February Newsletter

Volume 2, Issue 6 February 7, 2014

The official newsletter of the Cypress Woods High School Key Club

KEY FACTS

Locked-in Key Club pulls off another successful and memorable lock-in.

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State of the Club Address February 10 holds a meeting you won’t want to miss.

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Resolution Revolution There is more to the New Year than losing weight.

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Interclubbing Why clubs within a school should interact more

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CON RIBUTI NS ARTICLES Aranka Barbe Derielle Keiser Dang Dinh Sharon Zhou Natasha Solanki Raj Asarpota Garret Alms

A letter from your

Club President

PRESIDENT’S LETTER Bryan Veit

COVER PHOTO Jordan Castillo DCON ADVERTISEMENT Grace Liu

IN THIS ISSUE...

A word from club president Bryan Veit 03 See the theme for DCON 2014 04 Take a new perspective on New Year’s Resolutions 06 Recap the December 2013 Lock-in 10

Dear fellow Key Clubbers, We are now a month into this beautiful new year! This means two things: It means I can finally put my White-Out away because I am no longer writing “2013” on all my papers, and it means Key Club officer elections are just around the corner.

That’s right! Elections are approaching fast. Club elections are integral to the future of the club, so please take note of the following paragraphs in order to be informed about this transitional period in the organization’s history.

Some of you have already considered taking your involvement in the club to the next level. If this is the case, it is time to ponder the position for which you wish to run. The offices up for election are Vice President, Junior Secretary, Editor, Treasurer, Historian, Webmaster and Representative Coordinator. All of these positions are arduous in their own manner, but they are also very rewarding in various aspects. A list of the specific requirements and responsibilities for each role has been posted to the Facebook group. When reading this and deciding a position, please take your defining skills and passions into account.

Only a passionate officer is good officer.

Some of you, however, have not even considered anything beyond mere membership. If this is the case, it is time for you to realize the tremendous benefits that come with being a Key Club officer. As with any leadership position, you will gain a confidence that will propel you into a successful academic career and a successful life experience. But you will also gain a network of friends—the officer team—that will support you through any endeavor while in high school. The members of my officer team have become a constant source of help, happiness and laughter.

This sweet social reward should be what really encourages you to take the step up into leadership in this amazing organization.

The forms to officially apply for candidacy can now be found on the Facebook group. Once all of these are completed and received, we will hold elections at only the afternoon meeting on February 10. I ask that between now and then, you thoroughly consider the future of the club and the future of your life. I hope to see your name on the ballot.

In service,

Contact your club, division, and district officers 13 Bryan J. Veit President of Cy Woods Key Club

06 Achieve resolutions by volunteering A different look at traditional New Year’s plans The New Year is a time of resolutions.

For many, t h e s e resolutions include g o a l s such as exercising more, eating healthier, playing less X-Box, achieving more success in academic endeavors, and volunteering more often.

While almost everybody makes very conscious efforts to spread joy and give back to the community during the festivities of the holiday season, they tend to forget that the troubles they had helped to

remedy during the socalled “season of giving” are still very much present when the old year wanes and the New Year dawns. Therefore it is important for Key Clubbers to continue this streak of ardent service and strive to give back to the community more than ever.

Many events, like concession stands and event set-ups, are school-based. However, some may resolve to find more meaningful ways to volunteer. While serving candy, popcorn and sodas during a basketball game is fun, there are those in need who cannot be helped by the exchange of food

at sporting events. Some good ways to give back to those who cannot help themselves are to organize fundraisers like 5ks or bake sales to help find cures to terminal diseases, volunteer at the local food bank to give the needy and the homeless the best possible start to their New Years, and help out at schools for the physically and/or mentally impaired. Key Clubbers will see the direct result and know the meaning of their work by the smiles of those they assist and the knowledge that these people’s lives are a little bit better than they may have been the day before.

What may possibly

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New Year, new hope Expanding service in the community in 2014

be the best way to use the New Year’s spirit to improve volunteering efforts is to spread the word about Key Club and ask friends to help out in service opportunities.

Key Clubbers are not the only ones who may strive to volunteer more come January 1, and by introducing more people to the Key Club family, members can give others the opportunity to fulfill that resolution and help the community simultaneously.

That way, through expanding the pool of volunteers, Key Club members can do more for the community than they ever could have alone.

Over the Easter holiday last year, Cy Woods officers took 65 blankets and 150 ‘Make a Wish’ bracelets to Texas Children’s Hospital, where they were distributed to patients who had been in abusive situations.

