I was a part of the global Odyssey event which was organized by BM & Eco students and teachers. This event was held to give us students an exposure to witness how a business works in real life. We had a range of stall categories to choose from. I along with my friend chose the fashion category, and for the same we decided to sell stuff ranging from aesthetic stationery like stress balls, chocolate notebooks & funky highlighters to a ton of cosmetics including tinted lip balms, tinsel hair, bracelets and more. 

In order to execute this event, it was majorly led by students with a few volunteering for the stall whereas others were put into decor, social media and accounts management. This event helped me improve my team management and communication skills as this event required us as a team to work on our stall from planning, to costing, to the arrangement and buying of products. This event required us to be great communicators and marketers in order to attract customers to buy our products. We had a wide range of audience from students of Grade 7 to Grade 12, along with teachers so we planned to prepare accordingly.

This event catered the creativity aspect of CAS because this event bought out our creative sides. Everybody organized their stall and came up with their own unique names for their stall, apart from that, this event required creativity in each sector of the event, whether it be stall arrangement, products, games or even decor. The whole event was innovative in order to make it more engaging and successful.

This event catered the following LOs

LO 1 : Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

I am very intrigued by exhibitions and events and I love to participate in the same. Creativity was a part of my strength and as I am very fond of fashion stuff I used it as my strength to identify creative products to sell that have higher demand so that more customers are attracted to our stall and we make productive use of it. However, initially we weren’t able to sell as many products as we expected, thus we improvised on our marketing strategies and the pricing deals and then eventually we were able to sell multiple products at great prices which benefited both the parties (consumers and sellers).

LO 2 : Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

The most challenging part of this event was taking a risk by investing a good amount of money to buy products to further sell in the event. Business works on the idea of investing some amount of money and then being able to hit the break even point where the invested money is returned and then profit is earned which mutually benefits all the people involved in the business. In the same manner, we took a risk by investing money based on a hypothetical assumption of what our customers would buy from us so that we could also earn a profit. But after the event ended, we were quite happy with the outcome, even though some of our products were left, we were still able to hit the break even point and earn a good profit.

LO 3 : Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

In order to reach a good outcome a lot of effort and planning was involved. The process took nearly a month, from choosing an ideal amount of per person investment, research and choosing the most exclusive and demanding products, exploring different stories to get products at reasonable prices, organizing and costing our products and finally marketing and selling our products. This whole process required a significant amount of time and dedication, but it also helped us learn new business concepts and helped us develop various skills like time management, teamwork, communication and social skills.

LO 5 : Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

As this was a student-led event, it was a collective effort of organizing the complete event from decorating to managing stalls to the final execution of the event. This event helped me coordinate with my team members better, we distributed and balanced our work accordingly and had great fun too. Ultimately, all the students´ contributed effort made this event successful.

LO 7 : Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Ethics was the most important aspect of the business. We followed business ethics by being fair, reasonable and non – biased towards all the consumers. Other than that we made sure that our products were of good quality and were sold for the fairest prices and lastly our school collected 5% of our revenue in order to donate to an NGO for a good cause.

I developed the learner profile attributes, knowledgeable by using conceptual understanding of business, and accordingly applied it while selling items to the customers.

Thinker; making use of critical and creative thinking skills to analyze and take responsible action on our products and sales, as well as exercising initiative in making reasoned, ethical decisions to make a profit. 

Lastly, Being principled by showing integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and justice, and with respect for the dignity and rights of people everywhere.

Overall, the event was a great success, we made ethical choices and decisions for our business in order to earn profit. I personally learnt a lot of new concepts and understood the functioning of a business. This event was a fun and engaging experience which helped me personally grow in a new direction.