Something special I wanted to develop after I was also aware the salsa team I been attending for 5 years was going through their 25th year in 2018 of proving salsa dancing in Birmingham. Latinmotion is the organisation who been going through its monumental year for providing dance classes & social events not only with Salsa but also Cuban salsa, Kizomba and many more. 

 

During its 25th year, the only references of their anniversary was limited to occasional mentioning on social media and also a limited range its branded merchandise with 25th-anniversary mark on which was mainly worn by teachers & event organisers.

I felt that this was not enough and we could have missed out to make this occasion special to celebrate. So during a conversation with a team Member Brighon (A key team member and was also in charge of the volunteers during the Birmingham based Salsa conventions for its New year event and during MotionCITY in August), I asked him "was anything was planned in anniversary year?". He answered nothing was planned but the New Years event would be the event to celebrate it's 25th Anniversary. So, I mentioned that I suggested to develop of an special anniversary card using my creativity. This is when the start of my special assignment of the surprise begins.

The card
The first task was to develop the card design. This went through a number of ideas at various stages. From basic outlined visuals through to colour concept ideas on paper before developing the concept digitally using creative software.

The original idea was to incorporate 25 floating circles to feature different Roman numerals from 1 to 25 and was also to include floating ticker card. But because I am aware the leading members vision is about forward thought & not looking back, I had to modify the concept without being too sentimental or being too historical. So instead it features a vibrant & colourful background with glitter effects with additional floating circles to embrace the celebrations. 

The anniversary branding which includes the Latinmotion brand identity with a large three-dimensional number of 25. This was presented within the silver metallic shape the colour associated with 25. It was important not to go overboard of the silver colour to avoid the emphasis of looking back too much. The design is overlayed with several transparent bubbles with an additional celebration element. The design was completed with a low key greeting text featuring "Celebrating Twenty-Five years of Latinmotion" presented a large A4 card design. The design was initially shared to Latinmotion's Brighon Davis along with other members Gary & Emma. All given a positive approval. It leads to print production. With the card design completed & produced the next task was how will this will be presented.

Greeting card messages
So the published greeting card was handed to Latinmotion team members Brighon and other key memebrs to ask attendees and other team members with sign the card with a greeting message. Eventually, the filled greeting card to be presented to the organising founders Mauricio and Zane as a surprise during its new year's event.

The question remains, how will the surprise will take. Initially it was initially planned to surprise Mauricio and Zane seperately in one of the venue offices. Them it changed and it was emerged that not only I was presented the anniversiary card live on stage in front of party attendees on New Year's Eve but also I would need to prepare live presenting. This lead to the third & final task.

Presenting preparation
This task was stepping outside my comfort zone. Public speaking not one of my strengths and it hasn't worked well for me in the past. However I needed to develop a way on how this can be done.

Several weeks earlier in early December when developing the greeting card I had a feeling that I might need to do live presenting it a speech.

​So during Latinmotion's annual New Year's party, I was on a special assignment. Firstly, I developed copies of the artwork for the team to use for their marketing purposes. Secondly, I liaise frequently with Latinmotion's Brighon during the daytime hours of New Years Eve in how to plan this special surprise. Then I had regular contact with Brighon during the day over my script idea including what to say during the surprise. This involves hours of writing ideas leading to more defined scripts ideas several times until I was satisfied. I was advised by Brighon to the keep the script short but I wanted to make the script powerful to encouraging the audience to cheer at certain intervals.

​When completed, the final script idea was shared to Brighon & received positive approval.

This leads to the most complicated part of the task including with self-practising with the script in front of me several times while practising on my physical appearance including body language and gestures and the most difficult part is how I modify with my vocal cord with specific words. For some reason, I was fearing I would lose my voice be the end of the night. Fortunately, this never happened, possibly a sign of nervousness.


The big surprise
Night time on New Year's Eve and Latinmotion's annual New Year's Eve party was in full flow.

I deliberately not arrived too early so I did want to get distracted or get disrupted over my preparations. It was not easy is to be sociable while keeping my presenting surprise a secret. Brighon from Latinmotion returned the filled greeting to me to present live on stage. Then the nervousness kicked in. I was instructed to be in the main party area when a live show was taking place which consists of professional & experienced dancers along with dancing teachers & students showcasing their dancing performances especially for the night. I had to be located where the live show performances are. I didn't look back at my script & instead get my mindset into the spirit. 

This is it
Then around 11.40pm, just 20 minutes before the midnight chime celebrations into the New Year, Latinmotion's Brighon interrupted Mauricio (one of the organisation's founders) when he was making live presenting so I can be introduced me on stage for a special surprise.

The lights were on me for two minutes and to ease the pressure I firstly engaged with the audience. This involves asking "how you all going" and then asked, "are you having a great time". The cheering from the audience was the best encourage me to continue. Then I was starting my presenting and at one stage I struggle to complete what I was about to say with a minor gap. However, I perused on with another cheering encouragement after I mentioned that Latinmotion is about to complete 25 years of salsa in Birmingham. After a few seconds, I continued on my presenting leading to me sharing to Both Mauricio & Zane my specially design greeting card sealed in a brown envelope, I then mentioned that the card was show our thanks for an amazing achievement for 25 years. The audience erupted with cheers and applauses.

To continue the applauses continued when I asked Mauricio to show the card to the audience. A few seconds later I ended my presenting to ask the entire audience to "Show their appreciation to Mauricio and Zane" with louder cheering from everyone in the room.

My surprise ended with the audience making louder cheers. Brighon did mention that I designed the card and was my idea for the surprise. I think gave handshakes & hugs to both Mauricio and Zane with hands shake to Brighon before leaving the stage. Mauricio & Zain was very touched with this surprise the both never expected.

Not long after midnight
Later on the same night when Mauricio was presenting the second part the live shows, he asked me back onto stage to suprise me to show his appreciation and mention how he was very touched showing his thanks to me. Everyone applauded and cheered.

Some people might describe this as my 15 minutes of fame, it is a lot more than that. The important words Mauricio mentioned after making the surprise is "Breaking boundaries". Because the social environments in salsa can be very competitive and it leads to becoming my presence become a disadvantage. So with this surprise, I proved to everyone what can be achieved to enable others to see any beyond perceptions or in some cases the first impression.

​Also how support and positive encouragement can make a positive difference to everyone. This means pushing my self to be into the centre and not on the outside. 

.. and finally
Special thanks to Latinmotion's Brighon Davis and other team members including Sharon, Gary and Emma for making this important achievement possible. More importantly for the the team itself including the Co-founders Mauricio & Zain along with the rest of their teams member for their support and for display their appreciation.To find out more on the preparation on how this was developed, visit the special combined celeberations page