Introduction
My name is Jesse Tubbs I am a National Level Men’s
Physique competitor from Ontario, Mississauga. I am 20 years old and I go to
Brock University, where I study criminology and sociology as a double major. I
took this course because of the convenient schedule the course had, also I
enjoy helping community based groups and being involved with activism.
Throughout my life, I have played competitive sports starting with soccer and
then excelling in basketball. At the age of 16 I started my journey on a
strength and muscle building program with my brother, Joseph Tubbs, and I made
amazing progress in one summer, going from 160 pounds to 175 pounds of mostly
pure muscle. As I played basketball, my love for working out continued to grow
and I would work out before practices, after practices, and any chance I could
get to work out because I loved it. I dedicated all of my time to becoming the
best and I eventually made it to doing 1,000 pushups a day. As the years went
on I stayed consistent with my working out until the love of working out and
building my physique overtook my passion for basketball. I will have a career
in the fitness industry, competing in shows, guest posing and hosting and doing
fitness expos. The portfolio is based on recreation and leisure, secondly
health promotion.
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Brock
Community Leadership OOCLO
The
event that I experienced, this Friday September 26, was being an official in
the organization of intermural basketball at Brock. The specific role that I
had was refereeing the basketball game and I refereed for two hours that day.
My contribution was essential for the game to take place because no game will be
official without a referee. The community need is Brock students participating
in a social club that produces virtuous characteristics such as team work,
responsibility, and strong peer relationships. Sports often separates genders
in regards that boys will often play together and girls will play together. However,
co- ed sports help break gender roles in terms of each member is equally part
of the team, regardless of their gender.
This
helps build the community by joining genders together as equals and eliminating
power imbalances among sexes. Coed basketball uses sports to try ending gender
inequalities, according to C
Van Tuyckom “to
achieve more female participation in sports will require different policy”
(Tuyckom, 2010). The teams having mixed genders
incorporates each team player to consult with each other in ways of time outs,
thinking of strategies to win, and working together to operate their strategies
and try to win. This will restrict power imbalances between men and women
because each gender has an equal input and say for the greater cause of the
team. This re-socializes the community because it no longer suggests that men
have a greater power or say than women do in decision making. Through discourse
ideologies, patriarchal control is usually the social norm and is socially
constructed through history. In the game, each member attained different
abilities and skill levels that in which created stratification within the
team. Some players were more essential to the team in terms of winning than others.
Male players tended to be better and played an essential part in terms of
scoring. For the most part,
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males overcompensated not
to be gender bias and try to show any power imbalances between genders.
However, not everything can be perfect, and I observed one male not taking into
consideration the ideas of the other team mates. This individual was also overly
aggressive, angry and used foul language towards my partner referee, which was
a female. A great way to further better the equality between the genders is to
have co captains of both genders. This will give power to each gender and
eliminate power imbalances between genders. My social position for this event
was an authority figure, since my decisions were final. This made the players
respect me and want to be on my good side to get calls in their favor. The
expectation I had previous to refereeing the game was that the two genders will
not cooperate well. From my past experience of being a basketball player, when
I played basketball at the YMCA, men did not want to play with females. A past
situation I had was that one individual a male passionately did not want to
play if a girl was playing with us. However, my expectations were wrong and
cooperation between the genders went well and there were no arguments or
problems with the two genders having to play together.
From
this experience I learnt that socialization agent clubs and social groups is a
great way for the students in the Brock community to interact and create new
social groups. The basketball teams play different teams each week and this
allows for opportunities to make new peers and create new networks with people
one may never have beforehand. This opportunity allows me to see each gender
work homogenously and fairly, and it helps break barriers of gender roles
because in this environment each gender is seen as an equal. This OOCLO widens
my perspective in terms of co-ed sports helping to break barriers that our
society has from social norms, and co-ed sports help move in the right
directions for equality of women, and women’s
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rights. There is
currently a campaign called He for She, which emphasizes the fact that men must
be on board for equality of women or no dramatic change can occur. My point of
view is that if at a young age co-ed sports is encouraged, both genders will be
seen as equals and it will defer stratification between men and women. Lastly,
I am glad I had this experience to help better the community that I am a part
of and better the school community.
Breast
Cancer Awareness OOCLO Reflection
On October 5 2014
I participated in the run for breast cancer, breast cancer awareness month is
October. Many organizations and companies will be donating and raising money
for the research to end breast cancer. The run took place Sunday morning, where
my friends and I ran 5 kilometers. There were a large amount of people that
participated in the event to build awareness and raise money for breast cancer.
