on wednesday morning we started our journey to porto. the house was full of excitement, everyone ready to go, but what to take and what to leave behind? this was the trickiest question. the participants had prepared some promotional material + all the equipment for their performance. we as trainers and support team didn’t have a clue what they were planning. our only concern was to get everyone on the bus and leave the right time.
the trip to porto started by a 40 minute bus drive from amarante to regua. regua is a small city where you can take the train to porto. of course we could have taken the bus straight to porto, but as the overall project contains traveling through europe for three weeks, we decided to give the participants (and ourselves as well) the chance to experience traveling all together and performing on the train. the train performance of course wasn’t as it was supposed to be. we sent a letter to the portuguese train company that we would like to do some activities on the train from regua to porto, but got an answer soon that we should give them a plan in more detail and notice then a couple of weeks in advance. so there we were.
we arrived in regua 15 minutes before the arrival, took our lunch boxes and material. i bought the tickets and it was already time to go on board. as the train departed the participants started singing, playing guitar and chatting with complete strangers. although they were quite exhausted, they managed to keep up the mood….till a string of a guitar broke. i personally had a bad experience in train – lended my camera to someone to take pictures and afterwards there were no pictures at all! what a joy!
when we arrived in porto then the participants had their big moment coming. first they had to perform in the station. they had a quick meeting all together to make a plan. as it turned out than the plans they had made before were quite unuseful as the string broke. so here’s the first point – always have a plan b! after tight discussions and some fierce arguing they started their performance making loads of noise…..till the security guy came and it was suddenly over…..afterwards a man from the train company came to talk to us that we should talk to them in advance, gave his business card and asked to contact him if we need a group discount or any permissions. then we went to one plaza in porto. we, trainers and i, advised them to go to the riverside in the beginning and have some lunch first as it was already lunch time and we were pretty hungry. but as it was the day of the participants then they had to decide what are we gonna do, when and where. the trainers decided to step out of the process as it was time to learn to manage themselves as they have to do in august when we’re on the train rushing through italy, romania, lithuania, poland and portugal.
their idea was to do mime’s in the corner of the square next to the post box. in the beginning, telmo went to stand there with a sign, next people started sitting in front of them to see what is going on. unfortunately this was a mistake as they closed the route where people where going through. in addition they ran to the middle of the square to do “zip-zap”, a game which they had practiced here so many times and spiced up with typical elements of the training. still they were enjoying what they were doing though they had planned something else and everything didn’t turned out like supposed to.
after a break in the square we went to the main street to do some activities over there. though they managed to do what they wanted, then there was still something missing – the message! they had stayed up half the night before to do some promotional material – a sign saying street animation and active participation! this should have been one of the messages to spread, but they left the signs outside of their activities and it rather looked like someone playing some games on the street. couldn’t see the purpose of their activities.there was clearly no leadership nor moderation. people were having discussions and no one stood up to say: guys, this is what we’re going to do. they were still speaking in the tense “i” not “we” as it should have been. although after a couple of days it seemed that they have a good group feeling, there was missing the ability to work as a team which unfortunately spoilt many things.
after the activities on the main street – santa catarina – we took our way to the riverside to have a break. i must say that it’s quite difficult to move with such a big group but we managed. after a nice break in a cafe the group split up – the youngsters went their way, some of the trainers went their way. so basically we went sightseeing on our own and with some guidelines given by brais and just chatted and enjoyed porto! later we met brais next to the cathedral, met some of the participants and it was already time for dinner. we asked the participants to meet us 19.30 in the square where we were in the morning. and can you believe that all of them were on time? absolutely amazing. after a dinner, we catched the bus back to amarante.
we arrived in regua 15 minutes before the arrival, took our lunch boxes and material. i bought the tickets and it was already time to go on board. as the train departed the participants started singing, playing guitar and chatting with complete strangers. although they were quite exhausted, they managed to keep up the mood….till a string of a guitar broke. i personally had a bad experience in train – lended my camera to someone to take pictures and afterwards there were no pictures at all! what a joy!
when we arrived in porto then the participants had their big moment coming. first they had to perform in the station. they had a quick meeting all together to make a plan. as it turned out than the plans they had made before were quite unuseful as the string broke. so here’s the first point – always have a plan b! after tight discussions and some fierce arguing they started their performance making loads of noise…..till the security guy came and it was suddenly over…..afterwards a man from the train company came to talk to us that we should talk to them in advance, gave his business card and asked to contact him if we need a group discount or any permissions. then we went to one plaza in porto. we, trainers and i, advised them to go to the riverside in the beginning and have some lunch first as it was already lunch time and we were pretty hungry. but as it was the day of the participants then they had to decide what are we gonna do, when and where. the trainers decided to step out of the process as it was time to learn to manage themselves as they have to do in august when we’re on the train rushing through italy, romania, lithuania, poland and portugal.
their idea was to do mime’s in the corner of the square next to the post box. in the beginning, telmo went to stand there with a sign, next people started sitting in front of them to see what is going on. unfortunately this was a mistake as they closed the route where people where going through. in addition they ran to the middle of the square to do “zip-zap”, a game which they had practiced here so many times and spiced up with typical elements of the training. still they were enjoying what they were doing though they had planned something else and everything didn’t turned out like supposed to.
after a break in the square we went to the main street to do some activities over there. though they managed to do what they wanted, then there was still something missing – the message! they had stayed up half the night before to do some promotional material – a sign saying street animation and active participation! this should have been one of the messages to spread, but they left the signs outside of their activities and it rather looked like someone playing some games on the street. couldn’t see the purpose of their activities.there was clearly no leadership nor moderation. people were having discussions and no one stood up to say: guys, this is what we’re going to do. they were still speaking in the tense “i” not “we” as it should have been. although after a couple of days it seemed that they have a good group feeling, there was missing the ability to work as a team which unfortunately spoilt many things.
after the activities on the main street – santa catarina – we took our way to the riverside to have a break. i must say that it’s quite difficult to move with such a big group but we managed. after a nice break in a cafe the group split up – the youngsters went their way, some of the trainers went their way. so basically we went sightseeing on our own and with some guidelines given by brais and just chatted and enjoyed porto! later we met brais next to the cathedral, met some of the participants and it was already time for dinner. we asked the participants to meet us 19.30 in the square where we were in the morning. and can you believe that all of them were on time? absolutely amazing. after a dinner, we catched the bus back to amarante.
No comments:
Post a Comment