Involuntary laughter

I was on my way towards the mentor training. Several thoughts whizzed through my mind. I was wondering about the impact of this training, having been in many of them throughout my past careers.

And I’ve noticed that somewhat I am curious and open towards what is on its way. I’ve realised that I managed to leave behind in the town the weights of my daily tasks, too. I was punctual, rare occasion in my fast track world. I felt warmly welcomed by my colleagues and by the cosy looking cottage. The place felt like home, filled with friendly looking faces. By attending this training I will become a volunteers’ mentor.

The place wasn’t too crowded. I started getting familiar with my fellow participants. The cottage started to fill with laughters and friendly atmosphere. I felt reassured somewhat. I knew we all are on very similar wavelengths.

I liked seeing my colleagues in this rural environment instead of our offices, they were our trainers. They might have been worried slightly, but surely they felt excitement and high motivation to proceed with the trainings. I can understand their feelings. I would have felt the responsibility in my shoulders if it was me in their role. Plus my high achiever approach would have come to the light, too. There were so many activities during the two days which kept us active, gaining experiences, trying out our skills, they made us work hard on the topics. Time went fast for sure.

The topic was ‘the human motivation’. Motivation covers a huge chunk of my work, I felt this topic so close to my heart. We all realised how much we all function based on external and internal motivational forces. A task/an exercise, planning, completing the task, giving feedback, there were all included within our activities. Managing volunteers involves steps which during an activity I mixed-up, from now on I surely will remember the right orders.

After having some new knowledge about the legal aspects of volunteering, I had a chance to try my skills in writing a volunteer’s job description. To close our training days we had role plays. This was a good way to recap all the new knowledge, the legal, the management and the volunteer’s motivational forces aspects. The role play gave a chance to act potential scenarios with our volunteers. This has been a funny experience, we laughed and yet put in practice our new knowledge. I enjoyed our free time chats too, I always manage to learn something new and useful from my colleagues. Our chats provide a platform for deepening our team’s spirit and our working alliance.

We ended our two-day training right on the scheduled time, at 5 p.m., on Thursday. I now am facing my everyday tasks which I left behind in the town and I gained two days worth of fun, great working experiences, new knowledge and skills and I am grateful and happy for my time spent with this team of colleagues.

Tókos Norbert  

Translated by: Fazakas Teréz