There was 906 participants and 74 teams and over 137,000
dollars was raised for breast cancer research. The identified issue is to build
awareness of the second leading cause of death for Canadian women. According to
Phaedra C. Pezzullo, “since 1984, October has been recognized in the U.S. as
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In 1997, the Toxic Links Coalition of
the Bay Area, California, began organizing annual “Stop Cancer Where It Starts”
tours to counter attempts to obscure the environmentally-linked causes of
cancer” (Pezzullo, 2003). Breast cancer is a disease of the breast that affects
both men and women. The goal of the run was to raise as much money to find a
cure and improve research to increase the survival rate. This contributes to
building the community because brock students and people in the St. Catherine’s
and Niagara region all on one day participate in one common goal
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and is a factor
that strengthens the community because there is a common need. One of the
functions of community is social participation and mutual support. Everybody
shares the same objective and most have a personal relation to someone with
cancer. My friends all knew one friend or family member that suffered from
breast cancer. Even if one has no personal relation to a person with breast
cancer they learn a lot from the run alone. Some people do it for a challenge
such as one brock student doing the run I talked to, however money is still
raised by everyone and they are now aware of the predicament. The population
that is of concern is all people of the world because anyone can develop breast
cancer, however specifically focuses on people with breast cancer. Breast
cancer is most common in women, so the main population that the run focuses on
is women. The importance of community is physical and mental health benefits.
The run focuses on physical health. There were many roles that one can assume
in the breast cancer run, such as volunteering and participating in the run.
The role I had was participating in the run and donating money.
I
believe the run is very effective way to build awareness and builds the community
because everyone is allowed to participate and it is a well-known event around
the community and is an anticipated event by members of the community. The
event allows for people to know the strength they have to make a change in the
lives of people they know and complete strangers that have breast cancer. It is
a simply way to help and people acknowledge the fact that the small role they
play contributes to a larger goal. There were no power relations visible during
the event and was a community bonding moment and everyone was seen as equals,
helping to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Since the entire
month of October is dedicated to breast
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cancer awareness, one can
continue to contribute and donate towards the cause. The follow up can be done
all the way up to October 31st.
I was situated as an insider in the event of
the run, every race, gender is welcome and appreciated because we were all
there for the same reason. The interactions I had with people involved was
other participants telling their stories of their association with breast
cancer or other forms of cancer. My friend from first year mother is fight the
battle against breast cancer and we all supported him and we spoke about that
during the run. The expectations I had about the run was to donate and
accomplish the set destination, however it was so much more because all the
personal stories shared. A great bond was created between the people I ran with
and also some strangers.
I have a strong connection to building awareness
for breast cancer and raising money. I have a good friend from Mississauga that
is battling against breast cancer. I personal since the ending of august has
been donating to breast cancer research and been doing symbolic ways to help.
Such as pink water bottles, pink head phones and breast cancer sign hanging
from my gym bag and on the walls in my room.
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Presentation Showcase Interviews
Enactus
Enactus is a national organization that has over 60
divisions across Canada, one of which is located at Brock University as a
B.U.S.U. business club. The organization is comprised of entrepreneurial and
socially conscious leaders and students who want to challenge the social norms
in order to improve them for the greater good. The name Enactus comes from the
three main words that the organization revolves around: entrepreneurial,
action, and us. Hence, the organization’s goal is to give students the ability
to recognize opportunities, create value with those opportunities, and the
motivation to act on those opportunities, all while being a part of a
meaningful team that shares the same vision. Furthermore, Enactus enables
students to make a difference in their community while gaining experience and
skills that can develop their careers. Enactus Brock mostly relies on
self-funding through fundraising to obtain their finances and they receive some
funding from B.U.S.U. However, the problem for Enactus Brock is not financing
the club, it is that they do not have enough awareness in the Brock student community
and it is hard for them to interest the limited students who are aware of the
organization because many students are already too busy with their
studies.
In my opinion, I believe that the group
successfully analyzed the organization, Enactus. Firstly, they clearly
described what the organization was and their primary
objectives, which was important because I was not
aware of the organization at all beforehand. Secondly, the group informed me of
both the advantages of Enactus to students and their
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limitations. The group’s comprehensive two-sided
evaluation of the organization illustrated their ability to analyze Enactus
from a third party’s perspective, which I believe is important when analyzing
something. Lastly, the group provided details about the organization’s
logistics, including their finances and their organizational structure. This
shows that the group really looked fully into the organization itself,
including its business operations. The only criticism I have for the group is that
I would have liked to learn more about some of the specific opportunities that
Enactus provides you with, such as Enactus Week and the expositions.
