Hey Guys!
Feel free to leave any feedback you have about the spring rally!
There are also some specific things that we'd like to collect feedback on for future spirit commissioners:
-This rally had no video and no "plot", did this make the rally better or worse, did you notice that this change had been made?
-This rally was so crammed that we were forced to cut rally games to end on time. Considering how hyped people get about the rally games, would it be worth trying to shorten other aspects of the rally (for example reducing the time it takes for sports teams to be recognized) in order to fit in more games?
Thanks <3
spirit
I think having no plot was fine because in the end, people only care about the dances and who wins. The only rally that might need a plot is homecoming because of the football game. I also think the games this time were much more creative and the crowd seemed to like them more.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, great job Spirit on putting up a great Last Rally! I agree with Alison because although people thought the plot was interesting, it isn't a necessity and rallies can easily be a success without them. I honestly didn't feel too much of a difference without the plot. I do think that you could cut down time for sports teams recognition and add another rally game since that keeps the crowd more involved! It was great that there were a new set of games that were introduced in this rally. The game with the tights on your head really got the crowd into it!
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ReplyDeleteProps to Spirit for holding such a great Last Rally!! I agree with Amrit and Alison in terms of the plot not really being as important. Personally I feel that it is so hard to hear what you guys are saying during the rally because everyone is so loud, with a plot it would get even more confusing to follow along. In addition, I didn't really notice that there wasn't a video. I really enjoyed the games this time and they were much more unique and creative which the crowd seemed to like!
ReplyDeleteI think not having a video is completely fine. In the end, the video does not really have any significant impact on the rally, and it doesn't really seem like people remember them anyways. Personally, I don't think the "results" (for lack of better word) of a video are worth the amount of effort put into them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think there should definitely be changes made to the recognition of sports. Although I'm not against it, I just currently feel like the whole thing is kind of dull and lackluster. For example, I think during volleyball only one person came out and it just really didn't make sense to me.
Agreed with the comments about sports above, I think we either need to make them do a run-through to ensure that it's an actual performance rather than wasting time (ex: swimming or water polo year after year).
ReplyDeleteI actually felt that the games took too long time to set-up, especially the games that needed 6 people from each class. For example, the stacking game had a few minutes of just gathering people and trying to calm the crowds.
I think this rally had a really great, unique theme and the decs were most definitely quality>quantity. Being allowed in the gym at 3:30 helped the classes have more time to create decs without worrying about moving them back and forth and contributed to a more relaxed, enjoyable atmosphere.
Also, I would suggest trying to prevent the Senior class from running in for future years. Clearly, the entire Senior Class lacked enthusiasm about the entire situation (the second half of the class basically walked in) and contributed to a lack of time towards the end of the rally. Additionally, a girl got trampled over which would be a danger hazard.
Those were my thoughts!! It was a great final rally to end off the year :)
As many people said, I didn't think the lack of plot to the video made much of a difference-in fact, if it did, it made it easier to follow along because people tend to have very short attention spans during the rally and all they care about is getting hyped, not watching the video/hearing the story.
ReplyDeleteI think there's a lot of potential with the games you guys chose (for example the tights game was really cool), but I didn't think the stacking game was very inclusive of everyone because it was hard for the entire class to get up and try to participate. Usually the games are more important than the sports teams recognition so I agree with the comment that we should try to organize the sports teams recognition better. Like Michael said, no one really understood the point of the volleyball team recognition (one person came out?)
Overall, this was a great last rally and I LOVED the decs that all the classes made (also the dances!!) For some reason though I noticed that we weren't as loud as we were at previous rallies, so maybe in the future try to do some activities that get people more hyped up.
Hello! I really enjoyed the last (:() rally of the year. I actually did notice that there wasn't a plot, mainly because I think all the rallies from the past 3 years had a video (I'm not positive about this) so I was surprised when there wasn't a script to follow along to. However, I don't think it actually influenced the success of the rally. I agree with Diya that sometimes the script is hard to hear and when this happens people are whispering to each other to figure out what you just said and then they can't hear the next line. Personally, I felt that there were times where the hype was decreased and people weren't screaming, which might be related to the unstructured script but I'm not sure. I thought the game was really unique and I don't think people noticed that there weren't as many games as past rallies.
