"Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit." "And perhaps it will be pleasing to remember these things." - Vergil, Aeneid Book 1 Wow, what a journey this past weekend has been. State Convention was held from Friday, April 7, to Sunday, April 9, at Sturbridge Convention Center in Sturbridge, MA. This annual event is the culmination of the MAJCL year and consists of contests in all ranges of skill, from academics to graphic arts, and interaction between chapters which allows for amazing friendships to be made. BLSJCL sent over 100 delegates to State Convention, comprising almost 1/4 of the total delegates present at the competition. This year at States, BLSJCL performed incredibly well. Our students placed amazingly on all ranges of contests. Our officers were also recognized for their amazing work throughout the year in Whole School Contests, which contributed along with our amazing Chariot and Worm races to our 1st place finish overall! More BLSJCL results will be posted on the Awards page soon, and individual results will be sent in an email in the coming weeks. Finally, at convention this year, BLSJCL sent 3 delegates as candidates for an office on the MAJCL Executive Board. I am pleased to announce that all of our candidates were elected to their respective positions. We're incredibly proud of our new officers: Tim Liu elected as 1st VP, Carina Layfield elected as Parliamentarian, and me, Jonathan Yuan, as Technical Coordinator. We all are incredibly grateful for all of the help given in preparing and assisting our campaigns at State Convention. There is no way that we would have been able to do all of this without you all. Though I am not leaving my office of BLSJCL Webmaster just yet, I want to express my gratitude to you all for giving me the privilege of being your Webmaster. This has been an incredible experience, and I cannot emphasize how much you as an organization mean to me. You all are absolutely amazing! :) Here's to a great year of BLSJCL! Thanks for everything!
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster
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Harvard Certamen was this past weekend on March 25, 2017. Our BLS teams all performed incredibly well against competition from all around the country, including teams from Florida, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Everyone did an amazing job and we are all very proud of our teams for their amazing work at this extremely competitive tournament. BLS managed to get 1st in the Intermediate division, as well as 1st and 3rd in the Advanced division. The next chance to play Certamen is at State Convention, so make sure to prepare! Tubilustrium will be held in the Dining Hall tomorrow, March 29, immediately after school. Attendance is required for all students who will be attending State Convention next week. We will hold a primary introduction in the Dining Hall and will break off into different groups to head to stations dedicated to the various types of contests you will be able to participate in at States. We hope that you enjoy the event and learn a lot about how to prepare for States! Only a week and half left until Convention! Stay awesome!
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster February was a very busy month for BLSJCL. Our main event this month was our BLSJCL Certamen Tournament on February 11. The tournament was a great success and hopefully a great experience for all the schools that could join us for the competition. After long hours of question writing and preparation for our plans to come into fruition, the BLSJCL is honored to have hosted the tournament and we hope you can join us next time. Another major event this month was our community service opportunity at Bikes Not Bombs, an organization dedicated to teach bike riding and build up the community to prevent growing violence. Many of our BLSJCL delegates went to their headquarters and helped out on February 26. Thank you to all who could participate, and make sure to look out for more opportunities in the future. March is going to be another very busy month for BLSJCL. We have various Certamen tournaments, especially Harvard at the end of March, so be ready to conquer the competition! In March, we also plan to have another event hosted at school, so look out for an email about that! Finally, remember to submit your Pre-Convention contest entries and prepare for State Convention at the start of April! Gratias!
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster State Convention will be held from Friday, April 7 to Sunday, April 9 this year at Sturbridge Convention Center! If you are interested in signing up for States, the application is currently at the bottom of the homepage of this website, and has been sent out in an email earlier today. Make sure to fill out this form by Friday, March 3 to be considered for a spot at States this year. If you have any questions, be sure to contact Ms. Moguel (225) or Mr. Bartoloma (027) or email BLSJCL. Bonam Fortunam! And welcome back to school!
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster Salvete omnes! Sorry for the late update, but (finally), here is the update on BLS Certamen! The BLSJCL Certamen Tournament, held on February 11, 2017, was an incredible success! We had competitors from all around Massachusetts and the Northeast come to test their skills and have a great time in the process. Our workshop for coaches and teachers was also a great success. Our social media contest this year, a creative picture with the BLSJCL Snapchat Filter, was another fantastic method of getting students involved and excited about the tournament. All of us at BLSJCL had a great time hosting the tournament, and we hope you all enjoyed it as well! We thank all of the schools who sent students to participate, and we appreciate all of the parents and teachers for guiding your students through the snowy roads to compete. We'd also like to thank the BLSJCL student volunteers, sponsors, teachers, and Certamen coaches for helping organize and run the tournament as smoothly as possible. Hope you all can make it again next year! Gratias!
