Owl Orations September 2019 Volume 1 Issue 6

september

OWL ORATIONS Texas-Oklahoma Region 9, Division 2S Volume 1, Issue No. 6

THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF GARLAND HIGH SCHOOL

3 4 5 6 8 9 10 13 18 19 20 22 Letter to the Editor

Monthly Review

T-Shirt Information

Upcoming Events

Updates and Reminders

Major Emphasis Promotions

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Key Club Info

Articles and HOTO

Service Project Promotions

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Note from the President

District/Club Officer Info

Contact Info

letter from the editor...

Hello, Key Clubbers!

We've made it through our first six weeks (time for 5 more haha)! I am so happy every meeting when I see all the seats in the library fill up.

The officers and I truly appreciate each act of participation, and we are trying our best to make it worth your while to stay after school with something fun to do. This year, we have icebreakers at the beginning of most of our meetings, a ton of snacks an refreshments, fun Key Clubrelated activities, and the occasional t-shirt giveaway. If you haven't been attending the meetings, stay after school and see what you're missing out on!

Last general meeting, we had our first committee meeting.

Committees are a great way for general members to work with the officers and have their voices heard when making decisions about the club. Our historian, Nallely, and I are heads of the DCON and Competition Committee, so we will be planning our DCON trip and prepare for competition and awards. If you are interested in joining one of our committees, it's not too late! Contact one of the officers if you would like to join!

Lastly, volunteer opportunities are starting to roll in, so if you have not signed up or attended any events, I suggest you get to it! Not only do we have the most opportunities in the first semester, but you can get to know your fellow Key Clubbers early on, and it's a really fun and great experience! Remember, we recommend that you have 25 hours of service by the end of this semester. Good luck, and have fun!

Yours in Service,

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note from the president...

Hello, Key Clubbers!

Our first six weeks is finally over, and I hope that y’all were able to survive the first wave of school (especially freshmen!) Recently, I have enjoyed our incorporation of icebreakers and food into the general meetings because I get to know each member to a slightly more personal degree. Sadly, however, I’ve been pretty bad at learning everyone’s name, so I’ll make sure to work harder on doing that!

Additionally, we have officially had our first committee meeting on September 25th after members were announced and introduced to their committee chairmen. With everyone’s help in these committees, we will improve as a club for future years to come. I’m excited to hear opinions outside of the board, and they’re usually a good indicator of capable leaders for the next year (*wink wink*). If you’re still interested, you can still sign up by asking one of the officers.

We have also started rolling out more volunteer opportunities for October that have previously been successful such as the Tri-City Clean Up. Moreover, concessions are being booked and will be announced when the time comes. If you guys have any suggestions for events or on how to improve the club, then please feel free to personally talk to any officer or write us an email! Thank you for listening to my monthly updates, and I wish you all have a good time in the month of October.

Yours in Service,

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MONTHLY REVIEW MONTHLY REVIEW MONTHLY REVIEW

09/11/2019

Our LTGs <3

Sophomores!

culture 4 caring During our meeting, we asked the members to write notes of encouragements to a random Key Club member and they turned out so nice!

We are thankful for everyone who wrote notes.

Our Freshmen! key club committees For those who signed up for committees, we had

our

first

committee

meeting

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general meeting on September 25. We can't wait to work with our committees this year!

09/25/20

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Halloween

DID YOU KNOW...

Our president, TIffany Doan, was born on Halloween, so don't forget to 'trick-or-treat' her on October 31!

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UPCOMING EVENTS GHS KEY CLUB MEETINGS (10/9, 10/23) Attend two meetings a month in the library after school from 3-3:30 pm where we will update you on upcoming events and plans

Northeast Dallas Kiwanis Meeting (10/7, 10/21) Meet up at Life Message from 7 - 8 PM as we try and bridge the gap between Kiwanis and Key Club

Garland Kiwanis Meeting (10/8, 10/22) Meet up at Fish â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;N Tails Oyster Bar from 12 - 1 PM for an opportunity to discuss and plan relevant events in our community

Tri-City Clean Up (10/5) Meet up at Hella Shrine to help pick up trash along the paths at Lake Ray Hubbard from 8 AM to 1 PM

Walnut Glen Trunk-or-Treat (10/29) Take a trip back to elementary school and help out at Walnut Glenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s carnival by running games and the silent auction. Email walnutglenpta@gmail.com if you are interested *Calendars only have events planned at the beginning of each month and are, therefore, subject to change. Events can be added or cancelled and details can be changed.

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We are Global Key Club is a growing organization with global reach. With

1000s of clubs in more than 38 countries, the impact of Key Club members can be felt all over the world.