ReplyDelete1) I REALLY LOVED THE GAMES. ALL OF THEM. Way to get creative! Since these were all new games, it might've been good to have an image of some sort to project up on the screen? I know this suggestion is brought up often, but it doesn't seem like the valks/cheer teams ever get close enough to the far end of the gym where Tech is that you couldn't leave that down for future rallies.
ReplyDelete2) I LOVED THE THEME! Just felt like it brought a lot of vibrancy and color to the gym. Maybe if some of the decorations could have been arranged on the top of the quad during international day, the day would have felt more cohesive?
3) This is a question I think we need to tackle more fully—how do we increase participation in spirit days? I would advise spirit to think a bit about how we can fundamentally rethink how we can make students really WANT to participate in spirit days. Create incentives? Make it a competition? Give out really freaking awesome rewards? I remember hearing that spirit day participation would count towards class rankings this time around—what happened to that idea? I just think that it's easy to dismiss Lynbrook as a low spirited school and thus scrape by thinking that 50 students participating is "good enough," when we could really be killing it with spirit day participation.
4) In response to your questions—I did notice the lack of a plot (and video lol) but I don't know if it significantly impacted the quality of the rally. I do think that more rehearsal would have helped make everything more smooth and professional!
5) We should create a competition for sports teams to incentivize them to make their moment in the middle of the gym more creative/entertaining. The recognition is not just for the sports teams to enjoy themselves, it's also to engage the school. What if the entire school voted on "most entertaining sports team" from the rally and that entire sports team got free pizza on the day of their senior night? or next game? That might even get different sports teams to "campaign" for other students to vote for them. Just some ideas!
6) In the future, Spirit should communicate farther in advance with the class presidents and class choreographers about logistics for the class dances (when rehearsal time is, when we need the audio by, what type of lighting they want during their dance, etc.) I would also recommend somehow announcing to the school who choreographed each dance.
7) Some last thoughts for consideration: maybe we should rethink what is "necessary" to have at a rally? Is it necessary that we sing the alma mater at every rally? Is it necessary that we start off with four class shoutouts rather than interweaving them throughout? Is it necessary that we have sports team recognition? (I know that Fremont has some rallies that are PURE games/class competition and others that recognize groups on campus). I'm not asking these questions to imply that these all AREN'T necessary, but I think we should question these longstanding premises and check to make sure they're still relevant to our student body so that the 35 or so minutes that we have almost the entire school gathered together can be most well spent.
I honestly did not notice that the rally did not have a plot, and as Alison said, I don't think it matters too much unless it is homecoming. As for the games aspect, I do think that sports take up a good chunk of time, but I think it is good we are recognizing them, so maybe just cutting the time by a couple of seconds to allow maybe one more game to be played. Also the games that we played this time were so much fun overall!! I really liked all of them and got everyone hyped, and they didn't have to do with strength so it was pretty fair. Great job Spirit!!I going to miss this team next year :(
ReplyDeleteHey, I didn't notice that the rally didn't have a plot, but I think having a plot would actually be better. It allows for easier transitions into games and class dances in my personal opinion. Also, I feel like you should try to increase the amount of participants per game to around 10. For example, you can conduct the balloon popping game and you could easily have at leas 5-6 people per class playing. I think it brings about more hype. Overall, I enjoyed the rally!
