Council Updates

Hi Everyone,

Here's the councils' first update to keep you all abreast of stuff. As all of you would know, the first term has been a flurry of activity, events, and school work. So pardon us for the tardy update. But I can assure you we are working hard to try and make this school a second home for all of us, something that we can be proud of.

Here are some of the projects we are working on:

Wireless Internet Access
The lack of legitimate wireless internet access has left many students annoyed and flustered, especially with such a large proportion of students using laptops, but the school does have its reasons for restricting access.

1. A lot of the school's bandwidth is being used up by students, leaving the networks very sluggish and slow, especially when some errant students abuse the netwwork by downloading large files.

2. Some students have been accessing distracting sites during lessons, leading to class disruption and annoyance for teachers.

3. Some students have not been using the internet for the best of reasons.

However, we do know that the mistakes of a few students should not penalise the rest of the Senior School population, who genuinely need the wireless access to do their work and access the vast amount of resources that is so vital to coursework. Therefore, we have written a proposal to Mr Bennett, to ask for wireless internet access, on the basis of responsible usage by students. We have proposed that everyone will be given an individual account with which to access the network. That also means that any abuse of the network will be logged, and the offending student will have to be responsible for his actions.

On the bright side, it is very possible everyone will have access to the network, just that responsibility is the key to ensuring continued access for everyone.

So please be patient, we're working on it as much as we can, because we too know how frustrating not having wireless access can be. (:

Fireside Chats
1 done, and an upcoming one with Dr Stephen Riady coming up tomorrow, please be there! The first Fireside chat was an enlightening and engaging one with Mr Tan Tee How, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of National Development. From the chatter so far, it seems everyone has taken away something important from the first Fireside chat. The upcoming one with Mr Riady will be a Chat I'm sure all students can benefit from, especially economics students, seeing as how his business is still fluorishing in this economic climate. On the other side, Mr Riady's well-known philantrophy echoes the Lasallian values we so often hear in school; of sensitivity the the last, the lost, and the least in our community. Please continue to support the Chats!

Founder's Day Dinner
We're organising a dinner to celebrate Founder's Day, the dinner will include cultural and band performances, as well as a speech by our Guest-of-Honour Prof Tan Chorh Chuan, President of the National University of Singapore. We will also be investing the Senior Council of 2009. It is going to be a night for the senior school to come together and celebrate our Lasallian heritage, and we are working hard to make sure it is so.

Subway Deliveries
We know of the dissatisfaction with the canteen's food, so we thought we'd continue this project from last year to allievate some of the gastronomic stress, and also to add a sense of vibrancy to the community, something to look forward to! We hope you guys have been enjoying it, so do please feedback to us, or specifically Wei Jin if you have been enjoying the Subways. Judging from the response, it has been something we all look forward to! Please do thank Wei Jin with a big hug (Wei Jin likes hugs rmb! :D) if you appreciate the Subways as he's the one responsible for making sure we all get our Subways.

Movie Night
The organisation of the Movie Night was made possible by none other than our Social Secretary David Menon. The night was a relaxing one in the midst of the sea of work we had. I'm sure everyone enjoyed the screening of the Godfather with the plentiful popcorn and hotdogs that were available. The next Movie Night will be held next term, and this time you guys will have to bring your own food, but we won't be charging $2 like we did at all.

X-Campus Run
See below for more details!

Night Study for Grade 12s
We Senior School-ers are a REALLY hardworking lot (what with some of the torture devices the teachers employ like IAs :D), so Thiru and Savy have been at 1t1 every night to ensure that Grade 12s have a conducive atmosphere to study (trust me, having friends to share in your loneliness amidst the avanlanche of work is helpful!) It's slowly developing into a very warm and cosy group (:

Notice Board
If you guys noticed, the notice boards on the second floor foyer had been taken over by us (Mrs Teo gracefully gave us the notice board on the left, thank you!), and has been overtaken by a whole array of notices!
IMPT: Every student CAN post a notice on the student notices section, to put up Lost & Found Notices, Surveys, and to bring attention to important school or world issues. Remember, it is for everyone to see, so please observe decorum (:

So these are the updates thus far.

Do drop us any feedback at sjiiseniorcouncil@gmail.com

Best of luck for the rest of the term everyone!

Ora et Labora,

Ian Chai
President
SJII Senior Council