After a rather long gap, we here at Goa met here today,
on a bright, pleasant and sunny Sunday morning.
We were three of us- I (Harish), Babaji and a new member
(name not disclosed on request) who attended an SHG meeting for the first time
with us.
After formal introductions, we started with the
activities planned.
An Ice-breaker
activity
All of us had to draw something on the paper which
symbolizes or represents ourselves. Then each one of us had to show the picture
that we drew to the other two, and explain the picture and also share why we
think this picture represents us.
Babaji drew a man sitting in a box, and the sun rays
outside. He explained how he thought about himself as a person confined into a
box, deprived of the sunshine outside. He also shared that now he feels he is
out of the box, into the sunshine and beaming with confidence and feeling okay
about stammering.
Our new friend, an MBA graduate and working in a job in
which he has to speak for most part of the day, had an interesting picture. He
drew a person standing at the foothills of a huge mountain. And below that, he
drew another sketch in which the person was standing on the top of the
mountain. He explained how he saw his stammering as a huge mountain that he had
to climb, and shared the journey of how he climbed it and how on present the
day, he feels that he is at the top of this mountain. The story of how he
pushed himself and forced a change was indeed inspiring.
Practicing
Techniques
Then we stood in circle and practiced Bouncing,
Prolongation, Pull-outs and Cancellation techniques. We also had a round in
which the person had to speak about a positive thing about the person standing
to his right, using any technique he is comfortable with.
Communication Game
We then played a communication game, in which one person
had to think of an action / activity (eg. Swimming, cycling, driving), and
others had to guess it by asking him questions. We had lots of fun while trying
to guess what activity the other person is thinking about.
The second game was a role play. Citing the election atmosphere in Goa, we all decided to play the candidates of our constituencies and campaigned for our respective constituencies and how would we appeal for votes. We all unanimously thought that we had better manifestos than our candidates ;)
Talent Show
As we neared the end of the meeting, we thought of
displaying some of the talents which we thought are our strengths. The new
member sang the melodious song “Mitwa”, and we discovered that he indeed had a
great control over his voice. Babaji sang a Kishore Kumar song, while I tried
to entertain with some mimicry which I enjoy doing the most.
Before we dispersed, we discussed about how we felt about
today’s meeting and gave feedback. Babaji suggested about a day outing or a 1
or 2 day workshop. I handed over Samvad Digest copies to Babaji and the new
member, and then we had a casual discussion on the conference and stuttering in
general before we parted away for the day.