ReplyDeleteHello! Here are my thoughts on the spirit week + rally:
ReplyDelete- Though I didn't notice that there was no script, it definitely felt a little weird at the beginning of the rally; I think because there wasn't that normal structure of dimming the lights --> playing the video --> bringing the lights on and everyone getting hyped, the rally never really "started" for me? It's weird to describe, and may double with the fact that seniors were still lining up in their seats while the valks started performing, but the beginning just felt a little loose. I would suggest in the future to maybe still have the video? While the general rally wasn't affected with no script, I think the beginning was with no vid
- I liked the new games! Internally I had no idea what the strategy was to win the head-band game (the physics equations and tension diagrams were running through my head), but I think it was just really fun to watch (you guys couldn't have picked a better song to be played while the game was going on LOL). The stacking game rules should have been clarified a little bit, but was still fun to see people go nuts on. It's a shame we didn't get to see the last two games but I'm sure they would have been just as cool :) S/O to Yannick for bringing it home for the sophomores - that was hilarious haha
- I might have mentioned this in our CADA debrief, but I totally agree with Will in the idea that we should really start looking at sports cheers and what they mean at rallies. They have an opportunity to be engaging and funny, but I'm not sure it's necessarily more than another class competition / game. In the end a lot of sports end up doing derivatives of previous years / cheers, which might get repetitive over time. Also wtf was volleyball LOOOL
- Not sure if this is for Tech or Spirit, but I'd say we should look at some sort of lighting plan before the rally? The lights were on during all the performances - they might have been a little more hype of lights were dimmed (that way the focus is on them?). Huge thank you to tech for accommodating dimmed lights for the senior performance so last minute!
- I liked the spirit days - agreed with Will that I think we need more incentive to get the general student body to participate! I liked how you went from easier --> harder throughout the week (one color day --> cultural day). One possibility is maybe to make it part of the rally scoring? Maybe each day during brunch, all the classes line up and judges can count the number of people that have participated within each class. That might get a lot more people to dress up!
- While you're doing VIP Vikings, I would suggest maybe projecting an image / names of the recipients? Can be hard to hear / see each class sometimes!
I didn't notice that there wasn't a video until later, because I had been filmed in one of the parts.. Personally, I didn't think it made a difference, because sometimes it's hard to understand the point of the video with everyone cheering. I do like the idea of having the spirit commission on live video as they walk through the doors. it's also a good way to cue the class to cheer, but in my opinion, it's not a big must for a rally.
ReplyDeleteFor the games during the rally, I think shortening the games a tad bit would be a good idea. At the same time, it gave classes a chance to go full out during the limited amount of games and make sure they cheer their hardest. I also think it's a good idea to have one class game, where the grade has to work together (like the string shape game we had last time). Overall, the games were hilarious and the last rally was a blast! Great job!
I loved how you guys were super creative with the games at this rally! It was definitely really entertaining to watch (and I'm sure to participate in). I think that in the future if you want to have more time for games, you could maybe rehearse the entire rally with the sports teams, performances, etc. I think someone above mentioned this but possibly not letting the seniors run into the gym? because it took up a lot of time since near the end, the seniors just walked in and didn't look too enthusiastic.
ReplyDeleteI really really liked the themes! It was very unique and the decorations from each class were amazing. I think for the rally, you could have started promo for it (plus promo for spirit week) a bit sooner. I think you guys could have done some really cute campus promo for the rally a week before the spirit days started so that more people are aware that rally/ spirit days are coming.
Otherwise, good job!!
Great job on the last rally, Spirit :)
ReplyDeleteI think a big part of the rally this time was not about having a plot, but the hype (or should I say the lack off.) I honestly didn't really feel it from the general crowd despite feeling it from performers and teams. I think this is probably out of your guy's control but it kind of sucks to see the spirit from the classes die down at the end :(
Despite not having a rally video, I still feel like there should be a rally video to hype the crowd up. I would also advise having the rally video done a week before hand as there were a lot of unfortunate circumstances that showed up during filming and thus contributing to the absence of a rally video.
The games were wonderful! I loved all of them but some of them just took too long to gather players and commence the actual game session. Despite the somewhat unusual ranking among the classes, it was a good effort on your guy's part for trying something new.
Having the gym open early was definitely helpful for everyone and especially tech, we weren't super rushed and that helped ensure we didn't miss anything important during setup.
Lastly, THANK YOU FOR GIVING TECH THE SHOUTOUT <3 In times where we feel overworked, it is the small actions like this that truly make us feel special and appreciated. Thank you so much for making our day, Spirit :)
I agree with everyone's comments. I honestly thought that I just missed the video in the beginning or I just completely forgot that there normally is a rally intro video.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Lilian. I thought it was a waste of rally time for the seniors to run in. It wasn't really that "hype" and everyone was kind of just like "uh..". Also, would you be able to introduce some of the sports at an earlier rally? (or is that not possible) I think in the future, a game that includes the entire class like the sing along should be included.