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster Today, the BLSJCL Executive Board met for a board meeting regarding upcoming events and especially BLS Certamen. Here's the rundown of what we discussed: 1) The Lupercalia Event will be held on Wednesday, February 15th, 2017, in the Dining Hall. Att his event we will have stations dedicated to Jeopardy - style questions in a trivia game, board games, and, most importantly, community service opportunities for you all to give back to the community. More information about Lupercalia will be posted shortly. 2) The Yankee Candle Fundraiser has officially concluded! Results will be announced in the next few days, and a raffle for everyone who participated and sold items will be held at Lupercalia, so make sure to stop by. Our grand total of profits from Yankee Candle this year is ... $2,165.60! Wow! Thank you all so much if you helped out BLSJCL by buying or selling candles. Let's top that number next year! 3) State Convention is coming up and so are a few deadlines for Pre-Convention contests. March 4th is the deadline for many contests, such as the school website, publication, and publicity contests, as well as preconvention writing and multimedia for individual students. The Griffin Metto Scholarship, a packet to National Convention, will also be accepting applicants. An email will be sent out about this scholarship, so make sure to look out for it. 4) Finally, BLS Certamen is happening this year on Saturday, February 11th, 2017. Though you are encouraged to participate if you are in the Novice Level, you can also contribute in various other ways. A few Google Forms will be added to the homepage for volunteer sign up for the the Friday before (February 10) and for the day of the competition. Another form will be added for food donations. There will be a raffle for a super-secret tech-y prize, so make sure to enter the raffle at the competition if you're interested. 5) Once again, States is coming up soon, and so is Nationals. Signup for conventions will happen soon. Look out for emails regarding the States Application and National signup if you are interested. Our next board meeting will be Wednesday, February 28th, 2017, where we will hold our State Candidacy voting. If you're interested in attending, make sure to stop by. Gratias! (And enjoy the snow!)
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster Though January didn't have any major BLSJCL events, we surely kept ourselves busy. Here's the rundown of what happened during January in the organization. The major focus of this month was preparation for our BLSJCL Certamen Tournament, coming up on February 11th, 2017. The Advanced Certamen players contributed much of their time writing questions for Novice and Intermediate, and the Board has been planning the details and responsibilities for tournament day. Our board meeting about the tournament will be held on Tuesday, January 31st, so if you're interested in learning more about the organization of the club and the tournament, be sure to stop by Room 225. A Google Form will soon be posted on the homepage and will be sent via email for food donations, so look out for that as well. BLSJCL Certamen had a major competition this month: The Florida-Georgia Certamen Invitational held in Gainesville, Florida, on January 21st, 2017. Every single competitor played amazingly for their teams, with BLS getting 2nd place in all divisions. Though preparing for Certamen was our number one priority, we did have a pretty great time celebrating our achievements through roller skating and arcade games. We also learned a lot about the University of Florida and saw the big stadium where they play their football games. All of our Certamen players had a great time, and we'd like to thank Oak Hall for hosting such an amazing tournament for us to participate in. We also had some students attend Boston Latin Academy Scrimmages on January 21st, 2017. All of our competitors had a great time at the competition. Finally, here's what to look forward to in February. BLS Certamen is coming on Saturday, February 11th, so make sure to leave that day open for volunteering or participating if you are in the Novice Level. Also, make sure to look out for our new edition of the Paws Romana and community service opportunities throughout the month! Gratias!
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster Today, many BLSJCL Certamen players competed in the Florida-Georgia Invitational at all three levels. All of our teams did extremely well, and we're so proud of the accomplishments our teams made today! Here are the results: Novice - 2nd Place - Luc Azar-Tanguay, Ben Ehrman, Xiangan He, and Danny Nguyen Intermediate - 2nd Place - Christy Jestin , Austin Lang, Charles Ma, Jess Schnitzer, and Hanyi Wang Advanced - 2nd Place - Anna Aldins, Nestoras Apodiakos, Ting Wei Li, Joshua Lomasney, Allyson Ping, and Jonathan Yuan Gratiās!
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster This Saturday, January 21, many of the BLSJCL Certamen players from all levels with be competing at the Florida-Georgia Certamen Invitational. Make sure to check out BLSJCL's social media and blog to get updates about our performance! Thanks for the support! Go Wolfpack! Stay warm! (Or if you're in Florida, stay cool!)
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster Salvete omnes! As a quick note, the BLSJCL website has migrated to its final destination, blsjcl.org! Please make sure to change the bookmarks and links you have for bls-jcl.org to blsjcl.org, as that website domain will not be functioning from this point forward! (Yes, that dash makes all the difference :) ) Wow, December was a busy month for BLSJCL! Here's a recap of all that happened during December. At the beginning of the month, Yankee Candle catalog orders arrived and were distributed to all who purchased. Another big thank you to all of the supporters of BLSJCL who participated in the fundraiser, as well as to all of the BLSJCL members who helped sell candle items! We raised over 2,000 dollars so far, and online orders are still going on until the middle of January, so make sure you order with our club code (mentioned in the Yankee Candle post) to allow BLSJCL to gain some of the profits. Keep on selling! Then, BLSJCL held its Saturnalia Bake Sale. BLSJCL members donated food for us to sell at this bake sale, which was very greatly appreciated, allowing us to raise about 100 dollars! Later in the month, BLS held it's first ever Saturnalia Ornament Decorating event. At this event, BLS students were able to make scratchboard ornaments that were donated to a local charity to support families who were unable to purchase ornaments for their Christmas trees. This event was incredibly successful, and we made 62 ornaments to donate! BLSJCL also held its first Sweaternalia, a social media event that allowed people to spread BLSJCL holiday cheer. BLSJCL Community Service has also been greatly active throughout this month. For example, BLSJCL attended the WBUR end-of-the-year fundraiser and helped take calls for donations. We've been working hard to get you all opportunities to help out and do community service, so make sure to check your emails for these events! January will be a very important month for BLSJCL. Many of our students will be attending the Florida-Georgia Invitational Certamen Tournament, held in Gainsville, Florida. BLSJCL will also be preparing for our own Certamen tournament, which will be held in February. I'm currently writing this as the clock ticks down to the start of 2017, and I'd just like to say how amazed I am at the dedication and passion all of BLSJCL's members have demonstrated this past year. As we look toward the future, let us all help spread the Classics cheer far and wide and make 2017 the best year we can! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Jonathan Yuan Head Webmaster |
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