Young Liberals graduated from YLDA Moderation Training on”Political Communication and Making Events Work-A Practical Introduction” in Bangkok,Thailand.

It was a great learning experience both in terms of content of the workshop and also meeting friends from different parts of Asia.

Do:

· Delegate and give people positions of responsibility

· Be specific about topics and task

· Link organization’s goals to its member

· Create an environment conducive to work and open discussion

· Communicate

· Develop regular and effective communication

· Provide space for communication

· Listen to your members actively

· Lead

· Open discussion

· Ask open ended questions

· Be an example lead by doing

· Brainstorming

· Create innovative culture

· Welcome new ideas

· Give them freedom to do work

· Use expression

· Allow different language

· Be objective

· Respect others opinion

· Develop skills of empathy

· Treat members with respect

· Involve them in the decision-making process

· Involve the members

· Creating knowledge sharing environment

· Help members achieve more

· Allow them to learn new things

· Set up competition with reward

· Develop competition

· Follow up on evaluation

· Encouragement

· Follow merit

· Compliments

· System of reward and compensation

· Recognition

· Know audience’s knowledge

· Identify and use people strength

· Right person at right task

· Getting to know the name of the members

Don’t:

· Blame

· Discriminate (status over ideas)

· Disregard opinion, suggestions, recommendations

· Be subjective

· Be conservative

· Criticize negatively

· Point to the face

· Judge

· Dominate

· Standardize

· Stigmatize

· Emotion

· Personal opinion

· Dictate

· Be selfish

· Use favoritism

· Use questions that are too long

· Underestimate

]]> http://yldabangkok2008.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/want-to-make-most-out-of-your-people-or-organisation/feed/ 0 yldaworkshops http://yldabangkok2008.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/young-liberals-observe-democracy-in-action-in-bangkok/ http://yldabangkok2008.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/young-liberals-observe-democracy-in-action-in-bangkok/#comments Sat, 31 May 2008 01:52:11 +0000 yldaworkshops http://yldabangkok2008.wordpress.com/?p=181 ]]>

What an opportune time to see and learn the basic tenets of democracy in Bangkok!

Last night, a number of our YLDA delegates headed by the Secretary General headed to the rally organized by People’s Alliance for Democracy in front of the United Nations Building. In a light bantering mood, the delegates had pictures of them taken with the protesters and some even had brief conversations with their new Thai friends.

Malaysian delegate Eric Yap was one of the delegates eager to observe the protest action since “things like these do not happen always in Malaysia.” The delegates from the Philippines were also excited to compare the rally with those held in the Philippines — the so-called center of people power movement in the world.

The night was young however when the young liberals left the rally site. What they did after I would leave the story telling to our other friends….

Bangkok, 29  May 2008

In the afternoon session, Dr. Stefan Melnik gave the class task to make listing of something that you do and you do not do..

The class was divided into three groups. First group objective was to make a list of something that you do and you don’t do in terms of making speech and presentation.

And here are result from the first group.

Making Speech and Presentation

“Do”
• Know he goals, topic and objective
• Know your audience
• Do the preparations (Research, outline, visual aids)
• Do keep the time frame
• KISS
• Practice (Establish your message point, 3 – 5 message points and solicit feedback)
• Dress appropriately
• Use cue cards ( if needed)
• Eye contact, gestures, hand & Body movement.
• Voice (make it clear, modulated and Enuciate)
• Do Involve the audience (ask questions, jokes, rhetorical questions, story etc.

“Do not do”
• Don’t come unprepared
• Avoid long and boring speech
• Wrong bodily movement (don’t put your hands in your pocket, front and back, in the chest and a like)
• Do not distribute anything prior the presentation (copy of speech, food flyers, hand units, etc.)
• Don’t use the podium (unless it necessary)
• Do not answer / use cell phone during the presentation

The same task for the second group, they have to make a list for something that you do and you don’t do for producing / Making visuals/ visual aids and power point/ flipchart.

Here are the list resulted from discussion in the class…

Producing/ Making Visuals / Visual Aids and power point/ flipcharts

Do
• Limit the use of sentences
• Clear text and font
• Use diagrams, charts and pictures to highlight points
• Clear Handwriting
• Use the correct punctuation marks
• Make Use of different colors
• Vision friendly
• Use of numbers and bullets
• Attractive layout and sentences
• Use animation / Symbols to describe
• Use subtitiles
• Be particular with the content
• Language compatibility
• Follow a pattern provide an overview

Don’t
• Too much text
• No to details
• Should not use inappropriate tech
• No gloomy colours
• Not using high literal wordings
• Use the unusual fonts
• Don’t make the power point directly

Dinner time is always a big hit in every YLDA events. It is a great time to relax and getting to know other participants more personally. Chatting, laughing and joking around are the only few fun parts of dinner.

We were in for quite a surprise tonight as this time we finally have an YLDA idol straight from the land of Angkor Wat!!

