By Masha B., Youth Volunteer, Creative Spaces Virtual Team
November 1, 2020
On Thursday October 22nd our Creative Spaces virtual team had some unexpected news around an event they were hosting. Instead of feeling discouraged, youth volunteers used it as an opportunity to challenge their growth-- here’s a good article about challenging growth during the pandemic. Below, Masha shares what she learned from this experience.
Photo Credit: Hannah Busing on unsplash.com
On October 22 2020, Creative Spaces members were disappointed to find out that their event project of many weeks, The Indigenous Artist Showcase, was cancelled. Of course this was disappointing news to everyone on our team who had worked very hard to make this event possible; but as a group everyone came out stronger from this experience. We have learnt the importance of adapting to situations beyond our control, and to overcome as a unit.
As such, it is important when planning events to be flexible; things can go awry or change with a moment's notice. It's normal for unexpected problems to occur and there is always a possibility that plans may go wrong or not work; you shouldn't look at that as a reason to be upset but rather a new experience you can learn from. Having the skills of flexibility allows you to be able to adapt to such situations and make adjustments accordingly (such skills are important universally and can help in other aspects of your life other than event planning). I am very proud to say that the MATivation team (hosting the Creative Spaces Indigenous Artist Showcase) handled the situation with said flexibility and a positive attitude.
When planning for future events, school projects meetings etc. I have learnt from this experience that it is important to plan for the unforeseen . As Murphy’s Law states: anything that can go wrong will. First and foremost, as mentioned before, your backup plan must be flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of different situations. There's no way you will be able to predict everything that could possibly go wrong in an event, which is why a general plan is important. Another thing to keep in mind is to roll with the punches, work with your teammates and and learn to adapt and overcome such situations.
HYI Project Coordinator’s Tips
See your event agenda or presentation notes as a general vision of how you’d like things to go with the possibility that things might not happen exactly as planned-- and that’s okay if they don’t. Sometimes the unexpected can be even better.
Be willing to adjust your timing for events and/or choose the priority information to highlight if things don’t remain on schedule.
Every experience can be used as a learning opportunity to build skills. If things don’t go exactly as planned, talk about it. What did you or your group learn?
Participating in workshops like improvisation acting can be beneficial in developing your flexibility--it provides practice for quickly thinking on the spot and responding to your environment in a proactive way!