Category Archive : fun

Di5Connected – our follow-up :)


Two months after the amazing, technology free project Di5connected in Cortemilia, Italy, the Austrian girls organise da follow-up event in Graz. Samire came to visit Antonia, Elisa and Marion in Graz in order to prepare the event and of course to check up on how we’re doing with our contracts! We decided to invite people to an Erasmus+ game afternoon where we told them something about Erasmus+, the project we recently went to as well as the board game we created ourselves.They were intrigued, and it was fun to play the game again.

We took some pictures of our preparatory meeting and with the people, but while playing, there were of course no phones allowed! We also took a video explaining the basic rules. At the end of this blogpost you’ll find a more detailed description and instructions for our board game.



Instructions

GAME OF PHONES

Number of players

More than 6 (depends on how many characters you have), it has to be an even number

Purpose of the game:
Two teams play against each other: the connected (with a phone) against the disconnected. The goal is to “turn” all the players of the opposing team. When all players are either connected or disconnected that team wins. But: there is no limit how often players can be turned, turned back and then turned again.

How to play step by step:

1. At first draw a character card. On the card you can see the name of your character, the team (WiFi= team connected) and your special power. Find also the same playing piece. If you are in team connected you get a smartphone that you have to in the playing piece. You also get your special power card in the beginning.

2. Prepare separate decks of “!” and “?” cards.

3. Choose a starting point from which to enter the game. Make sure that players of the same team don’t sit next to each other, they can’t enter through the same door.

4. You move by rolling the dice, you can move the number of fields and the direction you want.

5. Meeting people: Players are turned during fights. Those can happen anywhere two or more players from opposing teams (means: a player with a smartphone and a player without a smartphone) meet: in the corridors, in rooms and in Cortemilia. If you meet a person from your team you don’t fight.

6. How to enter a room:
reach the door with the exact number. If you reach the door by accident, you have to enter.

7. How to go to Cortemilia: reach the field marked “?” and complete the task. You don’t have to enter Cortemilia if you accidentally reach the “?”

8. Fights: all involved players roll the dice, the higher number wins. The player with the lower number has to change the team (to take or to give away the smartphone). If there are multiple players from the same team involved, the results are added up.
When fights happen in the room, the players draw a “!” card first. If a player draws their own special power, they can use it immediately to win the fight or choose to keep it for later in order to use the special power as it is described on the character card. Special powers can only be used in Cortemilia, and a player can only carry one special power at a time. If a player has been turned and draws their special power card during a fight, they re-enter their original team.

9. Important: Even if you change you team a couple of times during the game you still aim to belong to the team from the beginning (given on your card). eg: you are the grandma from team disconnected (without smartphone). You meet a person with a smartphone lose a fight. So you get a smartphone. Next time you meet a person without a smartphone, so you have to fight again. You should lose in order to get rid of your smartphone and be disconnected again.


“?”: draw a card and complete the task. If you don’t want to do it, you have to skip one round.

-open sharing: roll the dice and see which number is which task

-reflection group: roll the dice and see which number is which task

-challenge: roll the dice and see which number is which task

-meditation: skip one round

-coffee break: the whole team skips one round




ENJOY PLAYING AND STAY DISCONNECTED!
YOUR AUSTRIAN TEAM

We still like to move it, move it! – Our Follow-ups

“BE A BETTER EXPLORER THAN DORA”

During our Youth Exchange in Vienna we experienced what a great impact sports and movement and spending time with others had on our wellbeing. So, we (Marion and Elisa) decided to spread the energy we gained from that project. We created an event on Facebook and invited everybody to a treasure hunt with the motto “Be a better explorer than Dora”. The treasure hunt aimed to combine being active, exploring the city of Graz, having fun together and of course making Erasmus+ projects more visible in our surroundings.

We decided on 22 tasks for the participants to fulfil within two hours. The tasks were a mixture of fun-facts such as “Which international popstar went to school in Graz?” (Conchita Wurst, by the way) , exercise “How many steps lead up to Schlossberg?” (260) and specific Graz knowledge like “Find the snowman that is there all year round”. We asked the participants to take pictures and videos as proof of them having completed each task. One we even completed with the participants after the treasure hunt: we sang the song “Hulapalu” together.