Cheers to Phyrom from Cambodia who was bravely sang Cambodian national anthem for everyone after dinner….ha ha ha ha

After spending all day in the conference room for the sessions, everyone is excited about dinner. Especially Kittya (from Bangkok FNF office) already told us about this exciting Japanese restaurant where they served yummy Japanese food, the Grand Ramen. We all waited for the bus on the main road and after squeezing our 18 bodies into the mini-bus on a busy rush hour trip, we alighted with happy faces a few meters away from the Grand Ramen.

As usual, choosing the food from the menus sometimes creates confusion among the participants, not only about what we’re in the mood for…shrimp? Chicken? What about beef?…. but also guessing what the food actually is, because it is written in Thai…thankfully, Krittiya and Predee (our participant for Thai) were there and kindly answered many questions from us. Not sure whether we are really hungry or simply just too excited about the dinner, most of us chose large size instead of normal size of food…(well…we all worth it!)

Before the food arrive, everyone got very chatty, and tonight, the main topic is about shopping at the night market (especially among the girls!) and the guys already have a plan to hang out at the near by bar. Strangely, when the food arrived, everyone became quiet for a moment (hum…maybe they need to concentrate…*ha ha*). As expected, you cant be quiet during dinner, comments, tasting and sharing the food, really kept the table alive.

When it got to the end, hey, still some food left. Anyone wants more?? Phyrom came to the rescue. But, he gave up in the middle… no no no keep going! Phyrom! Phyrom! Phyrom! Everyone gaves their support for him, but it didn’t work, Phyrom chose to do the punishment instead. That’s why he has to sang his national anthem to entertain all of us. Hey, his voice not bad at all…

When we walked out the restaurant, we walked to the near by train station but….Aaaahh, the rain started to fall… what a bummer! But nothing can stop us to enjoy the beauty of Bangkok has to offer, we decided to stop at the Siam Paragon Mall and have a look around until the mall closed. After that, to cheer us up, Predee has a great idea, to take us to Brahma Erawan where we can see the statue of Brahma, this place is famous for the people to make a wish and usually the wishes will come true! Cool, right?? We even luckier when we finally there, we saw Thai traditional dance. So pretty! So interesting!

Finally, it almost midnight, we should head back to our place. All the interesting places we went to, the friendship we started to build and the laughing, surely will send all the participants to bed with a smile in their faces.

NEWS FLASH FROM BANGKOK: CAMBODIAN YOUTH LEADER SERENADES YOUNG LIBERALS IN BANGKOK

After a long and very useful session the participants had a good time eating dinner along with a nice song by Phyrum Tuon of Student Movement for Democracy (SMD)…..”What an entertainer”, singing national anthem of

For other news, click….

Shopping plan washed off:

Due to the heavy rains, participants had to cancel their way to have a night market shopping. With broken hopes all of us returned to the center.

NEWS(International)in brief:

Sri Lanka:

Health Minister of Sri Lanka was appointed as The Chairman of World Health Organization(WHO)

Nepal:

Nepal has been declared the republican country by the first meeting of Constituent Assembly members.The country is in mood of celebration with 3 days public holidays.

Phillipines:

The Political party leaders consented on absentee bill which gives opportunity over million of overseas Philipino to vote in the National Election.

Indonesia:

Increases fuel price by 30%.

Day II started with a high spirit from all the participants with Hep hep hooray activity.

We then have a look to our workshop blog and tried to see what has the assigned group posted and Dr. Melnik suggested some of the tips on how to make the blog more informative, user friendly and interesting.

Then we continued with organizational presentation. And the interesting part of today’s presentation has been participants get to see the video playback which is the nicest way to get the feedback and improve our future presentation and speech.

hep-hep-hooray1 procedure

In the afternoon session, we have learnt about one important points that we have to consider when conducting an event which is making check list. In this session, the class was divided into three groups and each group was responsible for making different type of checklist namely, first group did the invitations checklist, second group did the venue checklist and the last group did a check list that needed for designing events/ programs.

INVITATION
The first group considered that there are three points that should be looked up when doing the invitation checklist.

First point is the participants. In this case, we must know some information including :
• Target audience
• Number of participants
• Percentage of Gender
• Proportion of Representation

The second point is the speakers which some consideration include :
• Number of speakers
• Speakers background
• Speakers expertise
• Alternative Speakers.

The last point is the details that must be included in the invitation, namely:
• Topic
• Date
• Time
• Venue
• Dress Code
• Contact details
• Time frame (production, distribution)
• Methods of invitation
• Confirmation
• Contact person.

At the end of first group’s presentation DR. Stefan Melnik added some missing considerations about making checklist focusing on the invitations that consist of :
• The need of the speakers to be briefed.
o Topic
o Allocated time
o Terms of References
o Objective to the speech and outline of structure
o Info on other speakers.
• Some information details needed to be add in Invitation include :
o Info on sponsors
o Pre departure guidelines.

VENUE
The second group was concentrate in the checklist making for venue. According to the second group, there are three important points that should be looked up before decided the venue.
1. Purpose (what is the purpose of the event)
o Type of activities
o Number of participants
o Objective/goal
2. Location
o Accessibility of the venue to the participating country or organization
3. Cost
o Air fare
o Accomodations
o Rental equipments
o Facilitator or speakers.

