The First Meeting

To be honest I'm not quite sure who was more nervous and excited-Ross and me or the Upstart members. We came in not sure what it would be like with this new group of people. I do think it is safe to say that after the introductions were over there was a feeling that this was the start of something good.

The proverbial ice was broken with a game of "Guess who I am" and it was pretty much off from there. My personal favourite activity, though, was the free writing exercises about what we love and what we hate. This made us learn more about each other and was also quite revealing.


I think this was not only an important act for the writing and creativity process but also important to develop trust in each other and the space that we were in. We all shared a bit of ourselves in telling what we love and hate and Ross and me were able to show the members that we were probably learning as much as they were.

The Upstart kids seemed to enjoy the focus group we had in the radio studio and they opened up even more about the issues that them and their peers face. There is definitely room for more opening up and I'm pretty sure that after a few more sessions it will be difficult to get them to stop sharing!