We gathered on Saturday 25th of March at the main square. In order for potential participants to recognise us and to gain attention among other people, we had poster of Dora with us. We didn’t even have to wait for a minute and we had a group of people around us who couldn’t wait to start the treasure hunt. We formed smaller groups to enable competition for a very special prize.

After two hours, which were flying by, we checked the completed tasks of each group. All the groups did an excellent job and completed almost all the given tasks. Due to that fact we decided that it would only be fair to have a prize for everyone: Chocolate! 🙂

All in all, we were more than satisfied with the results of our follow-up. Everyone seemed very interested in the Erasmus+ programme, and some people stayed a bit longer afterwards for a chat and to get more information. One participant also showed up on Nina’s workshop, which was a very pleasant surprise.

Yours Marion & Elisa

„HOW THE HELL DOES MY FRIEND TRAVEL SO MUCH?“

Coming back from the youth exchange in Vienna, we knew that we should think of a follow-up activity that has to do with sports -like the youth exchange- and should promote Erasmus+. As Marion and Elisa already focused on the moving part, Martin and me (Nina) decided to reach out and get people to know about Erasmus+ and all its great opportunities.

While brainstorming how to best do this, we agreed together with the whole Austrian team, that the fact that we all travel quite a lot by participating in projects, we should definitely use it for a catchy title. Said, done. On 29th of March we implemented our little workshop on Erasmus+ in Logo Youth center in Graz.

What we did not think through was that there are already Easter holidays… which is why we ended up being a small – but very productive – group of people. (as you can see – working hard!)
While it rained outside we got to know each other, exchanged our experience in the world of E+ and thought about why it is so hard to get people to try out something new.

After lots of snacks, laughs and funny stories we came up with the idea to try to make a workshop in some schools. There we could explain the ideas behind E+ and reach students plus teachers (who need to excuse their missing classes later
on…)

Although our workshop did not go as planned, as everybody knew lots about E+ already, we managed to quickly change our plans and work with what is there. It has been a great afternoon and we are looking forward to putting our idea into action!

Yours Nina & Martin

I like to move it, move it! Youth Exchange

This time wEUnite itself organized a project which took place in Vienna from the 15th until the 22nd of February 2018.

The main topic due to the title „I like to move it, move it“, was the impact of sports in personal daily life. A perfect fitting number of 25 participants from five countries (group of five per country) attended in the project. Besides of Austria with some German influence, also Poland, Italy, Lithuania and Estonia were on board.

Already before we met each other in person, a Facebook group was created along with assignments to get to know the other participants and an idea about the project as well as receiving information about the schedule and other essential stuff.




Move it, move.
I am going to start with our daily sport activities which began every mornging at 10:00 am after breakfast. Each day had another topic and they were built on each other. (01) The first day we did sports without movement and by ourselves. Jumping, stretching and sweating, all together but still alone. (02) The following day was about others and we had to choose a partner with whom we performed the given tasks. It was a lot of fun and together the exercises didn’t feel that hard. (03) The third day was about music. Up to now our sports activities were just accompanied by cheering and moaning, but that day our DJ (Antonio) provided good sounds. (04) On this day we were separated into five groups and had to fulfil several competitions – let the games begin. (05) Despite the forecast (snow and freezingly cold) we had a great walk to the city centre, like schoolkids divided into teams of two. Then we got an intense topic, like talking about love or what makes one happy/sad and after five minutes we had to switch partners. Thereby we again got to know other people better and we had great and meaningful conversations. (06) Again divided into groups we did a circle training with 6 stations. I cannot tell you how long three minutes can feel and how exhausting they can be. Just give it a try 😉 (07) The last day of the project was quite intense. Already before breakfast there were rumours about a hard workout. One and a half our later everyone broke down on the floor. Satisfied and filled with pure happiness. We all did a good job.

    

Hey buddy, hey what’s up.
On the very first day we had to choose a buddy who was from now on always by our side to support and help one another. During the program every participant set a personal goal and without my buddy I am not sure if I would have succeeded, but like that I did! I appreciated this concept very much and within days we became closer and closer. Additionally, there were five reflexion groups, each led by a team member, to talk about the daily experiences, problems and requests.

