Impressions after 5TC… July 4, 2011

Most of you already know I am writing on this blog very seldom. I am writing when I can’t share my experiences with my close friends because I am blocked and the only way for me to make a step forward and get over it, is to write here. Today is a blurry day for me…I guess is just now that I realized “it ended” (the conference).

I arrived there last Sunday for the pre-meeting and thanks to Adi who is so calm I became calm too. I was confident the entire team will do a great job (they were hand-picked ).

Then in the first day I was anxious to start and a bit worried about the GTKEO because I was thinking that the people might not arrive in time but most of them did, so starting the agenda at 10.00 am is not a bad idea (though finishing on Friday as early as possible might be something we should consider…)

The World Caffe worked like a charm and I was pleasantly surprised to see that people were so interested in talking about the topics we chose. I am glad we could afford the luxury to choose these topics thanks to the people we had present. A bitter taste did appear, because I was thinking that next time these people will not be present and I have to figure out a new recipe to make the spell work.

Then the Skills block was phenomenal (I think). It worked so well – it was just what people needed and I think the idea of Oana with  “newbies track” is gorgeous and we will implement it – I hope we will have in autumn participants with different levels of experience and preparation and thus have the need to have a newbies track, otherwise the current concept works just fine. And again the bitter taste told me I will have to figure out a way to find/(re)bring the right, beautiful people to “cook it all” next time. The big question in my mind was “Why can’t I just keep them all in?” Of course I know the answer…we don’t have the needed money because the rest for a great (job) mixture, exists. How would it be to have some or all these people involved full-time (me included) working in youth education projects – GROW mainly but not only. How much would it cost? I will calculate…maybe starting from autumn or spring we will find a solution.

Moving on to the briefings’ day I have to say that I was not perfectly satisfied with this day. Maybe being at the 3-4th review of trainers’ manuals I became too picky, or maybe not. Anyways, my main feeling was that we still need to work a lot on the manuals and I hope I will not be doing this alone but have some ex/current GROW trainers to join me in doing these reviews. I was also a bit upset about how the corporate sessions went, mainly because I could see in the trainers’ style that they were not considering the participants as being adults, they were treating them a bit like kids. Well…they are not kids, they are in their twenties and even though I act like a kid sometimes (and don’t we all do that?), I am an adult (at least supposedly and everyone expects it from me). So long story made short, a great quality standard would be to involve in this 5TC only trainers who have some experience/knowledge/openness to understand how/what working with youth means. A youth trainer is not a corporate trainer. A corporate trainer can become a youth trainer but there are some special ingredients that need to be added to this soup and some people are just not aware of the complete recipe.

The simulations day was according to my expectations (I wish it was better). For the next edition I will create a best-case practice manual for how to run and coordinate the whole process – it will make things happen faster and easier – i will have to put this on paper asap not to forget anything

The last day was torture for me. I didn’t want to say it but the fact that I was in charge of the “impressions” session made it so much more difficult because there were many people I worked with going in front and talking about their experiences and I knew I will never see some of them again/for a long time. So after the session I went away to write some diplomas and to run some interviews (which were again tormenting me because they were about participants’ impressions). I was sad I didn’t find time to make a picture with my group and say good-bye but I might have started crying and I can’t accept crying – it just unbalances my inner peace much too much and if now I am suffering only for 1-2 days, if I was to say good-bye I would have been offbalance for a week. So on one hand is better that I didn’t say good-bye to all at once, but to just a few important ones, one by one. I hope in the future I will get better at “good-byes” though for the moment and for the last few years I have been preferring to think that if you don’t say good-bye you increase the chances of seeing each-other again – it proved true a couple of times but there are still 2 best friends of mine (Martita and Monica) whom I haven’t seen in a while and I miss so much and they seem so far…Dubai and Genova…it might be just in my head and I hope to see them this year and “break the spell”

I want to thank all of you for a wonderful time. I wish it didn’t end so soon. I am glad I had the chance to see so many cultures together functioning quite well and I was very impressed by Jojo – my dear Jojo, “o plecaciune pentru tine” (I am not sure how to say it in English) – I sincerely hope to see you again, you powerful, fragile girl! You rule!

Thank you Kasia also! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I think I know what you are going through but I was kind of blocked and couldn’t speak directly to you, though I hope I will soon.

The others, you know yourselves and how much I appreciate you and your work. I will not write it here again because I need to close this post and with it, my offbalanced mood – a new week has started and we need to rock again – I need to run for the GROW opening in Pitesti to support the team from here…actually I should have left 10 minutes ago already.

One last message from me – Oamenii sfintesc locul, nu Dumnezeu! – Sorry but I truly believe this above all.

PS: I don’t need to read the evaluation forms to know we did a wonderful job. I am not arrogant as some who don’t know me might think …I just happen to know it.