Chapter 167 – Organization
Since their coup d'état failed before it even started, they had no choice but to comply with her. Nova asked Benjamin to sit right next to her while Maisie returned to her seat in front of him.
"We have three things to do today. The most important one is to decide the details of the event. Based on this, we will book an event hall. Those places usually need to be booked well in advance so we have to do it as soon as possible. Finally, we need to communicate about the event to everyone at school. Any objections or questions?"
When no one answered, she continued.
"Good. Then let's decide on the particulars of the event. Any proposition?"
Maisie instantly raised her hand high.
"Me, me! Let's have the boys wear skimpy clothes and compete in sexiness!"
Everyone ignored her and Nova repeated.
"Any proposition?"
"Tsk, you're no fun."
Saul gave his opinion this time.
"What about something simple? Everyone contestant will go on stage and people will vote for who they prefer."
"Should we mix or separate genders?"
"Hm, good question. I feel like most girls are going to vote for men so there'll be too much unbalance for women competitors. We probably should divide the contest into the girls' and boys' parts."
"I agree."
"Same."
"Alright for the gender division. Any other ideas for the contest itself?"
"Isn't just standing on stage doing nothing too boring? I think they should at least get a chance to appeal to the voters."
"That'll make it harder for us though."
"Yes, but I think it's necessary. There'll be a lot of people that don't know the contestants. If we don't do that, everybody will only vote for the people they know."
"Right."
"True."
"Good point. Let's go with this. Now let's decide on what sorts of things they'll do on stage. What about something standard? Like a cooking contest for boys and a sports contest for girls?"
"Come on Nova, that's discriminatory, sexist, and old-fashioned. Hasn't Ben here proved how wrong that was?"
Everyone nodded in approval except for Nova, who bit her lips in annoyance. As for Benjamin, he was surprised by her suggestion. While it was true she was quite strict, she wasn't sexist. He thought she suggested cooking for boys to give him an even better chance of winning in case he participated. It was funny because she didn't want him to participate but probably anticipated that there would be no avoiding it. That was peer pressure for you.
"Fine. Then, what do you propose?"
This time, no one replied immediately. It seemed they had a hard time deciding on events that would be fair to everyone and shouldn't be discriminatory. After some thinking, Benjamin gave a suggestion.
"No matter what we go with, it'll always be unfair to someone because everybody has different interests and skills. What about letting people choose what they want to show? We can just give all contestants a certain amount of time to show or perform whatever they want, and the spectators will judge what they like most for themselves."
"Nice idea, Ben! I like it."
"Same here, it's good."
"Agreed."
"Good. But let's not forget to put some rules in that case. Performances should be kept within the assigned time and shouldn't be going against common sense or morals."
Everyone agreed with this and they concluded the topic on the subject. Now that they had the contest details in place, they had a better idea of what sort of hall they would need. It would need to be a large location with an elevated stage where people would be able to perform. Ideally, the rest of the students would all have a sit for themselves but in the worst case, they could also go with having everyone stand up. They also needed to implement a system for the voting part but they could take care of this on a different day since it was less urgent. Nova looked around and assigned work to everyone in the room.
"Maisie, Roy, and Saul, please search for a suitable location. I and Ben are going to handle the communication."
"Hehe, Nova, keeping your brother for yourself? Don't you see him all the time at home? Even that is not enough for you?"
"I know, right? That's the pain of having a big sister that loves me too much."
"Shut up, you two. Who knows what Maisie would do if I were to let her get too close to you."
"What do you take me for? I'm feeling hurt now."
"I've never seen you feeling hurt in the too-long time I've known you. Whatever, let's stop the chit-chat and start now."
"Yes, Ma'am! Ben, don't we have a great combination between us? Should we do a duo performance for the contest?"
"Oh, good idea. It would be a bit unfair to everyone, but it's a contest after all."
"Over my dead body!"
"Ahahah!"
After making a lot of fun of Nova, they finally began to work. Maisie, Roy, and Saul went to one side. Maisie took a notebook computer from one of the room closets and sat between the boys. On the other side, Benjamin took one of the two desktop computers for himself and logged in using credentials given by Nova.
"Ben, you handle the communication with the students and I'll do the same for the sponsors. This computer is already logged in to the school website using the student council account so you can create content directly. Just in case, always show me what you want to publish first so I can double-check it. We just need one announcement on the front page and another full page dedicated to the event with all the details. Ask me if there's anything you're unsure about. Here's how you can create content on the website."
She showed him the ropes and it was pretty easy overall. The website was already completely set up; he just needed to create a new post and page using the account's publisher's permissions. When he understood the basics, she let him handle it to go take care of her work.