Stage 5 of a team: Mourning

Yes unfortunately it's over...

I'm still wakening up round 8am expecting breakfast in dining room and realizing that I'll have to make it on my own... There's also no great new friends to say "Good morning!" to and decide how good it will really be or let me rephrase, how great morning we will make for each other...

No mater how exhausted ware we, there was always hidden shot of energy somewhere deep inside each and every one of us, that helped us get back on track.

Did anyone say procrastination?

We don't do that... right?!?

Who am I kidding. We're all doing it and we will procrastinate just a bit more... but much less that we did it before LSS 2010.

Amazing days of LSS 2010 ware flying by and I met lots of new, interesting, crazy, inspiring, hard-working, funny, dedicated (... running out of adjectives ...) people that gave me new energy and motivation to improve myself, my self-confidence and my perspective of life...

Thank you all for amazing moments during LSS 201o.

I'll be really bold for the end and I'll use really worn out line with a twist:

"I'll be back!" ... next year maybe as LSS trainer...

Blaž

Saturday, 24th of July Case Study and Focus Session

Welcome to the last day... :-(
LSS 2010 is already eight days old. Time to wrap up things and this day was indeed to wrap up things. We started this day with a lot of rain and mild temperatures. Perfect to raise temperature in the case study. We got together in out small reflection groups (~8people) and worked on a case study to apply all things we learned in previous training sessions. The trainers really pulled off a great exercise and some great challanges each group had to overcome. In the end we all gathered and all groups had to present a little role play - great fun!
In the afternoon we wrapped up things from a more personal point of view. The case study basically was a summary and application of the academic things we learned. Now, in the Focus Session we had time to reflect, set goals and think about all the great experiences at LSS as well as things to come after LSS.

This grid kind of represents this day in my eyes. Where do you want to go, what do you want to do? You have it in your hands... Alsp the different fields we touched in the LSS (marked) and the fields you still can fill. (My two cents)

Friday, 23rd of July: On top of Ljubljana

Tonight we went out... Of course we did... And we took ownership by dancing the Waka Waka within the first ten minutes after arrival on the dancefloor all together. Let's say it like that: in an exclusive setting like this club you earn quite a number of stange views and laughs when a crowd performs a dance like we did. Anyhow, the club was really nice. On top of a 8 storey building you had a great view over the nicely lighted sights of Ljubljana. I want to post some picuteres here but I don't have any.. Maybe I can add them later by changing this post?

Thursday 22nd of July: TEDx LSS Ljubljana

Uh yeah,

this years LSS contained even a TEDx like event which maybe is to become an official part of LSS in 2011. This year 10 voluntary speakers took the chance to practice their presentation skills in 6min talks. The talks were very interesting and inspiring and braought a new perspective on different topics related to LSS as well as others. I think that these talks were just perfectly fitting into the whole LSS spirit and defenitely should be a part of LSS 2011.

Friday, 23rd of July: Conflict Management Session

It is Friday but the LSS people don't stop to work, train, have fun and enjoy being together. The Friday afternoon session was about Conflict Management. In the first part we learned about the four different personal characteristics in Conflict Management of which everyone of us is likely to prefer one. The different characteristics each stand for a behaviour during a conflict where generally there is an "in" and an "out" perspective. The "in" perspective is concerned about the self in the conflict whereas the "out " is concerned about the other person in a conflict.
In the second part we talked about effective conflict resolution. We learned about one communication pattern which takes the need of a person into account. The pattern goes as follows:

1. Observation - statement of observations based on facts without any subjective judgements.
2. Feel - statement of how this observation makes you feel.
3. Need - statement of (resulting from the earlier points) what would be needed from the other person (or ingeneral) in order to find solutions for the conflict
4. Wish/Request - statement of a wish (not order!) to resolve the conflict.

By applying this pattern the different needs of the involved parties are revealed and a conflict becomes easier to attack at the right points.

Decision making 101

After 4 hours of sleep, breakfast, quick shower and big can of RedBull was time for some decision making trainings... Damn RebBull was strong... I was as hyper active as squirrel on ecstasy, but it helped me to contribute even more so guess what I'm having now...

Tim and Sara ware great trainers and presented the topic about decision making on really easily understandable way so we soon got the point and could use it in our exercises. Being stuck on a life raft in the middle of Pacific ocean was quite a challenge, but due to teamwork and great discussions we manage to survive long enough that we ware saved and we are still present on this LSS. Although last night took some casualties, some people ware dead asleep till late morning, almost afternoon, we still manage to get our best to contribute to our trainings and to hopefully meet the expectations of our trainers.

We will soon start to prepare for afternoon sessions and afterwards for a party so probably shower or just fresh air will help us keep our head clear and open for new ideas and tips...

Blaž

Thursday 22nd July: Salsa Night

Exactly... LSS goes Salsa... At least until the police came :-) Below you can see how professional the LSS is attacking not only leadership related tasks but also additional task like passionate dancing during the night: see below two highly motivated participants deeply connected in an intimate moment of true salsa (kidding)

Partying really is pure pleasure with you LSS guys! See you tonight on top of Ljubljana :-)

Timon

Thursday 23 rd: Change Management Session

With high speed to another great training. That is LSS. I really think my head is going to burst from all this great input, insights and ideas floating around in the endless LSS sea. It is just amazing.
The trainers Claire and Sara gave us an introduction to change management, what it is about , what it consists of and what different obstacles within an organization might be. We played a great roleplay where a team had to construct a house made of paper. Different roles in the team made effective communication, delegation and team work necessary. After a while the team had the chance to reflect on the situation and implement one change to the current process.
It was a great session with a lot of insights from participants and two very experienced trainers. Thank you!

