As well as running the Support Team, Zippie and I run the on-site basic training for new stewards. This also acts as a refresher for those who have been stewarding for a while but want to come along. It is proper training, in that there is a lot of interaction, audience participation and role plays. We hope that people have a good time as well as learning something. In fact I think stewarding calls on life skills that everyone has, so it is really a case of helping them see that there is nothing scarey about stewarding so that they can go out and enjoy it.
We try to make sure the atmosphere is light-hearted. This does have a drawback in that we open ourselves up for a lot of heckling. Worst of all are the Support team when they come along. They were due to come to the Thursday session. On Wednesday night they were sitting up late and obviously thought I had gone to bed. Because I could overhear them plotting. They were trying to come up with long words for me to write on the flip-chart. They were quite surprised when I came out and said goodnight, adding "and I will sleep soundly because I know no-one is going to have long words at the training tomorrow". I am pleased to report that they failed to beat me on the day.
The role plays went well. Although most people hate the idea of them I really do believe that role plays can be a massive help. This year we kept the groups slightly larger and I think that helped people overcome their inhibitions. One group who were supposed to be discontented campers in a queue actually worked themselves up so much that it was frightening.
We try to make sure the atmosphere is light-hearted. This does have a drawback in that we open ourselves up for a lot of heckling. Worst of all are the Support team when they come along. They were due to come to the Thursday session. On Wednesday night they were sitting up late and obviously thought I had gone to bed. Because I could overhear them plotting. They were trying to come up with long words for me to write on the flip-chart. They were quite surprised when I came out and said goodnight, adding "and I will sleep soundly because I know no-one is going to have long words at the training tomorrow". I am pleased to report that they failed to beat me on the day.
The role plays went well. Although most people hate the idea of them I really do believe that role plays can be a massive help. This year we kept the groups slightly larger and I think that helped people overcome their inhibitions. One group who were supposed to be discontented campers in a queue actually worked themselves up so much that it was frightening.
1 comment:
I think the training was very good (or, more to the point, your training)at showing that stewarding uses the skills people already have and that they can already everything they need to to do the job. I really enjoyed it - meeting new stewards as much as heckling.
Plotting? Us???
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