After learning about Enactus, I would definitely
become a member of the organization because the organization seems like a good
platform to become an entrepreneur that actually makes a difference in the
world. Enactus provides you with the resources, including mentors and events,
which allow you to build the skills and knowledge necessary to becoming a socially
responsible entrepreneur. This would be extremely useful for me because I am an
aspiring entrepreneur, however, as a sociology student I do not have the best
knowledge or connections in the business field. Therefore, Enactus could really
give me a strong foundation on how to be a successful entrepreneur.
Jumpstart
The Canadian Tire Jumpstart program was established
in 2005 in order to help less fortunate children who cannot normally afford to
take part in sports teams due to registration, membership, equipment, and
transportation costs. The organization tries to promote children from the ages
of 4-18 to be physically active by funding a maximum of $300 for one activity
per child. Jumpstart
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chooses its children that will receive funding
based primarily on the family’s income; their income must be below Canada’s
low-income cut-off. The organization is funded by donations, mainly through
organizations such as Canadian Tire, Sport Chek, and National Sports. However,
Jumpstart also has numerous corporate sponsors, with Coca-Cola, MasterCard, and
BMO just being a few.
I think that the group did a fairly well job at
analyzing Jumpstart. They effectively outlined the purpose of the organization
and included some of the key components of the program, such as the determining
factors of selecting applicants, the organization’s budget per applicant, and
how the organization receives its finances. Moreover, the group provided
multiple examples of how Jumpstart obtains finances through catchy
advertisements, which was a more interesting way to learn about the
organization. However, the group did not analyze the organization’s limitations
in depth or their organizational structure, which is important for a potential
volunteer like myself to know.
Overall, I would still be enthusiastic to become a
volunteer for the Jumpstart program after this group’s presentation. They
excellently highlighted the organization’s value in today’s society where too
many children are unhealthy and inactive. As a men’s physique competitor that
loves fitness and health, I strongly agree with Jumpstart’s mission and I would
definitely volunteer or donate in order to give children the same opportunities
that I had as a child because it has changed my entire life. I also believe
that my expertise knowledge in this area would make me a great volunteer and
would help me to contribute something of value to my community.
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Conclusion
The two quality that I cultivated the most in my
experiences doing OOCLO’s is awareness and comprehension. My first personal
quality I will like to explain is awareness, by doing multiple out of class
room opportunities such as the breast cancer awareness run, I became aware of
the different health concerns in our community St. Catharine’s. Also by doing a
specific event, there is other concern or issue one can be aware of because of
advertisement. For example the breast cancer run also had advertisements on
prostate cancer and other medical issues I was not aware of such as special
heart conditions. The second personal quality is comprehension, by adventuring
off and learning about community based organizations on different issues such
as activism and for example mental health. I was given the opportunity to
understand an important health condition; such as mental illness in depth and
learn important and interesting facts on the health concern. For example I learned
about the organization CHMA which stands for Canadian Mental Health
Association, which is a St. Catharine’s designated building that provides
temporary shelter and psychological support to people dealing with mental
health problems. I was able to better understand the perspectives of both the
patients and the counselors in the organization.
Social media is a modern advance tool used for communication
between individuals and is extremely popular and regularly used in our western
culture. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter has swept the globe and is
used by all huge corporation as means of personal interaction, promotion of
product/ service, and advertisement. With social media being as popular as it
is, activist groups can use social media platforms such as twitter and Facebook
to share their
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mission statement and their vision to the mass
population that uses social media like twitter and Facebook. In my own personal
experience Instagram created a platform for me to advertise my Brand Tubbs
Aesthetics, and teach people fitness tips and healthy food choices, as they are
learning from me: the best Men’s Physique athlete in the province Ontario.
With all the knowledge I accumulated from doing
OOCLO experiences and related activities associated with the 2F60 course. I
feel I can take this knowledge of helping people and help people in my own
community at Brock, by providing an outlet for Brock students to share any
discomforts they have with their Brock experiences and any problems they’re
dealing with in their personal life. Through email, Facebook, twitter and
texting or phone call.
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Reference
Page
Pezzullo,
Phaedra C.(2003) Resisting “national
breast cancer awareness month”: the rhetoric of
counterpublics and their cultural performances: Quarterly Journal of Speech.
Reiman, Jeffrey. (2012). The Rich Get Richer and the Poor
Get Prison: Ideology, class, and criminal justice (10th ed). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Tuyckom, Van. (2010). Gender and age inequalities in regular sports participation: a
cross-national study of 25 European countries: J Sport Sci
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