Saturday 12th October - Participant Arrival Day

It is amazing that the day we have all been looking forward to and planning is finally here – the day when 38 young people from all across Europe descend on Malvern Outdoor Centre for our Autumn Seminar.

Logistically it is a challenge to get people from almost 20 different countries to our little corner in Worcestershire.  Fortunately Birmingham is not too far away and has good international links via the airport and train stations.  People began arriving at the airport from 7 in the morning and the last one landed at almost 7 at night.  Claire, Gaz and I made an early trip to the airport to meet the first participants and Claire took the first group, and I departed around 1pm with the next group of 12 and Gaz brought the rest about 8pm.  It makes for a long day being sat in an airport, but with fresh faces to meet and greet every hour or so it kept it interesting.  

It was quite easy to spot participants as they walked through the arrival gates – they were often looking a little lost, carrying loads of luggage and usually wearing tops branded with the names of their organisations.  Everyone was pleased to have arrived and already I could see we had a really great bunch of enthusiastic and energetic people.  We had a bit of a rush to catch the trains to Malvern, first taking the train from the airport into Birmingham and then running for the next train at Birmingham New Street Station.  It is these times when the girls wish they had not brought so much stuff, but us boys were more than happy to help and make some good impressions!

As the journey passed we moved more and more into the countryside, eventually arriving in Malvern with the great Malvern Hills lifting up behind the town.  Nick from Malvern Outdoor Elements (our venue) picked us up in a minibus and took us about half way up the hill to the centre.  The rest of the prep team were on hand to show participants around, facilitate registration and give out the participant packs with an assortment of goodies.

As part of the seminar it is usual for each country represented to give a presentation about themselves, their country and rural youth organisation.  So most spent the afternoon preparing these ready for tomorrow, whilst others who’d had long flights or not much sleep the night before, got some horizontal time.

After supper Gaz arrived with the last participants and Marieke coordinated some ice-breaking sessions which were great fun.  By the end we pretty much all knew each others names and had begun making new friends.  Everyone had been quiet when they arrived but now they were all beginning to talk more with each other and the socializing continued late into the night…

Friday 11th October - Final Preparations

Today was the day for making final preparations before the seminar participants arrive tomorrow.  Many months, and even years of planning have gone into preparing this seminar so hopefully the day before is just about finishing touches rather than major issues.

Fortunately this was the case and the seminar leader (Claire) had got everything very well organised.  I also made some preparations during the evenings this week as I had an important meeting to attend with my work today which could not be re-arranged for a more convenient time.  Comfortable that everything was under control I snuck off for my meeting for around half of the day.

My meeting was about bringing a group of farmers, land managers and conservationist together to look at how special areas of grassland around the UK are managed, and how people can make a living by using animals to graze these important natural areas with unique biodiversity, and then selling the meat from these animals with special branding to reflect the diets of the animals which give unique qualities to the meat.

It was a very productive meeting and we made some positive steps. I would not normally mention this on this seminar blog but when driving back to Malvern I reflected on how actually the meeting was very relevant to our seminar theme: business innovation and entrepreneurship transforming rural communities.  Some of the people I met at the meeting were being very innovative and entrepreneurial working with a variety of different stakeholders (eg. landowners), obtaining funding and income from a variety of sources and successfully marketing their products, to provide a service to the environment and to consumers.  It was a great inspiration for the week ahead as it not only demonstrated a working model for being successful in business, but also showed the opportunities available for transforming parts of our rural communities.

When I returned the prep team were all setting up their blogs so that we can keep a record of our activities and reflections during the seminar.  We will be encouraging participants to do the same and this will allow anyone who is not on the seminar to find out all about it.

We sorted out the final bits of paper for our grant funding and travel reimbursements, and prepared the participant packs with goodies for everybody when they arrive.  Gareth (Gaz) then briefed us on everyone's arrival times tomorrow and how they will be getting to Malvern, with the whole prep team involved in their welcome - it felt like we were planning a military operation!!

Thursday 10th October - Prep Team Arrival

I was running late as usual, trying to get a few things up to date at home and work before departing. I arrived at Malvern Outdoor Elements 3 hours later than the rest of the prep team but everybody helped unload my car and I was soon up to speed with what had been happening.

It was good to see everyone again since our Feasibility Weekend to plan the seminar in September.  Marieke and Jesper from Denmark, Kadri from Estonia and Ueli from Switzerland had all flown in earlier in the day.  Gareth from Lincolnshire and Claire from Cornwall are also on the prep team.

We ran through a few things about the week ahead but couldn't do much more once we discovered the WiFi would not work.  We were all at a loss - how can modern humans possibly function without internet?!  We had some cider to calm our nerves.  Actually this meant we were all able to relax properly and catch up with each other, without being pestered by tweets and facebook notifications popping up every 2 minutes. (In fact it turned out we'd all been trying the wrong wifi code and it locked us out!)

The place here is really great, not far from Malvern town but enough trees around to make you feel its in the middle of the countryside.  There are also some great views across Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and the Malvern Hills are right behind us.  The accommodation is great and all well equipped.  It is a collection of little wooden buildings including classrooms, canteen, accommodation and skittle alley!

Really excited for the week ahead.  You can also follow our progress on twitter hashtag: #ryeas2013