188

Oh my! I can´t believe TM it's already over. I slept for 12 hours for recovering and I feel so strange with so much free time (we have the day off today) that I don't know what to do.

So, I told you before about this Technical Meeting of organizations related to voluntary service and how in these days they were exchanging their workcamps exchanges. I myself was explained this way, but you can not imagine how it looks like untill you pass from theory to practice.

Here's a picture of all the people we´ve received in Piestany. INEX Slovakia was the 'hosting organization', the one responsible for the planning and set up of this event. My main task was to take an individual picture of each of the participants (188 in total), so people could identify this person's face in the future while exchanging emails. They have all pictures and workcamps programs in a memorial CD we gave them by the end of the TM.

Anyway, Hanka (another volunteer in INEX, daughter of the head-office, btw) helped me a lot with this and sometimes we exchanged our tasks, so I would received the people, ask them about their organizations and hand them their personal's badges (with name and organization). Sometimes it was easy if people came in small groups, but other times it happened that 20 people appeared in a raw and it was crazy. When this happened I tried to explained all the different steps they had to pass by for the registration: signature and welcome pack, invoice, tickets bill, programme reception and the picture (we worked as a small but well coordinated team).

Additionally, I told them about a photo-campaing Alliance proposed for promoting volunteering. It consisted on writing down a reason to go in a workcamp in your mother language and then translating them to English. We will soon share this pictures with the hashtag 'alliancetm2013' in every social network, so be aware of it :)

Last but not the least, I had a little role in the farewell party. I made a presentation on prezi about some funny 'fake' tombola prices that people could win for having participated in the geocatching campaing Matiss made. I did the prezi presentation but I wasn't asked to present it until 1 hour before, so I freaked out a little and kindly invited Hanka to help me out with that. It's funny because I knew all this people personally and have no problem talking with them, but when they became a mass I got quite nervous. It wasn't that bad at the end, tough.

Yeah, it's been so nice knowing so different people, such a great sensation being in this enriching diverse atmosphere. Also I kept some contacts for the future, I'm willing to continue my journey somewhere abroad but still have so much time right now for discovering Slovakia, in this sunny spring-like Bratislava that it´s inviting me to take a walk today -and I won't refuse :)

Hugs,
Alicia