It’s easy to lose focus in the senior year of high school; there’s a lot of hoopla around grad with talk about limousine rides, fancy dresses and of course a big dance. But Laura MacTaggart, a participant and planner for her school’s Grad Service Committee, manages to keep everything in perspective. A senior at Ecole Secondaire Notre Dame High School, MacTaggart is not only ensuring that her graduation year is memorable, she is making sure a fellow classmate who won’t be graduating this year, is remembered.

To to honour a classmate who can’t be with her to celebrate, MacTaggart, along with other high school students, parents and teachers raised $130,000 for the Red Deer Suicide Prevention and Educational Services. “This is a very important charity to my classmates and I because suicide is a growing concern for people our age,” MacTaggart says in her EventIQ scholarship application.

What a great bunch of grads.  We are super proud to support students like these by awarding  awarding three – $500 scholarships for high school seniors in Canada.

The deadline for scholarship entries is May 15 – winners will be announced in June.  More details on the scholarship, as well as the application form itself, are here.

“The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you do?’, whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions.”
― George Orwell

When was the last time you gave yourself time to plan?

If you answered this morning, while you were getting into your vehicle or stepping onto the train on your way to work you would be like most people reading this blog. At the risk of offending some, that’s a bit backwards. Think about it – do you put your tie-on before you pick out your shirt or even pull out a pair of shoes before deciding upon what garments to wear?

Recently, I came across the Money Watch blog that talked about preparing for your day the way a teacher prepares for their day. Regular visitors to EventIQ’s blog know we deal with a lot of schools so this instantly caught my attention.

As Laura Vanderkam points out, there’s about six periods a day and teachers are responsible for being in their classroom for about five of them. So what do they do with their “spare” period?

They are not kickin’ back in the teacher’s lounge — they are figuring out their lesson plan so when they go back in front of students they are prepared.

So next time you feel like you’re being buried under paperwork or that you’re being held hostage by your to-do list, think like a teacher and put aside 60 minutes just to prepare.

I went to a talk recently on the topic of persuasive sales techniques, and interestingly,  the speaker started out by making a bold statement: everyone is a salesperson.

Everyone’s eyebrows suddenly started arching towards the ceiling like Eugene Levvy’s. What came to my mind was an image of that stereotypical tacky-dressed salesman who will bully you or attempt to trick you into buying something!

So, as I looked at my tasteful outfit and perfectly normal eyebrows, I wondered how is it possible that everyone is a sales person?

The speaker elaborated that ‘selling’ is basically persuading someone else to do something. He pointed out that even though you might not be a salesperson by title, everyone may try to persuade a coworker, convince your boss you deserve a raise, or even convince your kids to do chores from time to time.

I looked around the room to see if anyone else had just been blindsided with that logic. I wasn’t alone – a lot of heads were nodding in affirmation.

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Part of Eillis Courtney’s job is to know the difference between a doctor and a physician and when to address each of them by their proper titles.

Courtney is the director of ceremonies and events at the University of British Columbia and a key member of a team of people who help organize convocation at the Vancouver, Canada school. This includes working out the logistics behind granting Honorary degrees to individuals who may not have stepped foot in medical school, or even a university for that matter.

Honorary degree recipients can be and have been comedians, talk-show hosts, environmentalists and politicians — to name a few.

There’s certainly plenty of controversy over whether people who didn’t attend school get a “free” degree, even if it’s largely a ceremonial designation, and there are also plenty of arguments started on how to address these folks after they accept their honorary degree.

Courtney cleared this up in her address to convocation officers from universities and colleges last October during a regional meeting of the North American Association of Convocation Officials (NAACO) at UBC Okanagan in Kelowna. Even though people who receive an honorary degree are addressed by universities as “doctor,” explains Courtney, “They are a doctor only at the school that awarded them their degree. This is the only time they should be addressed by this title. They shouldn’t be putting ‘Dr.’ on their business card.”

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Most of us adults look at teenagers who carry phones everywhere they go and wonder — sometimes aloud — why? Why do they feel the need to spend hours with their phone seemingly glued to their hands sending message after message about who is dating who and weekend plans.

Not only do teens spend a lot of their waking hours on their devices, they also use a strange language of abbreviations to communicate that is akin to reading hieroglyphics in Ancient Egypt. While we adults may think testing is a foolish or unnecessary use of time, especially when we get the phone bill, Nancy Lublin says texting can actually be a life saver.

Lublin is CEO of Do Something Inc., a youth social advocacy organization in New York City. She and her team stumbled on a trend when they started texting teens to drum up support for various campaigns at schools. Teens started responding with messages of their own — messages about being bullied at school, doing harm to themselves or being sexually assaulted by a family member.

It was the last topic that gave Lublin the idea of a text hotline for teens to help with counseling and referrals. Watch her TED Talk and hear more about the power of texting:

“Don’t forget that you’re a physical being with a power-plant to take care of and maintain. I’m talking about the bod under the blue gown. I’m not going to say that we’re a lazy, overweight society, a fast-food eatin’, SUV-ridin’, soda-guzzlin’, beer-chuggin’, TV-watchin’, size-XL-wearin’, walk-don’t-run generation — except I guess I just did.”

~ Stephen King – commencement address, University of Maine (May 7, 2005)

“The best of all things is to learn.

Money can be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is yours forever.”

- Louis L’Amour

“The most rewarding things in life

are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.”

 - Arnold Palmer

“I hope your dreams take you… to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known.”

~ Unknown