President
Hello fellow members of the JELA! First of all, thank you all for having me as the JELA officer as Secretary!! I joined the JELA last Fall and had the honor of taking the responsibilities as Secretary during the Spring and Fall Semesters of 2010. From this experience, I learned how to be organized and to stay on top of our JELA events and meetings. Being a Secretary also helped me get to know many of the members from the club and stay in consistent communication with them. Although in the past I never would have even given a thought to taking on these responsibilities, as a result of this experience I feel highly motivated to take even more responsibility by taking the leadership of the JELA. Doing more rather than less is definitely a whole new concept for me as a person, and in many respects it will be a challenge. And I might even make a lot of mistakes in the beginning, but I know from my current position that I can learn a lot by overcoming the obstacles I encounter and at the same time I am confident that I can achieve success for myself and the club by working together with everyone! From my experience as being your Secretary, I learned that it was hard for many new members to interact with the other members. I understand this very clearly as I also had to break through my own shy and introverted nature. As a result of this experience, I have a strong desire to create even more activities that will give our members a chance to break down their own inner barriers and become people who can easily make new friends, both in and outside our club. Since we are all here at SMC working on our education, it is a great opportunity to create connections with many other students from many countries and cultures, each with unique and often remarkable backgrounds. Our club must enable our members to make connections with individuals from a large diverse group of people and hopefully with each person’s effort, create the people skills that will help each person to succeed in whatever scholastic or career challenges that may be awaiting them in their future. To this end, I would like to work together to improve the communication with all members and do my best to create events in which every member can be excited to participate and benefit from the experience. Working together we can definitely have events and meetings that run smoothly and create harmony in the relations of all our current and future members. From my experience as a JELA officer, I believe that communication is the most important role for our club. Without heartfelt communication, we cannot accomplish our mission of exchanging culture and languages! Lastly, I really love and care about our JELA and I sincerely want to thank all of you who have been such great friends and supported me in my own development as a person. Truly with tears, I am grateful. I am Taka, and I have a vision for taking this club to a whole new dimension. Please join me with confidence that together we can take our wonderful Club to a higher level beyond what we can now imagine!! Thank you!!
Vice PresidentCHIKA KAWAI
Hello, JELAers. I am Chika Kawai, an international student from Japan.
As you may know, I'm currently in the position of JELA's event planner this fall semester.I was responsible for the planning of all events and delegating officers.
Now that I think back, it was like a one semester voyage. Not all has been smooth sailing.
Even stormy, windy, and chilly days, we continued rowing a boat without stopping. There were so many dramas and difficulties we faced. This experience gave me the ability to delegate responsibilities, anticipate potential problems, organize things wisely, and to communicate effectively.
Now we embark on the next voyage. I would like to be the navigator including planning the journey, advising the captain, commanding estimated timing to destinations while en route, and ensuring hazards are avoided. I would like to involve you as a crew of our ship. I'm here to listen and reflect on your thinking. I'm here to support and make this club better.
My mission is to attempt to change the image that all clubs are "party clubs" and provide beneficial opportunities for our members.
If I can be the club's vice president, I will devote my time in actively improving our club. Since I had many experiences to play first fiddle, as a class president, a head girl, and a personal manager in Japan, I have strong confidence to support this club well. Also, the experience of event planner will help me to be a good navigator. Everything is set up and I'm ready to roll.
I will provide many opportunities to members to expand our networks including volunteer opportunities and collaborative events with other clubs. I promise you that I can be a positive force in this club.
Please vote for me!! You won't regret it;D
Japanese Language Director
CHERYL WEISTER |
KAZUKI TERANISHI
Hi, everyone I'm kazuki. I hope ur semester is winding down all nicely. I'm have been the English Language Director this semester. Whats nice about this positon is that Our job is done by the time we're on to the elections. It's still open for Spring semester, so if your intersted let any JELA officers know.
As most of you know, this has been my first semester at JELA. And it has been a blast! We had the opening picknic, sushi party, curry party, movie night, Halloween event, LA in a day, thanksgiving. In class, we've done games, origamis, and i hope u learned somethig from my presentations. I hope you attended these great events. And hopefully, you've made friends with your fellow jela members.
Mike's policy for this semester was to make JELA a more official club. I think he has done a amazing job. This means more members, more involvement and larger events for JELA. I agree with what Mike has started, and plan continue in trying to make JELA a more bigger, more official club.
In addition to Mike's current policy, upon becoming the President, I want to focus in making a stronger community in JELA. While it's a great thing that JELA member population is growing, we have to remember what JELA is all about.
This semseter, I saw that we got the size, the activities and events. More importantly the energy, the enthusiasm, and the will to learn from each other and grow. I think what makes JELA such a special club is the fact that it's a place where we can making friends that come from different cultures, and backgrowns.
Vote for me and i will try my best to make JELA a friendly community, a family, where we can learn from eachother and grow together.
Kazuki Teranishi
JACQUELYN HINES Hi my name is Jacquelyn Hines, and I’m the ICC representative this semester. I was in charge of ironing out all the details and making sure all the forms were completed (correctly) so that we could have our events this semester! Being the ICC representative with みなみちゃん this semester gave me the leadership and experience I needed to serve as vice president. I learned a lot from running as an officer, and managing all of the details and paperwork. To put it another way, as the ICC, I learned how to manage the club from the ground up. So I understand how to keep JELA running and make sure that we are following the rules. Running JELA is not a solitary job. It takes teamwork and cooperation to make JELA a successful club for everyone, and therefore as a vice president I will be there to help out and support other officers. Every officer this semester has been there to support each other. Keep JELA going for the future. JELA was like a home for me when I moved to CA for my first year of college. I hope to keep JELA going strong into the future. When I was in the finance meeting with みなみちゃん for the Christmas party, the finance board members did not want to give us money for a Christmas tree. They felt like we were a new club and we would only use the tree once. However, the AS Board President spoke up and defended us--she argued that JELA was not a new club, and it had been here since her freshman year. In fact, she said, she still got e-mails from JELA about events. I hope to keep JELA going so that it continues to grow stronger and remain a place of welcoming for new students, old students, and everyone in between who is looking for somewhere to...
...make friends, learn some culture, and feel at home.
YONG JOO SON
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