Character Trait: Responsibility

I define responsibility as the personal initiative that one takes to successfully complete the task

that was assigned to that individual.

For the past few years that I have been in Manara, I have witnessed an amazing trait of this

school. Every day as I played in the gym, I saw students trying to master games that they had a

chance to participate in. As a person who loves to be involved in sports, I decided to come up

with an event that will allow students to play together and show their skills in front of everyone.

At the beginning of this year, I took the initiative to host a volleyball tournament at our campus.

I reached out to a few teachers who were willing to sponsor this initiative, and with Mr.

Crawley’s help, we were approved to organize this tournament on the last day of our first

semester. This meant that now I had to take care of all the logistics and make sure the event ran

smoothly. I made sure everything was organized and did my best to organize this event. Here’s a

list of a few tasks that I completed:

The first task was to have teams register. In the last two weeks of school, I created registration

forms and sent it out to the students asking them to register their team. The response was very

slow, in fact there were only two teams signed up four days before the game. To increase this

turnout, I campaigned with the help of my peers and had about eight teams register for the

tournament. On the tournament day, about fifty students participated in teams to play their first

volleyball tournament. Although the task might seem easy, it was filled with complexities. Every

now and then, I had students come up complaining about how unfair their team was, how they

wanted to change teams, they did not like their captain, etc. I had to take care of all their

concerns as the organizer.

With the teams registered, I then created fixtures for the tournament. I created an account on a

scheduling website and had to tabulate all the team names and logistics to organize the

tournament. I then printed out schedules and handed them to captains and teachers. Also, we had

to prepare another list for teachers informing them about the students who would be playing in

the tournament. I also constantly updated the scores online so that every team knew their

standings in the tournament.

Collecting the fees for the tournament was another challenge. Despite all our announcements,

many of the participants turned in their money late. On the tournament day, I would have

students randomly walk up to me, saying, “Here’s my money from X team.” I had to keep track

of all these and made sure that everyone paid their dues before playing the game.

As the organizer, I refereed almost all the games of the tournament. I was inside the gym from

morning until afternoon monitoring the games, and we were following our schedules. Mr.

Crawley also helped: he was with me too inside the gym and also helped me referee during the

matches. A few of my peers volunteered too: one student made sure that all the teams were

present during the game, many refereed when I was not there, and someone helped out to score

the games. At the end of the league, we also had a fundraiser, where I collected money before the

games.

As I reflect on how I organized the tournament, I realize how beneficial it has been for me. As

someone who wants to run his own business, I believe this tournament gave me a glimpse of how

much the owners must struggle and establish a successful company. It involves managing

employees, deciding their payrolls, distributing the proper task etc. All these tasks require an

individual to be responsible.