People so easily set New Year’s resolutions that they maintain for a few weeks before dropping altogether.

However, as a service organization we strive to make it our resolution to better our community and ourselves through service. We want to impact more people, serve more hours and work more projects. This should be our goal every day and something we crave to maintain throughout the year.

With the excitement and energy that comes with every New Year, Cy Woods is teaming up with its partnering Builders Clubs at Spillane Middle School and Goodson Middle School to make an even larger

impact on the community. The New Year brings inspiration to reach out into the community and lend a helping hand, leading to an increase in the desire for service in schools.

As service organizations, we need to help foster that desire for service in the New Year and help maintain the vitality through the rest of the year.

Normally the younger students have a greater passion for service than many would expect, but it can die out easily if not catered to correctly. Middle Schoolers in particular like doing hands-on projects that involve seeing and interacting with the cause they are working to aid. This semester, both Builders Club and our Key Club will be working to make blankets and bracelets that will be taken to Texas Children’s Hospital in late spring.

We were able to do this project last

year with Spillane, and the students loved knowing that what they were doing would help a child their own age through a tough time. Last year, we delivered 65 blankets and almost 150 “Make a Wish” bracelets to child patients. This year, we are hoping that the addition of our new Builders Club with allow us to make 90 blankets and over 200 bracelets for us to donate.

The key to keeping students motivated with the same passion that they have at the beginning of the New Year is to continue to bring in a variety of events to the club; the more hands on the better.

Projects that allow students to see the direct effect of their service serve as motivation to continue to grow their passion for service over the course of the year.

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Let the spirit support you

Transform the “New year, new me” attitude into one that helps others.

The New Year has come and gone. Like many people during this time, a promise called a New Year’s Resolution is created. But unlike others who give up on their New Year’s resolutions a few days or weeks after they have made them, Key Clubbers, hopefully, will hold fast to their resolutions, particularly if their resolution revolves around service because it will help them find more reasons to devote time to service.

One of the new resolutions that a Key Clubber can make is to dedicate more hours towards service. What better resolution could there be? Not only are you working to better someone else’s life, but you would also be fulfilling club hour requirements at a much faster rate. With an exponential increase in service hours completed, members can then register to receive a Presidential Service Award. If some of your members have already received one level of the Presidential Service Award, such as the bronze level, they can still work towards the silver and gold levels. Other benefits to completing such a large number of hours can include discovering the joys of volunteering. At first, many find that the hour requirement is the only thing they need to worry about, because if they make the requirement, they will stay in the club, but as members push through to complete those hours and

remember their commitment to put more dedication into service, they may find the joy that comes alongside helping another person.

Dedicating more time to service is only one type of resolution that members may make coming into the 2014. Another possibility, though a bit more challenging, is to plan your own service event. Find a cause or project that you resonate strongly with and organize a day or period of time where you and other members of the club work on it. It could be something like hosting a food drive at your school or organizing a sporting event that will function as a fundraiser for projects such as the ELIMINATE Project or Children’s Miracle Network. The opportunities are endless. If you doubt that you will be able to complete such a difficult task, remember that you aren’t alone. While this will be your New

Year of the Key Clubbers New Year’s Resolutions don’t have to be about yourself.

Year’s resolution, you can still work with your Key Club in planning the specific details for the project, getting support and advertising the event.

Perhaps the support network can be the anchors that help us keep to our resolutions.

After all, one of the reasons many people give up on their New Year’s resolutions so early is because they simply didn’t have anyone to help them fulfill their goal. Get together with some of your friends, and make one huge group New Year’s resolution so that it can be more effective in helping maintain that commitment and providing the help you might need to make a project the success that you dream it to be. So let’s make this New Year’s resolution be the resolution that we keep strong all the way till the end.

Donating canned goods during the New Year is an easy way to put the spirit of the New Year into volunteering.

As 2013 becomes 2014, the s p r i n g semester of school starts up again, and in addition to getting used to the seemingly onslaught of homework and waking up at crack-of-dawn hours, Key Clubbers are also getting ready to start another year of doing what they do best: volunteering and helping out the community. Since we’ve just entered a new year, what better way to celebrate it than to put the spirit of the New Year into everything we do?

One example of using

the spirit of the New Year is finding and volunteering at places at which they have not volunteered before. The New Year is all about trying new things and having the initiative to do so. Key Clubbers should try something new and go out of their way to look for opportunities to volunteer in not just their usual places. This will result in more people in the neighborhood knowing about Key Club, more opportunities to earn hours and most importantly, more chances to help the community. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find yourself making a new lifelong friend or going back to volunteer over and over.

