms. Krengel)
6. Have discussions and record their meeting
7. If that not possible, then just email them and ask them kindly for any evidence they
have such as pictures or even videos.
8. And have discussion with DCB about their Rotary
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9. 9. With the help of notes, make the video
10. In the exhibition, present all the proofs and evidence.
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10. Reflection on Learning
Throughout the whole process of Personal Project, from Phase I till Phase IV, I have
indeed improved and learnt a lot. Starting from the beginning of the process, during
Phase II I learned the importance of planning, because before I truly believed in the
process of ‘winging-it’ as we say it now, but being forced to go through these process, I
think I finally learnt the point of planning because in the end I always came back to my
plan and had a checklist from which I ticked off the events I handled and what was left.
So in that way, it was easier to manage time and most importantly I got through the
investigation section without any problem, especially with the meeting at the Kempinski
as my lovely supervisor helped me and kept on reminding me through the process. Most
of all, I think I had this one problem of procrastination, but since the Personal Project
was to be done by us only and there wasn’t really anyone (except for my supervisor) to
remind me of the due dates and the submission of each Phase, I had to gradually keep
myself on the track with the dates, so throughout the process I tried to finish my work
beforehand, so I could have suggestions and from that I can proudly say that I am
getting better at focusing on the work that’s pending. I think the Personal Project mainly
teaches us about the world outside as everything had to be done alone and the same
happens outside in the real world, so I suppose it was mainly getting us prepared for the
work ahead in Diploma Program and in the ‘real world’ as the teachers say.
“...To balance a child academic development with a development of social
responsibility.” (BISS, 2012) My chosen Area of Interaction is Community and Service as
it’s a service or activity that is performed by one or a group of people for the benefit of
the public or its institution. Relating this to my topic, Interact club, which is aimed to
helping the communities in need, whether it is local or international. I learnt that my AOI
helps build references and contacts for future employment or for university applications
by gaining experience, which definitely looks great on a résumé as well as this AOI helps
an organisation/s to achieve its goal. The best part about Community and Service is the
satisfaction of knowing that I am doing something helpful for people in need. Lastly, new
opportunities comes from volunteering, so there’s always a benefit for oneself and
others, so its a two-sided benefit. As a learner I think I am socially more open with new
people as I have learnt through this project that connections are really important in the
world ahead, as well as volunteering, because universities not only look for achievers but
active participants and volunteers, who do something in the community, whether its their
own or others. So basically, this project has taught me to be more adjustable with new
people and try connecting with new people and especially to do volunteer work, as it
benefits the world and yourself.
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11. Works Cited
"12 to 18 Year Olds - Interact - RIBI." Home - RIBI. Web. 01 Dec. 2011. <http://
www.ribi.org/youth/interact>.
"About Interact." Rotary.org: Interact. Rotary International. Web. 01 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.rotary.org/en/StudentsAndYouth/YouthPrograms/Interact/Pages/
ridefault.aspx>.
"AOI- Community and Service." MYP- AOI- Community and Service. BISS. Web. 25 Feb.
2012. <http://myp.biss.wikispaces.net/AOI+-+Community+%26+Service>.
"Interact Handbook." Http://www.rotary.org/ridocuments/en_pdf/654en.pdf. Rotary
International. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://www.rotary.org/ridocuments/en_pdf/
654en.pdf>.
Tennant, Terri Jenson and Doerwald, Carl. "Interview with the Dulwich Rotary
Representatives." Personal interview. 16 Feb. 2012.
"Rotary Interact Information Center." Rotary District 7150, NYS, USA, Award-winning
Rotary Website! Web. 01 Dec. 2011. <http://www.rotarydistrict7150.org/Interact.htm>.
"Students & Youth « Rotary Club of Beijing." Rotary Club of Beijing. Web. 8 Dec. 2011.
<http://rotaryclub-beijing.org/?page_id=491>.
"Weekly Meetings: Details « Rotary Club of Beijing." Rotary Club of Beijing. Web. 8 Dec.
2011. <http://rotaryclub-beijing.org/?page_id=7>.
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12. Appendix
[1] Interview with the Dulwich Rotary representatives:
Two types of club can be established:
Community based club
And school based club
Not recognized by the government
And only foreigners joining the group
So they only set up the Community based club
History of the Rotary:
No religious affiliations and no political
Strictly community
101 years old
Designed for: Networking club for professions who make difference
Build a site
Dulwich College of Beijing:
7 years ago
Clubs were bigger
Expand to young people
Start because of daughter and access to the headmaster
The first school to agree
The headmaster was interested
Made sure that interact is part of the curriculum
One teacher looking after, like C&S
-Has some time to look after the club
Paper club
Cannot exist by sponsorship
Rotary club/Interact club has to sponsor
Paperwork
Application
Name list of the foundering club
Age is limited
RI interested in students
Took some time
And voila interact club
Cost to school:
70 members - 100 in Dulwich
Dulwich Shanghai- a dozen
School has to commit
Professional only
-senior only lead
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13. -someone to coach
-Mentor
and
manage
needed
Need
strong
staff
member
And
need
good
support
Budget:
Need
copying,
access to
school
material
Meeting
places
Transportation
Club t-shirts
(optional) or a
club badge
Get cash for
budget
Sponsorship
-financial
contribution
-mentorship
-adult-
faculty
Size of the club
doesn’t matter
Set up interact
-make sure its successful
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14. For the sake of the name makes no sense
Make sure its successful
Need interact coordinator
Needs commitment
Coordinator is the guide
Constitution like laws
Say- heres what needs to have
Paperwork
Go through
Make executive board
Shape it
-Two service projects
INTERNATIONAL AND ACTION= Interact
Kids to learn it.
Manage their own= kids
Two requirement:
-One international service
-Build homes in Cambodia- 1st project (could do own)
Opportunity for leadership
Could fundraising
Raise money
And do work in Cambodia
KIDS DO RESEARCH!
-One local service
Going to home
Clean up
Help the old
Serve needy
Local orphanages
-interact
-clothing drive
Beacons of hope:
-work with migrant schools
Who never had checkups (hospital)
-help with
Takes corporate
Transportation
Government organization
MONEY:
-rotary helps
-interact students has to raise at-least half
-A lot of fundraising
-Let them know where its going- the money
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15. Do projects together (with the whole community in BJ)
-Ball
-Christmas dinner with all students
-bring together
Rotary:
Who rotary is? Need to know
-Required to know
Connection with Rotary
-Better college application
-
Get all the staff together
-everyone’s together
-Competing for activities
-Teachers have to work together for this
-Interdisciplinary Unit
There are interact manual
-on the rotary site
Put a proposal to the head
-get approval
-get support from the Dulwich
-provide students (interested ones)
Present to the board
Board level
Have one or two interact coordinator
CONTACTS
-need contacts
-come together on Tuesday (the RIC in Beijing)
Need rotarians to come
CONVINCE!
Service has to be sustainable and worthwhile
-needs A LOT OF RESEARCH, dig deep
MARKETING strategy:
Parents love it
Has to be successful
Benefits for the children
Universities applications
Could start own RIC Magazine
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16. Start early so then it digs with the school
Young generation like Grade 3-5 can get involved and help out.
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17. [2] Mail from the Dulwich Rotary Interact Coordinator:
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