Wow, the 2013-2014 school year has gone by fast! It seems like just yesterday I was writing an article for The Emerald introducing myself. Now, with the year nearly over I think it’s a good time to reflect on student council’s successes and some of our unfulfilled promises.

I am most proud of the escalated school spirit this past year. It was definitely SBO’s main priority to get people excited about sports games and other school events. Using technology like Schoology and Instagram, we were able to communicate game times and events easily and effectively. This allowed us to do fun promos like “game of the week.” We also came up with promotional incentive ideas that eventually came to be known as “Irish Points.” Irish points encouraged people to go to games and rewarded those who showed a lot of attendance. Although, I am very pleased with the success and how well received Irish Points are, I think I would have made your first and second point a reward- not just a “Congratulations.” We originally thought this would encourage people to go to more games but many were discouraged that after showing spirit they weren’t rewarded. Another large success in the spirit spectrum was the Spirit Couch! The squeaky, green, inflatable couch made it’s debut this basketball season and people could win the chance to sit court side and a free pizza! People really seemed to enjoy this when at games, they felt good to be rewarded (and especially loved the photoshoot opportunity on the @shcspirit Instagram!) All in all, we aren’t the most spirited school yet, but through incentives and communication our game attendance for all sports, especially that of football, volleyball, soccer, and basketball, went up dramatically and I hope the next SBO continues to encourage people to go.

The biggest struggle this year for SBO has definitely been with the Bruce Mahoney t-shirts. It is frustrating that we could put in a lot of work on an idea and then it would be shut down and we would have to start over. We had harsh deadlines and many meeting reviewing and deciding what type of shirt we would make. Like Rome, none of the shirts were made in a day. It was a grueling approval process. But all the shirts were made and the football shirt sold better than any shirt ever in recent years. Overall, I am very proud of the merchandise we put out for each game. I’m especially proud that, for the first time in two years, baseball was given a shirt.

The biggest success for all of student council this year have been our two all school dances; homecoming (which had some of the highest attendance ever!) and winter ball (where we started the first ever winter ball court!). Both of these dances were huge successes and all of council deserves to be applauded for them. I am so proud of all the hard work I put in this year. Since I am the face of council I often got the most congratulations(and some complaints) but I couldn’t have done any of this without the rest of council. Of course I would of loved to get rid of khakis and make free ice cream everyday, but given restrictions and realistic expectations the goals I wanted to meet were achieved with the help of many other bright young people. I only hope that next year’s school president has as much fun and success as I did serving the SHC community.