We Learn Through Action High school student members of Key Club perform acts of service in their communities, such as cleaning up parks, collecting clothing and organizing food drives. They also learn leadership skills by running meetings, planning projects and holding elected leadership positions at the club, district and international levels.

Our Mission Statement Key Club is an international, student-led organization that provides its members with opportunities to provide service, build character and develop leadership.

Core Values Members of Key Club learn to become leaders in their school

and community, build their character through acts of kindness, develop compassion for others, and welcome people of all different ethnicities and backgrounds to serve the community.

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*All information was found on the official Key Club website www.keyclub.org

Only $15!

This year's Key Club T-SHIRT! FRONT

Don't forget to order it!

BACK shirt designed by Alina

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UPDATES & Turn inclub $20 for by dues !

8 r e b o Oct

MISSED A G

Make-up meet Room 407 on t general meetin promptly at 7:0

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Turn in y our SIGNED consent fo rm

Love basketball?

Click here to learn more abou t the Key Club fundra iser

with

the Dallas Mavericks

ENERAL MEETING?

tings will be held in the Friday after ngs and will begin 00 am. Don't miss it!

access o t e r e h k Clic form! s r u o h e th

r that you e e b m e m e R tur bmit a pic e u s T S U M oing servic yourself d lunteered. if you vo

REMINDERS 11

Governor's Project

Culture 4 Caring Culture 4 Caring is a student-led organization that promotes inclusions and acceptance. Ultimately, Culture 4 Caring emphasizes instilling kindness purposefully. Its mission is to foster a welcoming culture for one student, one friend, one school, one community, and one moment in time by honoring olriginality, unity, kindness, culture and equality.

*description from Division 13/32 September Newsletter

YOF Grant Project

Treat our Teachers The Youth Opportunities Fund (YOF) is an endowed fund for Key Club that grants a portion of the total cost of a service project organized by the club. For our Key Club, we have decided to take on the project of treating our teachers. Due to the construction around the school and lack of money, the majority of the teacher break rooms are without a working fridge and a water dispenser.

For our project, we will fundraise to buy the teachers new fridges and water dispensers, so they have one less things to worry about during a long day of educating.

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Fall Fun We’re almost into the second six weeks of the semester already! I can't believe time has passed this quickly. As a historian my job has been pretty easy recently since members now have to upload pictures with their hours sheet. The other officers also have contributed in taking pictures at meetings and other volunteering events.

We also just created an official Garland High School Instagram account. This account will allow us to share any projects we’ve done and help reach out to our members plus any other high schools key clubs. I think this account will be really fun to manage and update so that we can see any remarkable events that happen throughout the year on the account. Things we will upload to the Instagram account will include reminders about meetings, volunteer events, any remarkable successes, and just overall news we want to share with our members and other students.

In other news, our club has grown a lot since last year! We now host meetings in the library instead of the classroom and it does get filled up pretty quickly. It’s nice seeing so many people enjoy coming to the meetings and caring about something that you also care about. Another new thing about this year is that we do ice breakers. I thought this would be a great way to let all our members bond and interact with each other. It’s hard to make new friends with others so ice breakers really help relieve some awkward tension and helps make the friendship making process easier. In addition to the ice breakers I think we make the meetings a lot more fun by providing snacks to our members which go away pretty quickly!

I really wish our club could make it to Fall Rally but unfortunately that’s the same day of our homecoming and many of us already have plans for that day. I'm so excited for homecoming because it’s my last homecoming before graduating. We also have to decorate our door for homecoming decorations. Hopefully we get a prize for our door this year although I'm also helping decorate for the class of 2020 door so it’s gonna suck if either key club or the class of 2020 doesn’t win the prize. Homecoming week is always so hectic because there’s so much we have to do as a class officer and a key club officer but i’m excited for upcoming events.

Nallely Maciel, Historian

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WEBSITE UPDATE Hello Key Clubbers! The first cycle of school is over! I have been working on the website a little here and there since school started. I am updating things all of the time, so make sure you check the site and the remind often for more info.

This year I plan to add many things to the website in addition to the many features that already exist. Right now, there is a calendar, our Key Club twitter feed, our monthly newsletters (thanks to our editor), and the powerpoints from general meetings. Make sure you check the website for these things often because they are updated all the time. In addition to the powerpoints, committee agendas, and minutes (a transcript) from board meetings will be posted to keep all members updated on what happens behind the scenes. These will be a standard from now on for all meetings on the website.

Many members have requested for an easier way to view their hours. Currently, volunteer hours are recorded on a large spreadsheet that shows all grade levels and all events for the

entire year that included every member’s name and ID number. This makes it difficult to look through and find all of the events that you have earned hours for and may lead to some confusion and a lack of privacy. In the near future, hours will be posted on the website where you can login and have a more specialized view of every event you have attended. Hours will still need to be submitted in the google form along with the usual prompts that follow. Lastly, member attendance will be posted on the website too, so make sure you attend all of the meetings!

