Inter School Competition

About the Program:
Inter School Competition is one of the new initiatives of Vazhai where students from different schools are invited to participate in various events like Debate, Essay Writing, Drawing, etc. The winners of each event and the over all winner of the program are recognized and rewarded.

Objective of the Program:
To enable a good rapport with the schools and to encourage & motivate the hidden talent of the students. We believe that this program will form a base for the students to go and compete in various other events at higher level.

Trigger of the Program:
The inputs received from the school Headmasters and Headmistress during our General Visit to schools triggered us to conduct this program. Various competitions are conducted at school level during national festivals or specific days as per Govt. order and it has helped the teachers to identify the hidden talent of the students but there need a platform to go ahead to the next level to improve and achieve.

This will not only be helpful to build rapport with schools but will also to help Vazhai to the localities. Also we can invite some important persons from that locality as chief guest or viewers. For example: Collector as a chief guest and other officials, business men as guests.

There is one person Mr. Kulandai Francis got Ramon magsaysay award in Dharmapuri District last month, for his social work. Just an option for guest/chief-guest. (This is award is called Nobel price of Asia).

Hi Sami,

Do you think we can link CTS in these kind of activities? They would be happy to send people and fund the events.

Lavi.

Dear All,

Thanks to the people who joined the conf call today.

The summary of the discussion points is as below.

1. Opinion about the event: Conducting Inter School Competition event helps us to build a good rapport with schools, extend the support of Vazhai to non-vazhai students as well, enable us to take Vazhai to high level publicity (through the people we invite as Chief Guest), encourage and motivate the hidden talent of the students. Considering these benefits it is GOOD to go with this initiative.

2. Suitable Day for the event: It is better to conduct this event on a working day, preferably Friday for two reasons - a) Students can assemble at school and come together thus helping us in tracking the presence of each individual b) Enable the school teacher to accompany the students that helps us to ensure safety and reduces our effort in monitoring/managing the students. It is suggested to verify it with School Headmaster about the suitable day for the event (weekday or weekend).

3. Scope: Being the first time to conduct such event, it is suggested to go with the schools in which Vazhai adopted students (4 schools in Dharmapuri district - Eriyur, Chinnavathalapuram, Neruppur and Sellamudi). We can extend the scope in successive years.

4. Finance: We shall try to find sponsors to conduct this event. Use the sponsorship amount and the balance amount from Vazhai account. In case we are unable to find/get sponsors then the event expense amount will be completely from Vazhai account.

5. Chief Guest & Judges: Being the first time of conducting this event with a limited scope, we can invite few local celebrities in that area. We can also try to identify people who supports social cause and work towards it. Judges can be anyone from ourselves (Vazhai) or from outside.

6. Events (Competitions): It is suggested to have a limited number of events. Elocution, Essay Writing, Drawing and Students Project are the events proposed this time. The following table shows the sub-levels of each event with the maximum number of participants allowed from each school.

S.No.	Event	Description	Levels	Max no. of participants from each school	Total	Grand Total
1	Elocution	Participant has to talk in Tamil for stipulated time period on the given topic	Junior (6th Std to 8th Std)	2
			Senior (9th & 10th Std)	2
			Super Senior (11th & 12th Std)	2	6
2	Essay Writing	Participant has to write an essay on the given topic within a stipulated time period	Junior (6th Std to 8th Std)	2
			Senior (9th & 10th Std)	2
			Super Senior (11th & 12th Std)	2	6
3	Drawing	Participant has to draw a picture on the given theme within a stipulated time period	Junior (6th Std to 8th Std)	2
			Senior (9th & 10th Std)	2
			Super Senior (11th & 12th Std)	2	6
4	Students Project	Participants has to do a project on the given topic within a stipulated time period and present the topic during the event	NA	5	5	23

Maximum of 23 students can participate in all the events. There are chances that the same student can participate on multiple events. We need to restrict it to 2 events. So we may have max of 92 students as participants from 4 schools.

7. Timelines: The proposed date for Inter School Competition is 16th Nov (combining it along with Chidren's Day Celebrations, for the event to be continued every year). We have nearly 2.5 months in which we need to send the invitation along with the event details , general/competition rules and topics at least one month before for them to do the selection (prelims) round. So effectively we have 1.5 months for preparation.

8. Prizes & Prize Distribution Ceremony:
It is suggested to give Medals (Gold for 1st place, Silver for 2nd place and Bronze for 3rd place) as Prize along with a book / an item of school kit (to be decided). The students feels that the Medal is something special and they preserve it. A rolling shield can be given to the overall champion of the event by giving points for each place, each event.
We can bring the students adopted by Vazhai to have a performance show or a speech on the stage during Prize Distribution Ceremony. This makes them feel happy.


The following items are missed during the discussion. Posting it here for you to go through and post your comments/suggestions.

9. Children's Day Celebrations & Vazhai Stall: When we say "Children's Day Celebrations & Inter School Competition" then we need to plan for a display stall about children's day and also few fun events in the stall. Also a stall about Vazhai and its activities.

10. How to execute?
Form teams for each competition - Ask the team to define the rules, choose the topics/themes - Collate all the inputs together to make it as an appendix to the invitation - The team has to come up with the execution plan as well that comprises of all aspects including the evaluation parameters, score points, etc.

Best Regards,
Saravanamuthu M

MoM of the conf call held on 06th Sep from 09:00 pm to 10:00 pm for this program.

Participants: Banu Priya, Deepak, Mahesh, Narayanasami, Prabhu N, Ramesh R, Saravanamuthu M, Savitha, Siva

Points discussed:

1. High level plan of the program has been explained to all the volunteers who joined the call.

2. Teams are formed with the volunteers for each event/competition.

3. Teams are asked to come up with title/topic/theme for their event, define rules, guidelines and evaluation parameters for the event during the next conf call scheduled on 17th Sep. Team are asked to make use of this forum to post their ideas and get ideas on title/topic/theme.

4. People need to be identified for few events and roles such as Public Relations, Finance, etc.

5. The proposed date for the program is Friday, 16th Nov. The date has to be finalized before sending the communication (invite) to schools. The invitation should be sent at least one month before the program and it is suggested to send it during the 1st week of October.

Teams formed

Elocution:
Banu Priya
Ramesh R
Venkateswaran N

Essay Writing:
Mahesh M
Savitha
Senthilkumar

Drawing:
Deepak

Students Project:
Sivasubramanian M
Prabhu N

Communication:
Narayanasami V

Admin:
Saravanamuthu M

Action Items:
1. Teams have to come up with title/topic/theme for their event, define rules, guidelines and evaluation parameters for the event during the next conf call scheduled on 17th Sep.

Next Meeting: Monday, 17th Sep - Conf Call

Hi Saravanamuthu

Please share the invitation that we are preparing for the inter school competition.....

Have we finalized topics for drawing competition? If not, some suggestions:

nature
forest & deforestation
animals
save nature
any leaders' or famous persons' or my favourite person drawing
Flowers
My village in 2020
my school/town/village
environment cleanliness & Health
pollution
agriculture / water resources related