Day 3

10 February 2008

Select a day

Home

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

European Careers Workshop / Guest-flow Manager

The aim of the workshop was to try out activities we have not done before. Thomas, the workshop leader introduced us to the topic in a very interesting way: he wanted us to realise that we all have previous experience in every kind of fields; we only had to think about parallel situations, so that we soon felt ourselves more comfortable with the situation and our vague visions disappeared. After clarifying the jobs (general supervisor, guest-flow manager and smalltalk colleagues) according to the S.M.A.R.T. task management system, the members of the workshop were ready to accomplish their mission, to introduce the guests to the reception party. Fortunately, last night was the rugby game (Ireland against France) so that we hoped there would be many people showing up. The first guests appeared right at the beginning of the party, thus our job began very early. My personal tasks as guest-flow manager were to ensure that each guest is taken care of, and there are no queues at the tables. Furthermore, I and my appointed assistants tried to inform and possibly persuade people passing by Achill Cliff House getting interested in our event and taking a look as well as getting involved in what is happening inside. These personal efforts proved to be successful because we managed to attract two dozen people that way; approximately eight of ten approached people decided to join. For me it has been a great experience and I have now a broader insight what should be considered and emphasised during a similar event.

Balázs Tatár (Hungarian Group)

Preparation to the reception party

After meeting at 10:00 am in the teachers' cottage the responsibilities for the recepion party at Achill Cliff House in the afternoon were given to the participants really quickly. After explaining each ones tasks, the participants started their work. Things like organizing the food, preparing the room and preparing the introduction speech had to be done; there was also a workshop about things like small-talk, organisation and guest-flow. When all participants met at 02:45 pm at Achill Cliff House everybody was a little bit nervous. All preparation for the party was done, the desks full of wonderfully served food from the different countries. So the Hungarians offered a special, very hot paprika-sauce, bread and salami, the Lithuanians served special Cranberry-Liqueur and the Germans brought their sweets and chocolates, not to mention some examples, also the Britain and the Danish brought great things. One by one residents of Achill with their family members came and we guided them around the room, from table to table and from project to project. Many of them signed up for the workshops, especially in the Immigration Experience Workshop and the Intercultural Expert Workshop. Right at the peak of the party Annika and Justina Maria delivered a short introduction speech. Afterwards, the Hungarians sang a lovely folksong. Over the whole 2 hours around 25 adult residents and also some 10 tourists joined us and made their own intercultural experience, with the participants and with food.

Marius Kustermann (German Group)

The reception party

  We finally got everything ready for the reception party. We arranged all the food on top of the country flags; the Hungarian and Lithuanian group set up computers with videos and slideshows of their home country. The tables were filled with wonderful food ranging from the German Haribo beargums to the Hungarian spicy sauce. All of the food was wonderfully diverse and showed a wide variety of tastes that could not have been imagined. We welcomed our guests and showed them a glimpse of all of our countries. We spoke to them about our workshops and what we hoped to discuss. Many of them seemed very interested and we even got some of them to volunteer to come to workshops and give their opinions. We also found that going around the tables ourselves that our cultural diets are very different. We believe we left all of those who came with a wonderful impression of what we have to offer. For example Kieran Sweeney  who runs Achill Signs said: "I enjoy it very much. It�s very interesting." Another thing that helped to attract local people was that Justina from the Lithuanian group was dressed up as a frog prince and handed out candy to all of the children, which gave us the opportunity to speak to the parents.

Susana Elena Lorano-Lopez (German Group)

page by  Aneta Przewożna and Balázs Tatár