TTX 2010 @ Slanic Moldova
Accompanied with OCs and one faci from Iasi, we have finally arrived Slanic by train. Unfortunately, we just missed the bus to the conference site, thus we have waited for an hour to take another bus. Slanic Moldova was a resort in Romania, which was also famous for its mineral water. The scenery was wonderful since it was a valley surrounded by hills. The hotel was not bad, though the room was a little bit small.
We were the first group arriving at the site, so that we could still have time to rest. Till all the facis arrived with the conference manager and the chair, we started our pre-meeting. It reminded me for the Ripples premeeting. I could see that all of us were quite tired after the long journey to the conference site. We set our expectation among facis and with OCs and reported the working process of our sessions. Also, one key message was decided- X-ceed our limit! Nearly everyone in faci team was the first time being the faci, but they were all passionate and elected VPs, lol. I was so glad to work with them. After visiting the plenary and eating some food, we were all busy to prepare for the session.
We got up around eight and someone was knocking our door already. OCs were delivering tea and coffee to us, well done! We had another dry run before the conference started and at the same time, we needed to think of a roll call. It turned out to be a fairy story in Romania and I was a bad guy who stole the princeness away. It was also very funny that we needed to fit in the theme of the conference- hip-hop and hoody. We didn’t get enough time to dryrun our roll call because we needed to familiarize with the session and delivery. In the first day, I didn’t have any session responsible, but I needed to co-facilitate in some sessions.
The first day of the conference was preparing delegates with the taste of internationalism and cultural sensitivity. There was a really good video shared by the faci, which was recorded by the PAI before. I should share this movie clip to us when I come back. Another session was cultural sensitivity, which reminded me the session conducted with secondary school students in the CSR project long time ago. It was a more developed and detailed version. Again, if I could share this game with people in Hong Kong, there will be a lot of fun too. As the only trainee in the conference, I will be one of best options in delivering the debriefing of cultural sensitivity. Yet, the delegates seemed to be quite exhausted since they need to travel quite a long way to the site. It would be one of the drawbacks of having such beautiful scenery around.
One of the distinctive differences between the conference in Hong Kong and Romania was that the fun stuff never ended in Romania. Gossip box was always full; there were lots of wish upon the chair and funny words were on the smash wall. Party was of course different, especially party was taken part every night in Romania. In the first night of the conference, there was also dancing compeition among homegroups. People just went crazy, LOL. In the second night, there was a punch of party delegates arrived from Iasi. Shouting, dancing, drinking! And I also participated in making fun because of the wish box….=.= I needed to dance with two facis in front of the whole plenary while the video we were following was just oddly. They requested me to dance solo, too. It was okay as I know it is called FUN! Another time was that I needed to speak some Romanian words in front of them. If I pronounced it a bit different, the meaning of the words would be totally different. It was sometimes embarrassing, but why not?
Functional training was scheduled in the second day of the conference. From the internal recruitment session, I was able to understand more about the situation and difficulties encountered by OGX side in Romania. They were having problems in getting members to go for exchange, that was the reason why they will still do pocket recruitment. So, it faced really different situation in different countries. Never assumpt the same you have faced before. Then, it came to my session- Panel discussion and Top 5 exchange stories. The panel discussion was like workgroup solving the problem together and generating solution. In the top 5 exchange stories, we shared our exchange experience one by one, some by videos and some by presentation.
Party delegates arrived in the last night of the conference. We had boat race, alcohol and dance! It was just a never-ending party! I had not stayed till the end because I was quite tired indeed. And there was still session in the next morning, though not much preparation was needed.
The morning session of the last day of the conference was delayed about 45 minutes because people were getting up late. But they still enjoyed the morning session. In the closing plenary, we finally saw the Chair roll call, which was a little bit late. Dutzu also shared his crazy story with the trainee from Geogria, which was really inspiring. And I learned how the real sugacubes were doing in the end. It was a big NO to envelopes but a big hug at the same time giving out the sugarcube to each other. We also shared our feeling and thoughts at the closing, just like what we did in Ripples. I enjoyed the time in TTX 2010 and treasured all the friendship here. Although it was not like Ripples, the first time being a faci in a different country was also an awesome experience! At the same time, I realized that how good the OCs and Facis had been doing in Ripples (self-praising again XD).
It was the time to say goodbye to everyone and we took the train back to Bucharest with Dutzu, Ana, Rudy and Geoco. During the trip, it was so much fun as we talked a lot about cultural difference like how we write the Chinese characters, how we eat and also all different customs. We just laughed too much even someone nearby felt annoying about that. =P
AIESECers, if you go for exchange in another country, please try to be a faci or a delegate as you will find out a lot more!
Conference site
Hardworking Facis and Chair
Plenary
I haven't took lots of photos......><
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