Last January 23, 2021, was the Online Workshop on Leadership (OWL) Webinar. A joint collaboration between the Basic Education Student Council and the IB Student Council. The event was teased on social media by many other SISC clubs such as the SISC Mover and the Kindness Project, helping build up the hype for what was dubbed “the most-awaited event of the month." The event was from 10 AM to 4PM, split into two parts. The first half of the event was hosted by Basic Education Student Council’s David Ramos and IB Student Council’s Perseana Stavrinides.
The two gave an energetic start to the day or learning, fun, and growth. Principal Avic Suarez gave the event’s Opening Remarks. She shared a story of when she was a girl scout, back in the day and how all of the things she learned have developed her into the great leader we know today. Being a Southville student myself, it amazes me with how many stories Principal Avic shares every event, with a lifetime of achievements and successes, she’s truly an inspiration.
This was followed up by the Ice Breaker game, hosted by Basic Education Student Council’s Samantha Olegario and IB Student Council’s Hallie Soriano. They led the participants in a classic game of Guess Who? But this time, filled with world leaders. Featuring world leaders such as President Joe BIden, Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, President Rodrigo Duterte, and Bernie Sanders. Who is currently making rounds with his mittens meme. Not only did this lighten up the moods of the participants, including myself, but also gave them a first bite of fun!
Basic Education Moderator, Ms. Patricia Belleza introduced the guest speaker for the day, her old and one of her first students, Syou Katsumi. Katsumi is a Southville alumni from the batch of 2019, and has been a proud Southville student since he was very young. Katsumi was able to share his experience on the topic Self Identity and Self Content as A Leader, talking about his past experiences as an SISC Student Council Officer. Not only did Syou Katsumi share, but he also inspired all of the budding leaders in the webinar to strive for greatness and good leadership. Katsumi also took time to answer all of the questions racing through the participants’ minds. A little while later, Principal Avic Suarez awarded Katsumi a Certificate of Appreciation for joining this year’s OWL for the next generation of Southville leaders.
Concluding the first half of the Online Workshop on Leadership, that led to the OWL Press Conference, where I was able to ask Basic Education Student Council’s President Changmin Yoon, Vice President Park Hyukjin (Richard), Secretary TIffany Cloa, and IB Student Council’s President Yanikka Bata, and Vice President Jasmine Reeves a few questions regarding the event.
I started off by asking the group, who came up with the idea of OWL and how did it start? Basic Education Student Council President Changmin answered,
“First, Sir Jude came up with the idea, and it used to usually be outdoor, but because of the pandemic we turned it into an Online Workshop. So we thought it would be a great idea to collaborate with the IB Student Council, because there are a lot of leaders in Southville who are class officers and are club leaders, so we thought it would be great to make an online workshop for leadership.”
I followed up by asking Basic Education Student Council Vice President Park Hyukjin (Richard) how it was like helping out with the members as the Vice President of the council.
“So...to be honest, regardless of positions. Changmin, Tiffany, and all of our council members all work well together. For me specifically, I was in charge of, for example, this OWL was inspired by SGEN MUN and other student led activities. We actually derived some inspiration at first, and it was also Changmin and Tiffany’s idea to also collaborate with the IB Student Council. So with that we actually cross-worked and worked together. So it wasn’t really just me working with Tiffany and Changmin only, we actually got to work with my amazing counterparts like Jasmine, Perseana, and Hallie, who are all members of the IB Student Council. So yeah, those are some ways that I’ve helped.
With Richard’s amazing response, I moved on to asking the IB Student Council President, Yannikka Bata how was it like collaborating with the Basic Education Student Council, and how was it like for her to collaborate with the newer generation of BEd SC, since she used to be an active member of the council.
“Well actually, it’s something the council always looks forward to doing. We always want to collaborate with our counterparts. However, due to schedules, it does get quite difficult to do so. From my personal experience, working in the BEd SC and then transitioning to the IB SC was a big step during my senior year. I did miss a lot of things, including planning big events for a lot of people, because in IB we are a very tight-knit community. So working together with my counterparts in such a big project, that would go to my program and Changmin’s program. It is really a nice avenue to exercise camaraderie, collaboration, and in my personal experience, just missing the experience of doing something for a lot of people.”
I concluded my questions in the Press Conference, by asking Basic Education Student Council Secretary Tiffany Cloa how she is able to balance leading a group of people (since she is also the head of the Digital Creatives Committee) while making a big percentage of the designs for OWL.
“Handling OWL was quite a challenging project to do, but being surrounded with people who all gave in ideas made things easier to make our brand made, like you making the logo, Angelo. It was quite a challenge to handle such a big team for such a big project, because the pressure is there to make such good outputs, that it was hard to edit, and we had to make a lot of revisions before we sent it, but in the end it was all worth it because everyone loves all the publications now and they look really nice.”
After the engaging press conference, that was super fun for me to experience, it was finally time for the workshops to begin! There were four workshops in total, all being key skills to a good leader. From this moment, participants were able to go into any of the four breakout rooms that signed up for. Namely, Creatives, Social Media Managing, Public Speaking, and Event Planning. Doing press for this event was actually a super fun and informative experience for me, being able to hop into different rooms and conduct small interviews.
The first workshop I attended was the Creatives Workshop. I was able to ask one of the hosts, Tiffany Cloa, what it was like for her to plan the Creatives Workshop along with her teammates.
“It was fairly easy planning for this workshop, as I am passionate about what I'm going to talk about this afternoon. This workshop will hopefully help leaders think more creatively when it comes to editing for their own respective clubs and/or classes.”
