This morning the group has been hard at work packing their suitcase with the questions and discussion points that still need addressing through this afternoons planned parallel sessions. The participants worked as individuals and chose the topics for discussion that were important to them, then coming back together as a group to identify any commonality and group topics together. Some of the topics identified included structure, vision, mission, who ‘we’ are, next steps and growth for the network – plus much more besides.

Revisiting who ‘we’ are

The group wanted to investigate defining who ‘we’ as a community actually is during the morning – to kick off the process each individual spent time thinking about who they are one their owns, they then moved into pairs, then fours and finally two larger super organisms who distilled and refined their ideas into two statements that complement the one sentence to rule them all that was developed yesterday. The group were clear that further work on this would need to be done within the parallel sessions which are set to take place during the afternoon.

From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow

The final 20 minutes of the morning session saw an input from Mieke and Dagna who shared with us their seed analogy. They asked the group to think about the creation of the network in the same way as we would think about a seed – within it in the embryo (the idea and intention of creating this network), the flesh (the people involved) and the structure around it – from all of this the roots and stem can grow.

Over the past few days the process has been a challenging one and during that time some of the flesh of the group’s seed has been damaged and Mieke and Dagna stressed the importance of taking the time for individual reflection to help heal the flesh and protect the seed. This week, they shared with us, was the time for the seed to put down strong roots to ensure it doesn’t wither and fade – a time to begin growing the mighty trunk of the International Youth Work Trainers Network.

So what now?

During the rest of the day the group will be running parallel sessions of discussion to begin thinking about the range of topics packed away in the suitcase and of course I will be sharing the discussions here on the blog. Following on from this they will also be evaluating the week’s activity and planning the next steps – and where the network goes from here.

As always the group would love to hear from you on any of the topics that are being discussed so make sure that you join the conversation.