I also noticed that the attendance was significantly less than previous rallies. Do you know why? Is it because of AP testing week coming up?
I also agree with just about everyone else that it was still great without a plot as the crowd usually doesn't have much patience for it/isn't able to hear or see well enough to fully understand the plot... I really liked the new games (especially the stocking one!!) and I think the crowd was really pleasantly surprised by them as well. The spirit days were also new and fun, and I liked that they were pretty easy to participate in!!! I also agree that sports teams should get their performances checked beforehand to make sure they're actually legit and perhaps give them a stricter time limit? It felt like it kept dragging on aha. Overall this rally went really smoothly and was a ton of fun though!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat job with the rally! It was super fun and hyped up! One thing I remember my friends mentioning is that people didn't really like the theme. They didn't think was as exciting as last year's Avatar. They also thought that keeping the lights on for the whole rally made it less intense.
ReplyDeleteHaving new games was super awesome, though! Since we didn't have the before, I think people liked the variety and novelty. I know the third one couldn't be fit in because the athletes took a long time, but I also feel like we shouldn't cut them off. Even if a stricter time limit is reinforced, it wouldn't make much of a difference. It always takes time to gather people and it would be awkward to get them off the floor when the times up and they're all still huddled.
Again, the rally was fantastic and I really enjoyed it! Awesome work, Spirit!
No plot seemed to be fine. Most people go to rallies for the hype and not so much for storyline, so as long as the energy of the rally is kept up, no one seems to mind. I heard some complaints about the order of the rally, mainly that people missed the Valks performance because it was so early in the rally.
ReplyDeleteLastly, I know you spirit commissioners may have heard salty seniors blaming the organization of the rally for the rank outcome, but know that it's 100% not your fault. 2017 as a class is weary from an unexpectedly tough college application process, not to mention we're in the peak of AP season, and a good chunk of the class didn't even show up to the rally. It's understandable that the ranks were the way they were. Please don't take any of the angry comments personally, as I know you all worked super hard to make this rally happen :)
Chelsea
Personally, I didn't even notice that there was no plot/video. I definitely agree that with no plot, the rally was a lot easier to follow along with since its usually hard to hear what you guys say during a rally.
ReplyDeleteFor recognizing sports teams, maybe we can consider letting teams who want to be recognized at rallies voluntarily sign up? I know we wouldn't be recognizing every sports team, but obviously some don't care about the recognition(volleyball and potentially others)so when they are called out and essentially don't do anything, it takes up time in the already short time frame for the rally and in my opinion, lowers the quality of the rally.
I definitely agree that there should be some reconsideration on letting seniors "run" in. 1) I think it did the opposite of what it was supposed to do(hype), since many seniors were just walking in, 2)took up time in the rally, 3)safety hazard.
In terms of time usually running out during the rally, maybe we can look into cutting out some things(besides games haha). We can think about what gives the most impact for the time it takes. Also, for example, I don't think both Valks and Cheer have to perform at every rally. Maybe they can interchange every other rally or something.
From the perspective of a class officer, I thought the rally was good! The new games were a lot better than previous games- I really appreciated that you guys tried new things this time.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem for me about this rally were the sports teams. Lets be honest, nobody actually cares that much about the teams during the rallies. Maybe just have them all come out at the same time, and shoutout them out individually as they come on stage? It's just kind of dull to watch.
Great job though, guys :)
I agree with everyone else on here that the lack of a plot was fairly inconsequential to the overall quality of this rally. I think that as far as what David said about the sports teams, that is something that needs to be discussed with all of the athletic teams at the beginning of next school year. Traditionally, pep rallies are for recognizing sports teams. I am all for making it about the class competitions, but realistically that is impossible. Rather a compromise between all parties needs to be found. :)
DeleteSpring rally was great, and I think that the spirit commissioners did a great job, even without the video. The new games were a lot more creative (I never saw them done before, like wow). Overall, just switch the timing until after AP testing, because everyone seemed a little dead during the rally, with so many things going on.
ReplyDelete