HISTORY MAKING
Odyssey of the Mind teams hold fundraisers to get to World Finals
GALWAY, N.Y. >> For the first time in the history of Galway Central School District, two teams will be competing in the Odyssey of the Mind (OM) World Finals during the same year.
The Division 3 and Division 1 teams are headed to Michigan at the end of the month and are raising the funds they need to get there with enormous community support.
Both teams took third place at the New York State Tournament last month, qualifying them for the World Finals. The Division 3 team, from Galway Junior/Senior High School, will be at the Finals for the first time ever. The Division 1 team, from Joseph Henry Elementary School, will be attending for their second year in a row after a decades-long dry spell — the last time Division 1 made it to the World Finals was in 1995.
Now, both teams are fundraising to get the money they need for travel, room and board, and registration fees. There has been a bake sale at the district schools, and last Sunday the teams took over the Cock N Bull restaurant for the afternoon for a barbeque lunch event. All the food was donated by Cock N Bull, live music was provided by Happenstance, and there was a raffle with prizes all donated by the community.
“The amount of money we have to raise is ridiculous,” said Sheena Johnson, whose son Aidan Reekie-Mell is on the Division 3 team and who also coached another OM team in the school district. “OM is such a good program, but it isn’t sports-related, so it can be hard to raise awareness. But we asked all these people for help, and they all said yes. We really do have the community behind us.”
At Sunday’s lunch, the team members did almost everything themselves, from serving up delicious pulled pork lunches to bussing tables. The only thing they didn’t do was cook the food — that was in the capable hands of Cock N Bull owner Rick Sleeper, who was more than happy to support the school district.
“They asked to have a fundraiser here, and why wouldn’t we?” Sleeper said. “Community support is everything. We all have to think as one. Most of our staff here has connections to the Galway schools, they’re alum or they have kids going through.
Of course we’re going to support these kids. They’re doing something special.”
“Ticket sales have been amazing,” commented Division 3 coach Nichole Evans. “We’ve got double the amount of people we expected. When you live in a small town like this, to see so much community support and generosity is heartwarming.”
Evans said that the current Division 3 team has been working together for seven years, and two of the students — her son Shamus and Reekie-Mell — have been participating in OM competitions since they were in kindergarten. It’s common for OM teams to form strong bonds through their expe
riences together.
“They’ve been a family, through the good times, the bad times, and the stressful times. I couldn’t be prouder of these kids. Two of them are my own, and the others are my kids too that other people just happened to birth,” Evans said with a broad smile.
Julie Pasieka, the Division 1 team’s coach, felt similarly.
“I’ve been coaching this team for four years, and they have such a great rhythm in how they work together,” she said. “They are so creative, and hilariously funny. They usually think really outside the box, but for this year’s competition, they thought way, way, way outside the box and it paid off — the judges loved it. I’m so proud of them.”
In an Odyssey of the Mind competition, teams are presented with five potential problems to solve. Each team must choose one and create an eight minute performance that includes a skit and several very specific parameters outlined in their selected problem. These can include elements such as costuming, building a structure or vehicle, or music.
The competition teaches skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and engineering.
The problem Division 1 chose to solve was “Pirates and the Treasure,” which required them to build a moving vehicle, among other things. They also wrote an original song, with music by Avery Pasieka, 9, and lyrics by the rest of the team. Team members have to do everything themselves — all construction, scripting, and costuming. Coaches can’t help beyond verbal guidance. Pasieka says the hardest part of her job is not being allowed to do any of the work — but at the same time, one of the most rewarding things is watching the kids figure it all out on their own.
“We decided to take the pirates into space, and our treasure was a gold cheeseburger that weighed 25 pounds — in the skit, not for real,” explained Henry Pasieka, 11. “When we were cutting it out, Avery had Styrofoam in her hair for days. We had to build a vehicle all on our own and come up with a creative skit.”
“We went through so many ideas for our vehicle, we went from tank treads to bicycle tires,” said Edmund Perkins, 10. “At first, we were at ten minutes long, and that was really bad. But we learned from it and memorized our lines and we got better.”
Avery Menge, 10, said the biggest challenges she faced were keeping the performance under eight minutes and getting their vehicle to move. Perkins thought his biggest challenge was projecting, and perfecting his British accent (he watched a lot of “The Great British Baking Show” to get it right). Henry felt his biggest challenge was steering the pirate ship and singing at the same time. Avery P. was most challenged by the time limit. Mari Smith, 10, thought that building the pirate ship was her biggest challenge.
The team is most looking forward to visiting Michigan for the first time and pin-trading with competitors from all over the world.
The Division 3 team chose the “Most Dramatic Problem Ever!!!” to solve. As older students who are more involved in their school and community, a challenge for them was getting everyone together at the same time.
“Getting seven teenagers together is a huge challenge,” said Reekie-Mell, 16. “It’s very difficult.”
“It’s really hard finding time to fit practice in and fit everything else around it,” agreed Eben Perkins, 17.
Other team challenges included performance nerves in the hours and minutes before competitions and some last-minute construction emergencies.
“A piece of our scenery broke right before our competition at Regionals,” explained Shamus Evans, 17.
“Yeah, it was like, 30 seconds before we were supposed to go on!” added Taylor Germain, 16. “We had to cover it in duct tape to repair it.”
“Then after the competition we fixed it properly,” said Shamus.
“One of our costumes fell apart on the drive to Syracuse for the State competition because the hot glue holding it together melted,” said Simon Evans, 15.
Germain and Noah Montague, 17, both agreed that pre-competition nerves were the worst, while Peregrine Perkins, 15, felt that everything about OM competitions is the most challenging.
What the Division 3 team is looking forward to the most at World Finals is winning, skipping school, meeting people from around the world and showing off their performance, and seeing how other countries handle the competition.
Fundraising efforts so far have been very successful. The school bake sale raised $2,000, and the Cock N Bull barbeque pulled in over $5,000. Evans and Pasieka have also created a GoFundMe page for the teams, at https://gofund. me/8b2a5962.