Speaking of meeting attendance, the schedule for next year’s meetings has been finalized and added to the calendar. We’ve changed the bylaws again and published them on the website. They are on the new handouts page along with all of the forms you might need for key club. A new meeting archive page has been added as well: it contains powerpoints, a transcript of all meetings, and the agendas for committee meetings. Check the page if you ever forget what happened during a meeting. Also, be sure to familiarize yourself with the new hour submission form for this school year.

Thank you for listening to my update for this month. Don’t forget to check the website (garlandhskeyclub.com) and don't forget to take more pictures!

Jake Wendling, Webmaster

How to access the newsletter:

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garlandhskeyclub.com

Newsletter

Month of September

Learning to Lead Better Our Key Club chapter as it exists today is the culmination of an immense amount of work from the board, members, and faculty advisor. As a member of the board, we are always working towards finding ways to ensure that a Key club membership is an enriching experience.

This year, we have emphasized cooperation with other local groups. For example, we have established a relationship with Life Message, a local non-profit organization. Additionally, we are doing a lot of work with our local Kiwanis chapter. So far, there have been a lot of amazing service opportunities to come from this partnership, but what we are most excited about is the Builder’s Club that we are chartering with them.

This leads me to my next point: this year, we have expanded our community service horizons past our high school by starting a Builder’s Club at Austin Academy Middle School. After all, if we can get more young people excited about service, we can exponentially increase the positive impact we can have!

However, just because we are widening our scope outside of our club doesn’t mean that we have forgotten about our Key Clubbers. This year, member satisfaction and retention have been a major topic of discussion in the board meetings. This means that we want to keep the members coming to our general meetings. One way we did this was by editing our bylaws to require 80% attendance at general meetings. We are also going to host makeup meetings in the mornings after general meetings to help the members meet this goal. In addition to the creation of consequences for not attending meetings, we also wanted to create some form of positive reinforcement. As a result, the board decided to provide refreshments, such as cookies and chips, at every general meeting this year. After all, we know that it can be so

hard to balance school, personal commitments, and Key Club, so we want to show our appreciation to our amazing members. As a bonus, the food will also help draw in more new members. In this way, we can maximize the positive impact we have on our community.

So far, we have already started to see some of the more positive results of the implemented changes to our club. Through our cooperation with our community, we have fostered connections with local groups and found tons of exciting service projects. By chartering a Builder’s club, we are expanding the reach of our group. Lastly, by focusing on our members, we are helping them maintain their excitement for service. By constantly adapting the club to a changing community and school, we can serve it more effectively.

Tisha Gautam, Secretary

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Time for Change With each new board that we have, Garland Key Club has to continuously adapt and improve itself. Last year, however, we experienced a significant change and opened our arms to our new adult advisor Ms. Shaeffer. Although Key Club can be a lot to handle, Ms. Shaeffer has proven herself to be one of the most capable people I’ve ever met. She assisted with creating an updated version of our bylaws, has corresponded with each officer, and has offered insights during meetings.

However, as the tumultuous school year of 2018-2019 ended, we discovered some flaws that had yet to be addressed.

Returning members may remember that we offered both personal and club hours last year, but we will be reverting back to only accepting club hours. Although this was announced near the beginning of the school year, a clear explanation was never given. To preserve unity, to deepen relations, and to simplify hour requirements, the board decided that members should only obtain hours through events offered by the club. We will always strive to find events that will interest y’all, so always be on the lookout for them!

Furthermore, to add spice to meetings, we’re starting to incorporate icebreakers and food into our general meetings.

Icebreakers are a fun way for us to get to know each other, and there’s a large variety to select from. For instance, our very first icebreaker was “Matchmaker”. In this game, members would volunteer themselves to state aloud qualities that they’re looking for in a person. At the beginning of the game, everyone is standing up and will sit down if they do not match the description given by the person being matched. Eventually, there will be one

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person standing and the pair of students have finally been “matched”. Additionally, coupled with food, icebreakers help maintain club participation.

Additionally, one of our biggest goals that we hope to accomplish is to become a more active participant in our Texas-Oklahoma district. We will be partaking in both the governor’s and district projects as well as submitting an application for the Youth Opportunities Fund (YOF).

Governor’s Project (Culture4Caring): create a caring environment where everyone is accepted and included District Project (Key Readers): support and develop literacy in our community YOF: find a problem in your community and submit an application to receive funds to tackle and solve the problem Being a part of the above items allow us to become connected with others beyond Garland. We become united under the same cause and work together to conquer challenges one at a time. We’re the mighty TO district and it’ll always remain that way if clubs are cooperative with one another.