Another way Key Clubbers can integrate the spirit of the New Year into what they do is by inviting friends and family to volunteer with them. The more people, the better!

As more and more people learn about the benefits and participate in volunteering, the more the community can be helped. One of the best things to do is to spread the word about Key Club and what we do. When we all volunteer together, we can make a bigger impact on the community.

A third thing that Key Clubbers can do to spread the spirit of the New Year, especially right now, is to make sure that people that are less fortunate than us can have a good New Year

too. One way we can do this is to collect warm clothes, gloves, and blankets for those that are trying to stay warm on these cold days. It is very easy for us to collect these items and to donate them to places like CAM or Boys and Girls Country.

Another thing we can do is collect canned goods.

It’s very easy for everyone to remember to collect and donate food during the holiday season, but it is our job as volunteers to remember to collect and donate food throughout the year.

So how about it, everyone? Ready to make this year the best year of them all? Ready to make this the Year of the Key Clubbers?

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The Lock-in Games

Every year, the Cy Woods Key Club holds a lock-in. Members work on multiple service projects, such as blanket making and plarning, in addition to participating in teambuilding activities. This year, the theme was based on the popular book series by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games.

May the odds be ever in your favor With full-spirited Key Clubbers, a great DJ, delicious food, hilarious games and outstanding service projects, our annual lock-in was one to remember!

Every year, this responsibility falls in to the hands of the Vice President, who just happened to be me this year. With a positive outlook I began debating themes for the event four months advance. With ideas ranging from Batman to Hawaiian Luau, I finally settled on the Hunger Games.

I included the theme by incorporating the Games into our service projects.

Key Clubbers were divided into districts, and as members completed hours, their names went into their districts bowl for each hour completed.

After two hours of diligent, arduous work, I gathered the bowls from each district and pulled out this year’s tributes. Each tribute fought bravely in the dangerous games, which consisted of an incredibly intense round dodgeball. As people began to loosen up and enjoy the games, many members participated in the several dodge ball games that followed.

The night didn’t stop there. Every one participated in the trash can game, the singing contest, dancing

competition and more. The night was filled with laughter, smiles and of course the accomplishments of making cards, fleece superhero capes and winter blankets for children at Texas Children’s Hospital, plarning and donating toys for tots.

By the end of the night, it seemed that my hard work had paid off. When I began planning this event, I didn’t realize how many small details I would have to consider. I encountered new problems almost every day. However, I was incredibly adamant about making this lock-in a successful one. I had to make tickets, print them, price them and sell them. The most challenging

obstacle was figuring out the prices for the tickets. I had to accord ticket prices by estimating the number of people coming and the amount of food I would need. Since most of the ticket funds went towards a donation to UNICEF, I had to take into account how much of the ticket price would go towards covering costs.

At the end of the day, though, my motivation got me through the arduous process, and I was more than relieved to see that people enjoyed the lock-in. The entire experience was exciting, and I’m looking forward to helping our next VP with the 2014 lock-in.

T h e annual Cy Woods Key Club lockin. Those w o r d s excite our Key Club members year after y e a r . The lockin is the main event for our members; it’s what we look forward to since the first meeting of the school year.

This was the third lock-in I attended, but my first as a Key Club representative.

Since I was a representative, I had the chance to see behind the scenes on how this whole event was put together. I was shocked to find out how much effort was put in by our officers and how much stress was caused by it. I believe that effort paid off, since the lock-in was a huge success.

The night finally came, and I couldn’t be more ready. I changed and left my house at 5 p.m. to help with final preparations. By 6 p.m., we were ready for the lock-in to start. Slowly, members started walking through the front doors one at a time. Eventually, more and more members started pouring through the doors, all ready to have a fun night.

It took a while, but we got all the members that arrived checked in and ready to go. The first two hours of the lock-in consisted of our members working on service projects, which included writing Christmas cards to our soldiers, stitching patches together to make blankets and plarning.

We wanted to reward our members on doing a great job with the service projects, and since our lock-in theme was the Hunger Games, we gave our members the option of entering their names in a jar to be one of the contestants. Once we had our contestants, it was time for the most anticipated event of every Key Club lock-in—dodgeball.

After our contestants “fought to the death,” we crowned a champion and continued to play dodge ball with different teams, such as Officers vs.

