Just got in from the OYMS residential at Osmington Bay in Weymouth. Its been a crazy weekend with some wonderful and sometimes, challenging young people and with a great bunch of Mentors.
Can't believe we've done so much:
In 48 hours or so we've eaten together, talked, laughed, got annoyed, played, negotiated and even got some sleep. We have done a scavenger hunt, paddled the rafts we built on the sea, stood on top of telegraph poles 30 feet in the air in a rainy windy gale (it's called a high ropes scare , I mean high ropes course!), we've mountain biked, night hiked (mud, mud, mud) and quad biked in some welcome sunshine.
It's been awesome to see the teens face some big challenges and meet them, it's been great to see a little bit of what makes them tick.
Bloggable bit: Part of my role was to talk to the teens about how they saw the mentoring scheme. One of the things I was interested in was what they thought a mentor should be like. I was well impresed that the answers that came back weren't about being young, trendy or cool! A mentor, in their opinion, needed to be kind, considerate, to be able to listen and treat them with respect ... oh and be reasonably chilled!
Not sure I was quite so chilled on the high ropes, I got "Elvis legs" (technical climbing term) BIG TIME on the balance wire.
Leave a comment