Project Week Bali
The trip has been cancelled due to the Covid-19 situation, however, the planning process also brought many challenges and experiences that can be recognized. My trip consisted of 6 people, and we all shared the same interest in doing a mixture of service and activity, such as hiking or rafting, during the week.
I decided to undertake the role of the minutes taker, as I felt that due to my strong organization skills and considerable attention to detail, I would be most suited to this responsibility. I created group planning documents, as well as tried to organize all the information we’ve discussed into clear tables with links and notes, so that my group could refer back to these whenever needed.
Setting the Destination
Our first choice Nepal, being one of the more popular choices was rejected, and instead, we were assigned to our last option, Cebu, Philippines. This initially disappointed some of us, as this was originally going to be mainly a service trip, but after convincing our supervisor and the Project week coordinator Ms. Toth, we were able to organize canyoning activities for the second half of the week.
Thankfully, my group was filled with driven and proactive individuals who were willing to try their best to make this happen. This took a lot of emails and meetings, as well as doing our own personal research to coordinate. However, this allowed me to recognize the importance of taking action in order to fulfill your goals, even when it at first seems unattainable.
Planning the Itinerary
After several months of trying to contact our service provider in Cebu, they informed us that the service center will be closed during the proposed dates of our travel. As the school was not willing to send us to the Philippines solely for canyoning, we had to switch to Bali, Indonesia. Due to the very last minute change, we had a substantial amount of things to reorganize in a short amount of time. Luckily, our service provider from Earth Matters was very responsive and very willing to organize this trip in the limited time period. He would send us updates and questions for planning our itinerary, and we made sure to provide him with as much detail as we could as soon as possible. This experience made me realize the importance of staying organized, as in order for us to meet our deadlines, we needed to ensure that we provided details and requests in a clear manner to allow the planning process to run efficiently. In addition, I learnt how to be respectful and considerate with not only my peers, but with our service provider, as I understood the amount of pressure we were placing upon him and ourselves during this time. Therefore, I made sure that with each email that we expressed our gratefulness and excitedness, while assuring him that we recognized the difficulty of the situation.
Our trip consists of hiking, rafting, as well as cooking classes and trips to local villages. We felt that this spread would not only challenge us physically, but also allow us to fully immerse ourselves into the local culture of Bali.
Here is one of the itineraries for the trip:
Collaborating as a Group
One of the greater challenges that I experienced during the process was collaborating as a group to coordinate itineraries or individual information. I initially assumed that due to our large group size, the workload could easily be split amongst us, and therefore, make planning a much more efficient task. When I realized that this would not be the case, it became more difficult to plan the trip with only the help of one or two others at a time. This is definitely one of the things that really challenges me during group work, and can sometimes test my patience and ability to work under pressure. However, this opportunity allowed me to practice my leadership skills, in which I took the responsibility of managing and delegating group tasks to ensure that each individual was accountable for certain sections of the trip. I coordinated meetings with my group to work out details, and made sure to keep this constant communication so that they were always informed of any progress we’ve made with planning. Although the work was still not distributed evenly, everyone became more involved and aware, which is enough to fuel interest and excitement for the trip. I found that I valued this more rather than simply their contributions to planning, as it helped to boost group morale and motivation, and will make the trip more memorable.
Here is one of our initial planning documents for our first proposal:
