Mid Phrase Review

On the weekend of the 8th-10th May, team 94 ventured out onto the beautiful Gower Peninsula, to a little village called Llamadoc, for our Mid-Phrase Review (MPR).
The purpose of the MPR was to have fun, have a break from our host community, get to know each other and trust each other more, review all that's happened so far (the challenges, the highs, the lows, the group dynamics, the relationships between counterpart pairs etc) and think how we can improve it for the rest our exchange.

On the Friday afternoon before we left Swansea we did the ‘Charity Shop Challenge’ around Swansea city centre. The aim of the game was to get the craziest outfit possible (to wear at the party the following night) using a maximum of £5, in the space of 45 minutes ad only buying from charity shops. Each volunteer also had to tell at least 3 members of the public what GX is and make people happy, while we were running around town and we all wore our green GX t-shirts to get noticed a bit more.

The purpose of the challenge was to promote recylcing and reusing as part of the wider global issue of eco-friendly, ethical shopping and the impact of consumerism on the environment,spread the message of GX to the wider public and have fun...which we did :-)

We arrived in Llamadoc later that evening and walked to our venue which was St Madoc Christian Youth Camp - a hostel type centre with dorms, self-catering facilities, football pitch, beach volleyball, woods, and amazing views over long sandy beaches. On the Friday night we had a big BBQ, cooked mainly by head chef Eliot (thank youuuu!) and watched the sun setting over the beautiful Welsh countryside, ahhhh!

Saturday we were up bright and early to start our first session at 9am. We played lots of games during the day and did sessions on group dynamics and the different roles we play within the group, what a team needs to succeed, counterpart relationships and how they can be improved adn the cross-cultural differences and issues and hpw they can be dealt with. It was a very intense day as lots of issues were brought up, but we all felt it was good to be open with each other so we can keep building on our relationships and make team 94 the best team it can possibly be. Highlights of the day were.... drawing a big picture of Swansea all together and the places within our community that are special to us. We also enjoyed the Mr and Mrs Quiz - a fun gameshow where each counterpart pair had to come to the front and were asked questions about each other to see how well we all know each other.

On Saturday night it was the big party, so we got into our costumes (bought during the charity shop challenge). Seeing everyone dressed up was HILARIOUS and interesting that every single one of the guys dressed up as a woman. We particulary liked Eliot's silky pink nightie, the underpants Mwata wore on her head and of course Christina and Naomi for fitting into the same dress!! First off at the party was the big fashion show where we paraded our outfits and judged which was best...the winner was MWATA!!!

Next we had a yummy dinner of pasta, couscous, salad, rice, potato wedges and other yummy things. Followed by the TALENT SHOW! Frank was our compere for the talent show and each of us went up and showed a talent. We had beautiful singing, music and dancing from Ngawa, Fatness, Mwata, Jessy, Frank, Paul, Mwansa, Prudence, Jackson, Naomi, Christina and Henry. We had an awesome GX song written by Charlotte (who was the also the winner of the competition - well done!). Matt 'the genuis' Goldup told us the capital city of every country, Ness told everyone their birthday, we had an invisible juggling lesson from Tommy, a traditional Welsh story told by Dom and acted out by Eliot and Luchembe. And last by not least we had the INCREDIBLE human bed, performed by Maggie, Vally, Eliot and Jessy - WOWWWW! It was amazing to see how much talent there is in team 94.

The party finished off with the legendary chocoloate game which quickly descended into us all turning on each other to get as much chocolate as possible (team players? HA!) and then dancing the night away and watching a very interesting video about recyling (rock on).

Sunday morning began with another session on host homes and volunteer placements and we did lots of role plays to show the problems we've faced, funny moments and what we can do to improve. For 2 hours in the morning we all got stuck in doing some physical voluntary work at the camp (gardening, weeding, making drains, making a path). Then after another yummy picnic lunch we finished up the weekend with some games and an award ceremony lead by Matt.

We said goodbye to the beautiful Llamadoc and piled onto a tiny bus to head back to Swansea (literally piled into the bus - poor locals). We had an awesome weekend and learnt lots about each other, developed our relationships, tackled the ups and the downs, challenged ourselves to be open and honest and came out of it the other end with big beaming smiles. A big thank you to the MPR committee for organising the weekend and to the rest of the team for being so receptive and hard working during it. It really made us see what a special team we are :-)