I am now part of a group called CYPAG. This is a young adults advisory group for CLIC Sargent, which is the charity who have supported me since I was diagnosed with cancer. I was asked to join the advisory group where discussions are held about ideas for CLIC Sargent and their work with other people effected by cancer. My first meeting was in Scotland for a weekend at the Malcolm Sargent House with 16 other young people. I was quite nervous before I went as I really didn't know what to expect. I felt most anxious about flying on my own to Scotland as I have never been on a plane on my own and I am such a flapper! I'm not scared of flying in the slightest, it's the getting through security etc that panics me. After all the worrying I had a safe and stress free journey.
Saturday was a workshop day. I was very excited for this as it was new to me and didn't know what to expect. There was 17 of us young people and we got split into 7 different groups and had to share ideas and give our feedback to CLIC Sargent. This included us having a group input on questions we were given about media. Some of the questions were based on how we felt about filming our own videos about our story, we then had more questions related to this topic. All our feedback we gave will eventually be passed on and used in future plans for CLIC. After sharing our thoughts on filming each group was mixed around so that we all got to know others. Our next task was to create our own elevator pitch. The scenario we were given was 'you are in a lift with Richard Brandson for a few minutes and you have to pitch why he should donate £1 million to our CLIC Sargent charity'. We resulted naming our group 'the journey' & decided to go for a factual approach and used different points who? what? needs? We explained who CLIC Sargent are, what they do & how the funding would help the charity. Other groups had some amazing ideas and really thought out of the box on how they sold their pitch. After completing our workshop elevator pitch task, we were given questions to answer on CLIC Sargent's new campaign idea and our views on what we thought of it. I will most probably write a post on this when it is released.
Saturday Evening we all went bowling at a local leisure center, It was a great way to get to know everyone in the group. As per usual I sucked at bowling, luckily I don't think anyone was playing seriously and we all had a good laugh! A few people were leaving very early the next day so when we got back to the house we said goodbyes and went to bed.
Sunday Morning I had to get the mini bus to the airport at 12 and decided to have a shower in the morning...just as I got out of the shower the fire alarm went off,I instantly panicked, chucked some clothes on and headed to the fire drill meeting point. Everyone was confused about the alarm and was unsure what set it off therefore they acted as if it was a real fire and didn't ignore it. Within minuets two fire engines turned up and checked the building and alarms, they found the cause was coming from an alarm in room 11...MY ROOM! My shower was too hot and set off the steam alarm. It was a great start to the day NOT! My first time at one of the group meetings & I gave a great first impression! Everyone made a laugh of it so I wasn't too embarrassed.
I really enjoyed the weekend and I will definitely continue being part of the group and go to as many of the meetings as I can. I hope that eventually it will help build my confidence by talking to and meeting new people. I am also privileged to be a part of CLIC Sargent's future and to be involved with such an amazing charity. It was also really nice to meet others who are further than me in treatment. I met two girls, one who was 3 years post transplant and another who is 5 years post transplant and although they have had some ups and downs, they are doing really well. This gives me so much hope for my future.
Always Smiling x
♥
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