Rally spreads holiday spirit

December 15, 2016 — by Neil Rao and Roland Shen

Students talk about the most recent rally on December 9, 2016. 

Decked out in reindeer antlers and Santa hats, the rally commissioners danced in delight to “Jingle Bell Rock” throughout the gym last Friday. Suddenly, the speakers stuttered — sputtering the words “fro-fro-frosty air” — and stopped playing. Students looked around in confusion, unaware of why the music was suddenly cut.

But as head rally commissioner senior Nolan Chao ran around the gym, holding a sign encouraging the audience to sing, students understood the “Mean Girls” film reference and sang along to the rest of the song.

The  holiday rally was filled with singing, playing games and spreading holiday cheer — but one that was marred by technical issues.

“I think we should have started preparing earlier because we didn’t know our mics weren’t working until the actual performance,” rally commissioner junior Allison Borch said. “We should have definitely practiced more and used our time more wisely.”

Problems sprung up during the rally, including broken microphones and props. Additionally, both the script and games ran short.

“This rally wasn’t our best one, and I’m a little disappointed about how it went,” head rally commissioner senior Emma Kovac said.

For this rally, the commission reached out to other students for new game ideas, but not everything went as planned.

“We were tired of using the same game ideas over and over,” Turpin said. “We took ideas from other students and used them, but I feel like we did not put them to their fullest potential.”

For example, the commissioners took a suggestion from senior Tristan Bush to incorporate a bungee cord in a game of tug of war. However, during the game, the cord snapped, ending the game early.

Despite these setbacks, the commission completed their third rally of the semester.

“People really liked our dance in the beginning because it was just really funny,” Kovac said. “Even though some of the games didn’t work as well as intended, they were still entertaining to watch.”

 

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