Timon

Red Square or How Presentation skills can blow your mind

After long relaxing day in Bohinj and Bled we got some well deserved rest and sleep, well actually I start chatting with friends late in the evening and went to sleep late or early how you take it. After breakfast we ware prepared for new sessions and ware hardly wait for our Presentation skills session.

I was privileged to attend training conducted by Herve. Mind blowing training was also one of most exhausting on this LSS. Even thou we had no additional energizers to maintain our energy level we actually (Uroš and Umut says HIIII!!) didn't even need it. Content was so amazing that we ware focused all the time and sucking information after information, expecting new slides and exercises that Herve was giving us. Helen, Robert, Märt and me ware trying to satisfied Herve's expectations and contribute as much as we could. As trainer myself I got presentation skills training as part of process becoming a trainer, but what Herve gave us was on totally different level. Even just listening to his training anyone would start thinking about past experience and trying to connect it to content of training. Soon you would realized how many "mistakes" ware made even by yourself doing presentations or by others who's presentation you ware attending. His analogy of projecting "red square" too us is still in my head and I believe that I got clear picture of Herve's "red square", maybe not so bright red yet, but will probably get brighter and brighter when I'll go trough handouts after LSS.

Time is passing unnoticeable so it 2 hours since I typed first character and I engage in intersting conversation about differences between EPSA and EESTEC so now is time to move closer to the bed. So see you on trainings in the morning.

Blaž

Tuesday 20th of July: Trip To Bohinj and Bled

After that many days in training rooms it was time to leave our beloved dormatory for a nice trip to Slovenia's finest places. The OC made shure that we won't miss out on a perfectly sunny day to see the Savica Waterfall, take a swim in the lake in Bohinj and then see amazing Bled. That was a really relaxing day and everyone had the time to sit, mtalk, swim, get tanned and experience Slovenia. Here some impressions from the lake and Bled.

 Savica Waterfall

Lake Bohinj

 Lake Bohinj

 Bled

 All in all an amazing day with lots of impressions and great discussions.

During today's morning the LSS participants got the chance to learn a bit more about facilitating. It isn't always simple to chair a meeting and if there are people that naturally possess the skills needed, other personalities/behaviours don't fit as much in this team role.

Luckily, there is LSS to give us a help!

In this morning session all the participants had the chance to experience the challenge of chairing a meeting and to receive feedback from their colleagues and trainers on his/her performance.

In the end, all of us took our own lessons on how to improve ou facilitating skills. The ultimate goal is always the same: To make us better leaders!

The expectations are high for this afternoon training: Presentation Skills!!

See you during lunch!

Mariana

International Food and Drinking Party

Eight facts about the Internation Food and Drinking Party:

- It started quite early

- It was outdoors

- We all learned how to dance a Jordan song

- We went crazy with the brazilian song "Rap das Armas"

- There were some dutch people in orange (normal... :))

- Drinks were gone soon

- There was one trainer with badges on her feet (check out the picture)

- We all had fun

Now seriously, it was the best party ever following a training in intercultural awareness. We all could put in practice some of the knowledge acquired and fly from table to table, tasting food and drinks, learning more about the culture of other countries, sharing experiences, having fun and dancing, building our (already high) team spirit-LSS spirit.

Special thanks to the OC who made this happen, and to all the people smiling behind the tables, always available to explain us everything about their beloved countries!

Your portuguese leader,

Sofia

Case Study: Intercultural Awareness

About the wonderfull training on Intercultural Awareness we decided to present you a case study: In Slovenian "Cona" means zone... but does it mean the same in Portuguese?

Find out!!

Answers will be given on demand!!

Your Portuguese Leaders,

Sofia and Mariana

Team role day!

After one more night with few hours of sleep the LSS participants came back on track with training sessions at 9 am. Group Dynamics seemed like a vague topic at the begining, but soon we find out what it was all about!

Who would say that its possible to build a 2 meters bridge just with 75 sheets of paper and 2 meters of tape? What if we add that it had to stand with a 1,5L bottle full of water on top of it during 45 seconds? Well, the LSS participants showed outstanding engeneering skills and the goal was achieved for most of the teams :)

In the afternoon we had the opportunity to find ourselves! The topic of the session was Team Role and the NGO leaders made their own Beldin Test to discover their role within their teams. The main aim was to find out what should be one's role and to respect the differences among them.

In the end, one more step was given by these students to become a better leader :)

That's all for today! We need to run for international party!!

PS: Find us near the Port Wine!! :)

Your Portuguese Leaders,

Mariana and Sofia

Hot hot hot, almost 2 hot

Sitting in our hot room with my roommates... Each of us working on laptop... Most people attended party... what is wrong with this picture?

actually many things... first it's to f*ing hot... second I'm exhausted after quite intense day and now I'm playing with laptop instead of partying... well I'm a big boy and I'll do my "responsibilities" first. I volunteer to help with blogging about this great event so party will have to wait a few more minutes...

Since LSS 2010 in Ljubljana started on 16th and in like 15 minutes it will be 19th of July, I'll go trough details tomorrow. This is just an initial blog that we can start somewhere and we get the ball rolling. Soon I hope other "blog team" members will join and we will give you the taste of LSS 2010, our moments, trainings and adventures during this event.

p.s. my spelling mistakes is correcting spell.checker so any nonsense is intentional :P

Have fun till l8er...

Blaž