18 June 2009

School War: IPC Students vs. Staff Sports Competition

By Shirley Ghozalli and James Buchanan. Edited by Moira Blake.

The organizing team (From left: Ayaka Fujita, lecturer James Buchanan, Naoki Itatoko, Hajime Yoshida and Shohei Fukata; Kazuki Otani in front)

Supporters cheering on their players

As part of their program, a group of five students from the Sports Event Management class organized and ran the "School War: Students vs. Staff Sports Competition" on Friday, 12th June at IPC Campus. They were Kazuki Otani, Naoki Itatoko, Shohei Fukata, Hajime Yoshida (all 2006 students), and Ayaka Fujita (an IPU exchange student).

The sports played in the competition were badminton and volleyball. A pizza lunch in between the games was also part of the event. Participants and their supporters crowded the floor of the gymnasium in the recreation centre building.

Before each game started, the organizers called all the participants together and explained how the game should be played and how points would be gained. The explanation, with accompanying diagrams and pictures was very informative for the new players as well as refreshing for those who were already familiar with the rules.

The students and the staff members were divided into pairs for the badminton games and teams of 8-9 players for the volleyball games. Through tough but fast sets, a student team won the badminton and the students' team also won the volleyball match.

Badminton games

Volleyball game

When asked where the 'School War' title came from, the event leader Kazuki Otani said that it came from a Japanese movie about a high school rugby club. "I chose this name for our event because "Students vs. Staff" sounds like a war in a school. It is also because we wanted to make an impact on people and wanted to make it catchy."

"It was awesome and a good fun. We all enjoyed organizing this because the participants seemed to be having fun and enjoying the games. But it had been quite tough for us to organize and manage this event until the event day," Kazuki commented. "(We learnt that) communication is the most important thing (when you want) to organize anything."

Their lecturer, James Buchanan, reported:

The name of the class is Sport Event Management and its aim is to give students a broad understanding of business strategies and organisational skills required to manage a successful sports event. Recognising the ability in this class we decided to take this a step further by actually planning and carrying out a real event here at IPC.

The purpose of the event was decided first, which was to create an environment where students and staff could play sport, have fun and meet some new people. We believe we achieved this. The pizza lunch was very important as the organising committee ensured staff and students mingled while eating and of course speaking in English.

The students started preparing for the event from about the end of week three once we realised there was an opportunity to organise a staff vs student contest during break week. From here the students became an organising committee and class time became committee meetings. Students were each responsible for an individual area on the following basis. Kazuki and Ayaka were responsible for marketing and recruitment, Naoki and Hajime sponsorship and finance, and Shohei was responsible for managing competitions and physical resources.

On the day all committee members were officials and Kazuki acted as MC and Event leader.

The students put in a great amount of effort to make this event a success, including, writing sponsorship proposals and carrying out sponsorship presentations, raising money door to door at IPC, delivering presentations to staff, negotiating discounts with suppliers, and organising all the equipment required for the event.

The event was completely student led and I thought it was very successful as all participants enjoyed themselves.

At the end of the event I heard someone comment "What a great way to spend the last day of break week" and I couldn't agree more.

Well done Kazuki, Hajime, Shohei, Naoki and Ayaka!

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