house pride, to me, is about feeling a sense of belonging in a crowd of people whom you might not necessarily know personally because you share a common identity of being in tarbet. to foster that, i think that IRL gatherings are most effective. when we are all together, we sit together and laugh together and complain about the heat together and we all feel connected because of the common experiences we are having in that moment. i think that really builds a sense of camaraderie and house pride. some ideas for IRL gatherings include:

2. enthusiastic participation

i think participation only comes when we can make initiatives fun and enticing enough that people want to do them. hence, some ideas on how to ensure that house activities are always of the best quality include:

of course, these are non-exhaustive lists. i'm excited to hear from YOU about what you want for tarbet!

To encourage a strong sense of house pride, I aim to have every Tarbetian remember this about their Tarbet experience:

My aim is to create an environment where Tarbet is not only a House but a Home. To do so, I aim to promote more inter-batch bonding activities (similar to the point I raised during the Q&A session) alongside bigger scale activities. In Sports related activities, I would like to organise a few training sessions for participating Tarbetians so they can get to know each other better as they train together as a team. For Non-Sports related activities, beyond House Practices & group cheers, I aim to host a year end House celebration to let loose, have fun & celebrate the achievements of our Trailblazers for a year well done! This will not only help to build bonds but also help communicate the progress we have made as a House. 

I endeavor for Tarbetians to be recognised for their contribution to our House. After each House activity, my aim is to use our House Communication platforms (Instagram, House Bulletin, House Announcements) to share our appreciation for Tarbetians who have contributed to our purpose. This will include pictures and feature stories of how participating Tarbetians not only had fun but also embodied our values of innovators, risker takers, passionate fighters. (Do take note that this is different from Tarbet’s Got Talent) We can also use these platforms to proactively communicate our House progress vis-a-vis other Houses i.e. our House Ranking in order to promote a sense of achievement with each activity and where we may fall short, how we overcome these obstacles/losses through our next activity. This will also help create a stronger sense of urgency for Tarbetians to help contribute to the progress of our Home. 

As a family, my aim is to have Tarbetians rally around each other & have fun in the process :) To do so, I would like to empower Tarbetians to help us build this House together by gathering suggestions/new ideas for the house Activities we run. We can either choose to do this via an online survey or through smaller breakouts in person during House Practise. Although these ideas may seem really simple, YOUR feedback is really important if we really truly want to make this house a home. We need your feedback to know what YOU Tarbetians want to see so that we can cater our house events to your interests. When we build activities that are relevant to Tarbetians, this will in turn encourage participation. BUT to give everyone a bigger nudge, I would love to reinstate our cheer squad and form a Tarbet Trailblazer squad that will help rally our Tarbet troops to sign up for House activities. This will make the experience more fun, which will enable stronger participation. 

All in all, my aim is to enable every Tarbetian to see Tarbet as not just a HOUSE but a HOME that you can be proud of! A place where we rally around each other and a place we build together <3