After all information about those three points are gathered, the next step is to decide the venue which base on some considerations such as :
o Multipurpose venue (facilities, equipments, services and availability of local facilitators)
o Accessibility / Transportation
o Accommodations
o Food
o Security

Some important information were added by Stefan which include :
o The atmosphere of the meeting room / light / colour etc.
o Acoustic sound system
o Power supply, back up in case of failure
o Position of door and windows.

DESIGNING EVENTS AND PROGRAMS
Before designing events or programs, Stefan (the speaker) appointed the important of being clear about the goal of the events. The organization must clearly see some very important points which are :
o Identifying goals and objectives desired result.
o Themes
o Relevance of the program
o Expectation.

After the list of objectives are done, then the next step is to make time action plan on a meeting, budget plan and identify available resources.

Then, the time table of the program should be made that consist the information about :
o The layout
o Time
o Language
o Entertainment.

The next step is to consider about logistic and these are some of the list :
o Identify requirements
o Certification
o Food
o Material for participant
o Identity cards
o Logos of member
o Dress code

After that, Media (Press Conference) will be the one that the organization should focusing on.

Finally, the last two important points when designing events or programs are Security and always do the evaluation about the events…

BEGININGS, ENDS and SEQUENCES
It is interesting to notice that, when doing some activities like organizing an event, programs or even giving speech, Stefan described this process as the same as the airplane journey from Germany to Singapore that It is impossible to go directly to Singapore without transit in some countries.

Stefan highlighted some important points in giving a speech namely What?
o Who?
o Why?
o Success Story?
o What we want in the Future

The first day of the Moderation Training started with the introduction of trainer,Dr. Stefan Melnik followed by participants with an activity which helped participants know

each other. Then we had expectation sharing by participants:

• To effectively conduct workshop
• Learn about political communication.
• Learn different techniques in handling variety of people and events
• How to convince about liberalism?
• How to seen effectively an organization?
• Meeting new people that share some similar ideas and interest
• Learn about difference culture
• Learn the communication skill so people can understand well what we deliver in seminar
• Learn to create an interesting dialogue during discussion and meeting
• Learn the communication so people can understand well what we deliver in seminar.
• Gain more knowledge about organization.

Some of the rules decided for the workshop:

• No cell phones instead go outside to take a call.
• Punctuality
• No interruption instead we can put the name plate in vertical position.
• Respect other’s opinions
• Team work
  • Focus on consensus first
  • Delegate responsibility
• Everyone participates
• Active listening

Rules for the visuals:

• Big writing (bold)!
• Use capital letters sparling

After a short break, workshop continued with a group work having four groups to discuss on the topic-Shortcomings in conducting workshops/meetings/conference and the reasons for it.

Group1(South Asia)-Nepal,Pakistan,Srilanka came up with the following

Shortcomings:

• Target audience/group/participants
• Resource person
• Motivation of participants
• Language problem
• Difficult to mange voluntary and professional work

Reasons:

• Limited resources
• Native language
• Lack of commitment
• Attitude

Group 2(Phillippines):

Shortcomings:

• Poor choices:(i.e. venue, speakers,topics/theme,date)
• Lack of information(for the participants in the conference, agenda of the meeting)
• Passive participants/listeners

Reasons:

• Lack of reasources,poor preparation
• Weren’t able to disseminate information properly (i.e agenda/target/output of the meeting/conference/seminar)
• Due to poor choices in the item #1 the learning environment of the participants is affected.

Group 3(Indonesia):

Shortcomings:

• Miscommunication
• Passive and disoriented audience
• Punctuality
• Quantity not quality

Reasons:

• Mixed education level 2 background
• Wrong target audience, non expectation, not well informed
• Always late (habit)
• Publicatiobn only(good on paper)

Group 4 (Other Asian):

• Participants are not committed
• Lack of meeting skills
• Asian “Shyness”
• Communication problem form language

Reasons:

• Not willing to take responsibility
• Lack of training/experience
• Waiting for things happen/ignorant
• Culture
• Lack of common language

Why was the group work effective?

• Smaller groups(4-10)
• Competition between groups
• Homogeneous membership(cohesiveness)
• Everyone contributes
• Clear instructions
• Time management

Suggestions from Dr. Stefan Melnik:

• Appoint chairperson
• Person to take minutes(time keeper)
• Appoint person to present results to plenary
• Focus on things you agree upon (consensus) before moving to things you disagree about.

The workshop continued with a group work having 3 groups working on three different topics: Checklist for choosing and organizing a venue, checklist for the invitation to the participants and speakers and checklist for designing a program.

How do you break the ice on an otherwise cold reception hall?

Teach them to say hello in different languages.

That is how the participants of the YLDA TOT on Moderation and Facilitation got to know each other on the first day of the workshop.

Participants $were given a chance to break the ice in the group to start the afternoon session and they enjoyed every bit of it by jumping and laughing and clapping.

The Hi..Hello..How Are You ice breaker is a getting to know you activity aimed at introducing oneself to the other participants and be more comfortable working with the group. The procedures for doing the ice breaker are outlined in the document below.

Go. Grab the formula on how to get to know new people…in four different languages!

Hi..Hello..How Are You Activity