What can we talk about? Was, obviously, the first question we had to answer in the meeting that was held at the beginning of the term to introduce the GC-team to the concept and the content of a Global Concerns day and start working on it. It was not very easy to find that out!
Except the non-Nordics, of course, the first associations that came up with the Nordic region before we came to RCNUWC were the vikings, the cold, the dark and maybe the polar bears that, as we all know, walk through the streets of Oslo. On the other hand, since we arrived, we have experienced many debates about the Nordic welfare system and economy, especially in Norway – and the quite different ideological orientations of our Nordic co-years have certainly made them interesting!
But what new or unusual topics could we explore, how would we catch the attention and engage our peers on a Monday, at eight o’clock in the morning? The answer was: a bit of everything! A huge amount of topics for the workshops came out of the brainstorming session, and finally we could classify them in five groups: Development and Economy, Internal Relations, External Relations, Environment and Nordic Mentality. Also the organizers were divided into the groups and chose among them what workshops they would be doing.
After a lot of patient work of the Logistics group, we had a timetable: the day would start with a Nordic breakfast, continue with a short introduction in the auditorium and then four block of workshops, and finish with a conference led by a guest speaker, Kristine Persson, a Swedish politician and economist, and a discussion panel.
The process of designing our workshops together with a staff member that was helping us out in the basic structure, brought along lot of work not only in preparing the topics and thinking of activities and means of presentation that would be effective, but also in organizing the people in the groups, including the different ideas without losing focus and trying to achieve an agreement of all the members on the content.
In the end, we found that our Global Concerns Day went very well: the workshops were enjoyable and the participants engaged, and we obtained many new ideas and points of view about the topics that were discussed. Only the second part of the day did not go as expected, as our guest speaker could not come in the end due to problems with the plane to Førde. But thanks to the improvisation skills of the group in charge of the panel discussion, we presented an alternative program, in which a leader of each workshop did a small sum up of what had been discussed in the workshops, so that the participants could get an overview of what had happened in the workshops they had missed.
Afterwards followed a discussion concerning the idea of a Nordic Union, its advantages and disadvantages and how it would affect the internal and external economical system, led by the panel, formed by students from the related workshops, our Director of Development Arne Osland and Stein Sandemose, the guest speaker that had come to the workshop on the Law of Jante, from the Nordic Mentality group. The discussion was interesting, with an engaged participation on the side of the students, something that has to be considered a good achievement considering the last-minute organization of the activity.
But as always, there is, of course, space for improvements. Here is where the work of the feedback group started, and in the meeting they had after the Global Concerns day had concluded, they came up with a few guidelines for the next group. All in all, we did a good job, and also got a lot out of it.
-as reported by GC Nordic team
Monday, 28th March 2011
Nordic Global Concerns
What can we talk about? Was, obviously, the first question we had to answer in the
meeting that was held at the beginning of the term to introduce the GC-team to the
concept and the content of a Global Concerns day and start working on it. It was not very
easy to find that out!
Except the non-Nordics, of course, the first associations that came up with the Nordic
region before we came to RCNUWC were the vikings, the cold, the dark and maybe the
polar bears that, as we all know, walk through the streets of Oslo. On the other hand, since
we arrived, we have experienced many debates about the Nordic welfare system and
economy, especially in Norway – and the quite different ideological orientations of our
Nordic co-years have certainly made them interesting!
But what new or unusual topics could we explore, how would we catch the attention and
engage our peers on a Monday, at eight o’clock in the morning? The answer was: a bit of
everything! A huge amount of topics for the workshops came out of the brainstorming
session, and finally we could classify them in five groups: Development and Economy,
Internal Relations, External Relations, Environment and Nordic Mentality. Also the
organizers were divided into the groups and chose among them what workshops they
would be doing.
After a lot of patient work of the Logistics group, we had a timetable: the day would start
with a Nordic breakfast, continue with a short introduction in the auditorium and then four
block of workshops, and finish with a conference led by a guest speaker, Kristine Persson,
a Swedish politician and economist, and a discussion panel.
The process of designing our workshops together with a staff member that was helping us
out in the basic structure, brought along lot of work not only in preparing the topics and
thinking of activities and means of presentation that would be effective, but also in
organizing the people in the groups, including the different ideas without losing focus and
trying to achieve an agreement of all the members on the content.
In the end, we found that our Global Concerns Day went very well: the workshops were
enjoyable and the participants engaged, and we obtained many new ideas and points of
view about the topics that were discussed. Only the second part of the day did not go as
expected, as our guest speaker could not come in the end due to problems with the plane
to Førde. But thanks to the improvisation skills of the group in charge of the panel
discussion, we presented an alternative program, in which a leader of each workshop did a
small sum up of what had been discussed in the workshops, so that the participants could
get an overview of what had happened in the workshops they had missed. Afterwards
followed a discussion concerning the idea of a Nordic Union, its advantages and
disadvantages and how it would affect the internal and external economical system, led by
the panel, formed by students from the related workshops, our Director of Development
Arne Osland and Stein Sandemose, the guest speaker that had come to the workshop on
the Law of Jante, from the Nordic Mentality group. The discussion was interesting, with an
engaged participation on the side of the students, something that has to be considered a
good achievement considering the last-minute organization of the activity.
But as always, there is, of course, space for improvements. Here is where the work of the
feedback group started, and in the meeting they had after the Global Concerns day had
concluded, they came up with a few guidelines for the next group. One of the main
problems, and quite hard to avoid, was leaving most of the work for the last days. Even
though some groups gave a good example on how it is better to finish everything a few
days before the deadline, not all managed to follow their example, and this caused some
problems for the Logistics group, that had to work under time pressure. For example, there
were some problems in the allocation of people who had not chosen workshops, and in
general the organization of the classrooms, sessions and lists of participants should have
been done earlier – something that was not really possible because of the delay in the
work of some groups. Also the advertisement can be developed more, to rise the
expectations on the day. Besides, a good idea was to be more aware of what were the
other workshops about and try to link them while giving the own presentation, as well as
having a longer introduction, so that the whole day would have a better frame, and the
different activities more connected to each other. But all in all, we did a good job, and also
got a lot out of it.