Tiffany is definitely a born Creative leader. Aside from planning events of the Creatives Workshop alongside her members, she is also the leader of the Basic Education Student Council’s Digital Creatives Committee (which I am also a part of, meaning Tiffany is my boss), who worked as a team to create designs, presentations, videos, and posters for the whole OWL event.
The next workshop I visited was the Public Speaking Workshop, where I got the chance to ask one of the hosts, Perseana Stavrinides what her experience was like planning for OWL and her Public Speaking Workshop, and what she expects to learn for herself from this event.
“Planning this event was kind of stressful because it was such a big team. Not only working together with my IB counterparts, but also those in Basic Education. I have to thank everyone for working together extremely well despite the difficulties, because it was also super enjoyable getting to work with others. I hope honestly us leaders can learn how to engage the audience more and to hopefully help the leaders we have here learn to shed their shells that prevent them from not only becoming leaders but performances to showcase their potentials.”
Perseana, along with her Public Speaking teammates like Hyukjin Park, Jasmine Reeves, and Hallie Soriana, were able to teach aspiring leaders great tips for public speaking, including Grade 11 STEM student, Charlle Saclag.
“One reason as to why I chose public speaking is that I want to be used to an environment where I am encouraged to speak to a group of people.”
Is what Charlle answered when I asked him why he chose this workshop out of the four, and with the group’s fun and engaging activities, I’m sure he was able to learn more about public speaking.
The third workshop I checked out was the Event Planning workshop, where I was able to ask host IB Student Council President, Yannikka Bata what workshop she was helping out on and what she expects leaders to learn from OWL.
“So right now, I am helping out with the Event Organizing Workshop due to some technical difficulties of one of the facilitators. As someone who has personally struggled with events, I am actually very happy to be here. Lucky for me, I had my upperclassmen to guide throughout the process and every trial & tribulation. So today, I want to be that for the people who have joined this workshop. We want our fellow student leaders to know the importance of collaboration during events, become aware of the different aspects required for a smooth flowing event, and what details contribute to a successful event. And lastly, we want to show that event planning is a process that you don’t have to be afraid of! It’s something leaders can enjoy as well.”
Yannikka has been a student leader ever since she was in Basic Education. Bringing what she has learned from past experiences to now being the IB Student Council President, she is a good example of home-grown Southville leaders.
David Ramos, Samantha Olegario, and Joy Yang were three of the hosts for the Event Planning workshop, with all of them busy handling the activities for the workshop, I was able to ask Grade 11 STEM student, Derrick Valdelleon, why he chose to attend Event Planning and what he expects to learn from it.
“I chose to go to event planning because I can see myself wanting to plan events for my friends, family, and maybe even my future workmates. I believe in order to do so, I joined event planning in order to be able to learn more about how to plan a good and fun event for everyone. I expect to learn some tips about what would make planning an event and the event itself go smoothly and make it an enjoyable one.”
Last but not least, I visited the Social Media Managing Workshop, where I was able to ask Basic Education Student Council’s Nate Arellano what he expects leaders to learn from the Social Media Managing Workshop.
“Social media management is such an underrated niche for today's time, especially where we are all physically distant. What we hope, and what we believe we were able to teach today are the basic leadership and communication skills needed to become a Social Media Manager. We aim to have our participants walk away knowing how to read analytics, make captions, and have basic teamwork skills in order to be equipped should they need to head a page online. Social media is such a wonderful way to connect and communicate with people, and with the skills taught today, we hope our participants come away with skills in management, leadership, and communication.”
Nate is also the Basic Education Student Council’s Social Media Manager, when it comes to scheduling posts, making captions, and planning layouts for Facebook and Instagram. He really showed his proficiency with social media management, being able to balance planning the workshop with his teammates Antwone Ong and Jeremiah Rivera, while posting all of the OWL promos.
“I chose the Social Media Managing Workshop because ever since quarantine started, I started to check my SNS more often. I was also very interested to join this since we are doing most things online and I was hoping to learn something new.”
Is what aspiring Grade 8 leader, Hyunji Choi, answered when I asked the reason for joining the Social Media Managing Workshop.
Apart from the hosts and participants, I also had the opportunity to ask OWL Moderator, Sir Jude Cuntapay how it was like helping out not one, but two councils for this year’s OWL, and what he expected leaders to learn from the event.
“It is an honor on my end to work with both SC in this event. We get to learn more with each other and gives us an opportunity to forge more collaborative projects in the future. I expect that after this, more student-led activities will happen in SISC. This is in the hopes that our SC is modeling now how students can lead their own programs for their schoolmates as well.”
Finally, OWL came to an end, with Ms. Jorge Balela congratulating the two Student Councils and the participants for having a successful event . After a 6 hour webinar, participants walked in as curious learners, and walked out as aspiring Southville leaders. When they said that this was the most-awaited event of the month, they did not lie! Props to the Basic Education and IB Student Councils for planning and executing one of the very first student-lead big events of the school year. Being the last minute Press for the event, I am more than thankful having experienced OWL from behind the scenes to curtain call. I feel so happy for all of the student leaders who stepped out of their way to give next generation leaders tips, activities, and lessons in each workshop, knowing that they had a successful run today. This year’s OWL only gives me more excitement for the rest of the year and all of the events we get to have, hopefully more collabs between the two councils as well! Now what did I learn from this Online Workshop on Leadership? A sign of good leadership is good collaboration. To be a good leader is to guide your team through rough waters and smooth skies, and that is what I noticed with all of the members, hosts, and leaders who made all of this possible. Special thanks to the Mover Social Media Team for letting me do Press for this once-in-a-lifetime experience, and someday I wish to come back, and re-experience all of the success in this year’s Online Workshop on Leadership. Hoot hoot!
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