By Eileen Luo and Robert Sun
Edited by Cynthia Chen, Lillian Zhou, Rachel Wang, Julie Yang
CAPA-MC continues to serve its community, providing a variety of workshops and seminars. However, no event held by CAPA-MC would ever run so smoothly without the work of many hardworking adults and students behind the scenes. This year, CAPA-MC decided to acknowledge some of the contributions from these hardworking people. What started off as a modest proposal by former President and CAPA-JRC mentor Julie Yang quickly caught the attention of CAPA-MC’s other clubs. Their ideas transformed into what is now known as the CAPA-MC Fall Showcase. Preparations for the showcase, which involved everything from interviewing club members to planning event logistics, started in late February, and continued up until up to and through the very day of the showcase. The thorough and extensive planning paid off, as the final product was an admirable spectacle to watch.
Introduction
The showcase took place on September 28, 2019, in the Cultural Art Center at the Ingleside of King Farm. The time of the showcase was 7:30 pm to 9 pm, but club members, determined to put on a strong show, began trickling in at around 7:00 pm.
Before the showcase began, former CAPA MC president Julie Yang conducted group leadership training games to help the different clubs bond. By hosting these activities, Mrs. Yang strived to stress the importance of group cohesion and hopefully expand each club member’s social network among the independently working CAPA student clubs. In her speech to the assembled clubs, Mrs. Yang reminded the students that “You may all be doing your different things, but you’re still under the big umbrella of CAPA-MC.” She hoped that the students could spend some valuable time to get to know each other and meet all the students that are part of the CAPA-MC family.
Post-its
After a short icebreaker from each student, Mrs. Yang introduced the first activity. Students were to find someone who shared a similar hobby and stick a post-it with their name on the other’s back. Many found enjoyment in realizing that people they hardly knew previously shared the same interests. At the end of the game, Mrs. Yang revealed that she wanted the students to expand their friend groups by encouraging them to find kindred spirits.
Please-Yes
In the next activity, the students were to exchange seats by saying “please” and responding “yes”. The instructions seemed fairly simple, but the students soon found that they were switching seats immediately after saying “please”, instead of doing so after they had finished their conversation. Expecting this, Mrs. Yang explained that the purpose of the game was to show that while some tasks may seem easy to accomplish on the surface-level, they may actually be a difficult task to carry out.
Rock Paper Scissors
Next, there was a rock-paper-scissors tournament, in which the person(s) who lost would become the cheerleader(s) of the victor. The students eventually converged into two teams, each of whom cheered on their own champion as the two battled each other in the final showdown. Despite the competitive nature of this game, the students learned about the importance of supporting others through cheering people on.
1 2 3
The final icebreaker activity was a coordination game. The students, who were gathered in pairs, were to alternate turns and say the numbers 1, 2, and 3 in consecutive order. If a pair messed up, they would need to high-five and restart. With each new requirement, the task seemed to be a bit more daunting. As it turned out, the tasks were still easy to accomplish. At the end of this activity, Mrs.Yang congratulated everyone and said that, although some tasks may seem complicated, they may be easier in execution. Thus, one should not be afraid of taking risks and following up on opportunities.
The Fall Showcase
After this amicable bonding session, the Fall Showcase began. Following a few short remarks from Ting Mei-Chau, President of CAPA MC, the four student clubs of CAPA-MC each took a turn on the stage, in which they introduced their respective clubs and featured some of their most memorable moments and accomplishments.
The first group to present was the CAPA ITeach Club. They primarily help seniors with problems regarding technology, but also teach them English to assist them in their daily tasks.
The CAPA Service Club presented next. They arrive at CAPA events early in order to help out with various tasks, then stay at the end of these events to help clean up. Their work allows event organizers to be efficient and helps distribute the workload among many more people– without them, the execution of these events would have taken so much longer and been much more laborious.
The Chinese American Parent Student Association, also known as CAPSA, is a tutoring service primarily featuring Chinese American tutors that help out immigrant students who speak English as a second language. CAPA-MC recently took over the organization and management of the group. As shown in their video, CAPSA provides tutoring services every Saturday at Robert Frost Middle School. Besides academic help, they help tutees integrate into an otherwise confusing environment and promote cross-cultural understanding in Montgomery County.
CAPA JRC, (Chinese American Parents Association Junior Reporter Club,) also shared a video, featuring JRC members speaking about their experiences with and hopes regarding the future of the club. The JRC is a reporting club which primarily covers CAPA events, but on occasion will report on other events as well. The JRC is split into three teams: the Youtube team, (which creates videos of events that the JRC covers,) the photography team, (which takes photos of events,) and the reporting team, (which writes articles and then translates them into Chinese so that they are accessible to a wider audience.) The contributions of all three teams and of all the JRC’s members are invaluable. For instance, the video presented at the showcase was the work of the Youtube team, and the numerous articles published by CAPA JRC would not have been possible without the support of everyone in the club. In addition to the video, there were posters posted outside of the Cultural Art Center displaying introductions of each member, the team(s) that they are involved in, and their personal photos.
Conclusion
Afterwards, Ting Mei-Chau, President of CAPA MC, gave a short speech thanking the clubs for their presentations. Among those she acknowledged was Dr. Alan Cheung, sponsor of the Dr. Alan Cheung Community Leadership Scholarship program, for hosting everyone. Without his support and dedication to spreading awareness of the Asian American community, CAPA MC would never have reached the heights that it is at today.
Prior to the showcase, CAPA JRC Supervisor Julie Yang conducted a series of bonding activities with members of all the clubs presenting at the event (Fengkai Zhang).
This article was provided by Chinese American Parents Association Junior Reporter Club (CAPA JRC) with members who interviewed, audio recorded, wrote, translated, and video recorded. CAPA JRC has 19 Montgomery County middle to high school students. They have created a bilingual platform delivering news and serving the community.
Instagram: @capa_jrc
Blog: https://capajrc.org
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