Yes, we can, yes I can!
I do not have enough time, I cannot do this, I am not good enough, et cetera…. There are so many excuses why we are hiding our light under a bushel. Throughout several aspects we learned to identify our excuses which stop us from doing what we want, reaching our goals and how to deal with them or even end them. Analysing your habits and excuses was quite intense and I will keep up doing it regularly and throwing them away. We are better than this. We can do anything we want. Just believe in you and put effort into reaching your dreams. 
Let’s just kill someone and grab a beer!
During our free-time we gathered together and played the well-known mafia game in the children area of the hostel lobby, went to grab some beers in a cozy bar around the corner, had funny as well as deep conversations, awesome live-music in the staircase and so much more. All in all, these intense days together brought a strong bondage in our group and to say goodbye at day 8 ways really hard. I cannot mention everything we did or describe the feeling you are going to have in such a project, or the impact it will have on you. Just one thing: DO IT, you will love it!

Yours, Anna

United We Win – our follow-up :)

Hi, I am Matthias and I will tell you about our follow-up:

This week we completed the final part of the „United We Win“ Synergy Basic youth exchange and training (link). We organized our follow-up activity in Vienna in order to apply and share some of the countless things we learned in Cortemilia. 

The event was based on was a board-game night. We hosted the evening at Catalysts in Vienna (link), the company I (Matthias) and Manuel work at. Manuel, Pato and me were joined by many colleagues from Catalyst and young people from all over Vienna. We also give a big thanks to Catalysts for providing some snacks and drinks!

Personally, I find games to be a powerful tool for learning, teaching and integration. The rules of games determine the interactions between participants. During the game, they supersede our general societal rules of interaction – which are often divergent – and make us all speak a common language. Games are an important part of the Basic Synergy training we were part of in Cortemilia. I am happy with how we replicated our learning. 

 

The first game we played was Magic Maze. True to the spirit of „United We Win“ all players have to cooperate and coordinate as a team to beat the game itself. All while not communicating with each other. The game requires trust in others while demanding responsibility from every team member. I was often reminded of experiences from the youth exchange. 

 

We concluded the evening playing „2 rooms 1 boom“, a social deception game. Again trust, communication and seizing opportunities were the center of the game. We interrupted the game for a bit to tell our guests about Erasmus+ projects and shared some of our experiences. Some people stayed even longer and continued the evening by playing some rounds „Werewolf“.

 

To summarise, we had a great evening, applied and shared some of our experience and learnings with others and spread the word about Erasmus+ and wEUnite.

Yours, Magda, Manuel G., Matthias, Nina, Pato

Friendships around Europe

What’s the best way to start into a new year? For me personally, it’s by having fun, meeting friends and travelling. It is even better to combine these things – that’s why I started the year 2017 in exactly that way – having fun with my friends in a different country!


Anna (from Latvia) and me decided to meet up in Budapest, as she was on her way back to Zagreb/Croatia from her Christmas holidays and family visit in Latvia. Anna is doing is doing an EVS (European Voluntary Service) in Croatia currently, with the organization Syncro-Synergy Croatia (NGO’s Facebook Page). Before Budapest, we met in Rijeka/Croatia on an Erasmus+ project. 


You might know the song „Can’t Feel My Face“ from The Weeknd. This is how we felt walking through the city all the time. It was a new temperature low record in Budapest – something like -10 °C to -21 °C. Nevertheless, this freezing temperatures didn’t change our positive mood!


Anna and me had a great time in Budapest. We did one Free Walking Tour, visited some hipster shops and famous ruin clubs and just explored the city by ourselves. The weather – besides the temperature – was perfectly sunny and we visited many beautiful places, as you can see on the pictures.

   


Thanks to social media, it was very easy to contact other people who were in Budapest on that weekend too. And look whom I found – András and Bálint. Two friends from an Erasmus+ project in Estonia last year. It was great to have some local guys with us as they know all the good and secret (at least for tourists) places. We had a really good time together. Thank you guys for this great evening!

This are just some good reason to be part of the big Erasmus+ community : ) Such projects and shared experiences connect people from all over Europe and that is really important to me. I think it is the foundation for a great future of multiculturality. Don’t be scared of things you don’t know yet, but be open-minded instead and enjoy all the new possibilities and experiences by meeting other people, visiting different countries and get to know new cultures.

I hope to see you all again soon and I wish you all the best!

Yours,
Manuel G.