Walls & Barns Seminar Camp Reunion and RTF UK

Hello and happy easter!

I'm sitting here at the Frankfurt airport, on my way to the RTF (=Regional Training Forum) in England... paying 8 euros for internet.

But this gives me time to blog and reflect on the wonderful week I've had.
Once again, it involves guests... I swear I'm not normally this popular! This has been crazy here in Sweden!
But we had a mini reunion for Walls and Barns Seminar 2008 (where i met Ellen Rue for the first time... aaaawwwww). So Daniel, who is the Israeli NJR (now at EJBM in Holand) was also at that camp so he came to visit Ellen and me and then Ea, who was another staff from Denmark also came so we had a wonderful weekend together, just bringing up memories, having lots of laughs and great conversations.
One funny moment was Saturday night, we were hanging out at Ellen's and finally we brought ourselves to go out... around 1 am. We got to this bar at 1:30 and said "perfect, 1.5 hours is just enough time to be out and dance a bit"... and then 25 minutes later the bar was closing and we were confused because it closes at 3.... until we realized that the clocks changed so at 2 it became 3 and the bar closed... so we joked about be out partying for a WHOLE 25 minutes. Yes, we live on the edge.

*** I had to stop writing because my internet time ran out so it's the next day now ***

So now I'm in Sheffield, at my good friend from CISV GB, Peter Russel (aka, Pe'ah), he's off being a teacher so I have time chill and to continue writing.
Soon I will head to the center and later tonight I guess I'll be meeting up all the other trainers that are around town and also some people from GB that I haven't seen in a while! (and also some people that I have seen very recently like dear Ea who will also be at the RTF).
And tomorrow the work starts, I am training the Seminar Camp Staff workshop along with Eetu (Finland), and we get to test out the all new "trainer material kit" we've put together in Finland so exciting times.
I will also have a chance to present the project there, and tell people a bit about it which is great (but also makes me a bit nervous!) but I'm sure it'll be fine.

So now I will head out, it is ..... SUNNY.... (well, in British way) so it's almost a crime to stay indoors...

Till next time!
E.

Post Annual Meeting

Hello! So last weekend was CISV Sweden's Annual Meeting. I'm still SO impressed with how the meeting was run. So organized!! You must understand that for a person coming from Israel that was really really really crazy. I can't believe that there were 50 people sitting and discussing things for 1.5 days and not once did 2 people speak over eachother or at the same time... nor did anyone raise their voice. Incredible. :)

I also loved the whole meeting technique thing, and I think Gabriel (the external chairman of the meeting) did a really great job.

I wanna take this blog opportunity to say goodluck and thank you to Jenny Andersson (departing president). Unfortunately, we didn't get the chance to work together much but I've heard nothing but great things about you and I wish you LOTS of luck. What are you going to do with all this free time now?? :)
Also, a congrats and good luck to the incoming president - Åsa, i look forward to working with you!
AND finally a big warm "shout out" to Ellen, who also was running for President. Ellen, you already know what I think about you, and I'm so proud of you for running. I KNOW you'll make an amazing president someday (and you BETTER run again, or else there will be violence... hehe).

Finally, some good news for me... the plenary decided to approve funding for my personal project (Conflict Management & Effective Communication Handbook) which is very exciting! Now it's finally on! Further updates on the progress of the project will be posted on the blog. I promise.

So what now...? Well, it's been 2.5 whole weeks without guests but that's gonna end this weekend at the Walls and Barns Seminar Camp 2008 (UK) mini reunion. So we (me and Ellen, who was also at this camp) are expecting Ea from Denmark (who staffed with me, and also staffing the SC in Indonesia this summer if anyone is going there, she's sweeeet) and also Daniel from Israel, who is now the Israeli NJR so all of you going to EJBM will meet him there. Great guy! So fun times expected this weekend.

Let me conclude by wishing my wonderful colleague Eva a very very very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Till the next post! kram.

Reunion Weekend

I know, I know. I have been neglecting my blogging responsibilities. But here I am again ready to share my life with you. :)

So where did we leave off? The week after my cousin left was pretty much recovering from having someone here from home, which included a bit of loneliness and a slight case of home-sickness but really for a short time and it's only natural, right?

Then this past weekend it was visitor time again, but this time not from home but from CISV. I was happy to have Eetu (Finland), Vinh (DK), Do (Holand) and Ze (Portugal) here visiting me.

The connections are quite complicated I guess but I'll try to explain:
Eetu, Vinh and I were all at EJBM 2003 but never actually really talked that much. We then reunited last spring when we trained the Seminar Camp Staff workshop in Hamburg (it is because of this workshop that I am actually here in Sweden...) and immediately become great friends. Do was one of the trainees we had in our workshop.
Then in the summer I staffed a 2 week 16-18 IYM in Israel with Vinh and Ze, and right after out camp, there was a seminar camp in israel which Do was staffing...
So that's the connection between us, in a nutshell.

So naturally we had a very fun time here in stockholm, being silly and having people constantly guessing where we were all from (somehow everyone immediately guessed that Eetu was from Finland). Luckily we had nice sunny days. And let me use this "platform" to say a big TACK to Ellen for letting some of the guys stay at her place.

As for work, the office has been quieter since Louise left, and I lost my "lunch partner" :( (miss you, Louise!) but other than that all is good. I now have inherited Louise's impact responsibilities (along with Eva).

By the way - we are still looking for TRAINERS for impacts, you don't have to have previous experience just the will to do it and a free weekend :) if you are interested or have more questions please let me know at impact@se.cisv.org.

Same goes for kitchen staff people - we still need kitchen staff for dates April 16-18 or May 28-30 (in Högaberg) so just send me an email if you're interested.

I will finish by saying that I'm super excited about this being the 5th day in a row there has been SUN! I can actually start seeing the sidewalks for the first time which is thrilling. :) I'm so ready for spring! bring it on!