Members, Boys vs. Girls, or Officers vs. Representatives.

It was the most fun I’ve had in a while.

Then the officers brought

out the karaoke machine. I grabbed my fellow Senior Representative, who has an absolutely amazing voice, to go up and duet to Miley Cyrus’ famous song, “Wrecking Ball.” Since I can’t sing to save my life, I just goofed around like I usually do. The karaoke became a competition, and we had to face against two hilarious representatives that sung Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” When we based the winner on the crowd’s cheers, it ended up in a tie between our duo and their duo, and the winner would be decided with a dance off. Unfortunately, we didn’t win the dance off, which in my opinion,

was the biggest robbery in history. But I digress; the competition was just for fun anyway.

After the competition was over, we all just played a load of fun games until the clock struck 12 p.m., the time for the lock-in to end.

Looking back at this event, I’m certain that this was one of my favorite lock-ins that I have attended. The officers did such an amazing job putting this together, and our members did a great job completing the service projects. The major thing I got out of this lockin, however, is that I have grown much closer to my Key Club family.

Senior Representatives Samedh Iyer and Raj Asarpota serenade the audience to the tune of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.”

12 Bringing clubs together

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Contact Information

The power of many exceeds the power of one.

When a person d o e s a task they are limited by their own limits.

W h e n people are in a group setting doing tasks, they are not bound by the resources of one but the resources of the many people that are a part of that group.

The same concept can be applied to clubs and organizations. There are a multitude of different organizations in a school (National Honor Society, Student Government, etc.) besides Key Club that offers volunteer events. So is it not logical for these clubs to collaborate together and use all of each other’s potential to better the community?

Overtime each

organization has or will collect its own volunteer contacts and members.

The diversity of these contacts and members serve as strengths for each of the organizations, and if these resources were to combine the outcome would be phenomenal. If clubs combined efforts in a common goal the chances of completing tasks would dramatically increase. With more people and resources working together the bigger and grander tasks could be.

For example, some schools around holidays, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas, will have all of the school’s major volunteer organizations contribute to a food drive. With the collective efforts of these organizations greater amounts of food can be collected for the poor during holiday seasons.

CY WOODS KEY CLUB // OFFICERS

This same concept also can be applied to national tragedies such as tornados or hurricanes to help the people affected by these tragedies.

When organizations collaborate in this manner, the amount of food and supplies for the community and beyond increases substantially. This in turn makes collaboration

between organizations a very important tool for volunteer organizations.

Another way collaboration between organizations is helpful is when one club has too many volunteer events they cannot fill versus when a club has a lack of volunteer events. This is when the club with too many events can ask members form the other clubs with the lack of events to volunteer for their events that have spots which need to be filled. Also clubs with the lack of events can ask the clubs with the vast amount of events to assist them with getting events for their members that need volunteer work. This would greatly increase the amount of volunteer work in the community, and would ensure that every member of each club gets a chance to serve their own community.

President Bryan Veit bryveit1995@gmail.com Vice President Natasha Solanki natasha.solanki@hotmail.com Senior Secretary Dang Dinh dang.qdinh@gmail.com Editor Nikki Carter ncarter37@sbcglobal.net Treasurer Kelli Brusen kcb400@sbcglobal.net Representative Coordinator Gaurav Lalsinghani gaunir@yahoo.com Webmaster Nicholas Nguyen nick.erik2010@yahoo.com K-Family Board Derielle Keiser derielle.keiser@yahoo.com Drishti Wadhwa drishtiw@yahoo.com Kelsey Foulds kelseyfoulds@entouch.net Madelin Cowden madelin11@live.com Ryan Lucker rjlucker@yahoo.com Sponsor John Kent john.kent@cfisd.net

281-757-7061 281-904-7873 281-723-5695 713-855-1645 832-573-0187 281-796-7349 281-849-4885 281-889-0885 713-614-2052 281-253-8280 281-210-6465 832-334-1033

DIVISION 3N // LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

Gabi Bradshaw Cypress Falls gabibradshaw3nltg@gmail.com

832-341-6930

TEXAS-OKLAHOMA // DISTRICT STAFF Governor Luke Broussard governor@tokeyclub.com Secretary Usman Hyder secretary@tokeyclub.com Treasurer Isaiah Vallequinones treasurer@tokeyclub.com Editor Tashrima Hossain editor@tokeyclub.com Convention Liason Grace Liu conventionliason@tokeyclub.com

325-998-1384 817-715-5111 580-458-1432 713-505-2252 817-962-8945