As the year continues, I’m sure more changes will ensure, but they’ll be for the better. This year may be different from past ones, but Garland Key Club will keep improving, and I hope you all stay to see that happen.

Tiffany Doan, President

MY TIME IN KEY CLUB HUMANS OF TEXAS-OKLAHOMA During my first year of being a member of Key Club I wasn’t exactly what you would call an active member. On rare occasions I would volunteer for events, but surprisingly enough I was still considered active for a freshman: this really helped me win the freshman rep position. The only real events that I participated in, were runs or events of this sort. This really doesn’t count as serving our community, one of the most important factors of being in Key Club.

Not until this year when I obtained the board position of historian, I’ve never been an amazing member. Finally this year I’ve become more involved, as well as excited with the upcoming events in the future. One in particular is DCON, or simply our district convention. During this event I’ve become more open with the other members in our Texas-Oklahoma District. This will especially come in handy, as I approach the next year as the treasurer of the club. As I’ll get training during this period, as well as learn from former treasurers. I’ve always heard stories of what happens at DCON, and this only gets me excited. One of the craziest things I’ve heard is that people have said that going to DCON made joining Key Club worth it.

But also, I have heard of personal stories from both of my sisters that attended DCON during their respective years, and all they could say was “YOU HAVE TO GO!”. This really influenced my idea of what really happens during DCON, and the only way to find out is from personal experience. The memories created from this few day

convention, and the different people that I meet that share the love I have for this organization is something I look forward too, immensely.

In addition to that, next year I plan to up my game. As serving as treasurer for my senior year, I want to implement things that’ll have an affect even after I'm gone. But despite the high standards set by the previous treasurer, I plan on using most of my spare time to support the club any way possible. I know that this year I’ve procrastinated for some assignments, and hopefully next year I will stop this problem that affects every other officer. I plan on making my senior year one of the most productive years for not only myself, but also the clubs that I’ve begun to care about.

Albert Yang, Treasurer

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MAJOR Kiwanis International and UNICEF have joined forces to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus—a deadly disease that steals the lives of nearly 31,000 innocent babies and a significant number of women each year.

Visit their websites to learn more When you join March for Babies you stand with thousands of people across the country who share your commitment to building a brighter future for us all.

March with us to lead the fight for the health of all moms and babies.

about how you can help the cause More than 10 million kids enter a children’s hospital like Children's Health across North America every year. Since 1983, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals has helped fill those funding gaps by raising more than $5 billion.

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Thirst Project is a nonprofit organization that works with the support of young people to END the global water crisis by building freshwater wells in developing communities that need safe, clean drinking water.

Why Water? Waterborne diseases kill more children every single year than HIV, Malaria, and all world violence combined. Small children typically do not have strong enough immune systems to fight diseases like cholera, dysentery, or schistosomiasis.

SERVICE PROJECT PROMOTION

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2019 2020

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DISTRICT OFFICERS

DISTRICT GOVERNOR Ashna Patel governor@tokeyclub.com

SECRETARY Kareena Patel secretary@tokeyclub.com

TREASURER Katherine Chao treasurer@tokeyclub.com

EDITOR Vivian Thai editor@tokeyclub.com

LTG DIVISION 2S Katherine Bui ltg2S@tokeyclub.com

CONVENTION LIAISON Dillion Grisham cl@tokeyclub.com

TECH PRODUCER Lacey Thomas techassistant@tokeyclub.com

REGION 9 ADVISOR Connor Rubrecht region9@tokeyclub.com

DISTRICT ADMINISTRATOR Kenyon Black administrator@tokeyclub.com

ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR Ryan Edmoundson AAFinance@tokeyclub.com

ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR Kelly Poland AAEvents@tokeyclub.com

2019 2020

CLUB OFFICERS

PRESIDENT Tiffany Doan tiffanydoan12@gmail.com

VICE PRESIDENT Alina Dam alinalandam@gmail.com

SECRETARY Tisha Gautam tishagautam@gmail.com

TREASURER Albert Yang yangralbert@gmail.com

EDITOR Katelyn Tran katelyntran818@gmail.com

HISTORIAN Nallely Maciel Nallelymaciel75@gmail.com

WEBMASTER Jake Wendling

CLUB ADVISOR Morgan Shaeffer mshaeffer@garlandisd.net

wendljac000@students.garlandisd.net

We love service a "LATTE"

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SU TCATNOC 22

@garlandhskeyclub

garlandhskeyclub@gmail.com

issuu.com/garlandhskeyclub

garlandhskeyclub.com

Google Classroom Code: 6p2bcm

@garlandkeyclub

Text @garlandkey to 81010

CARING our way of life.