written report of Texel meeting by Olga Poddubnaya

This is a short report about the 2nd meeting within the CU in 10 years project, which was hold, to great fanfare of all, not far from the most beautiful city in the world on island of Texel.

19 June 2009. Twenty fresh participants landed at the most beautiful airport at the world and a fast Dutch bus took them all the way to the most beautiful island of the world called: Texel. First evening we were having rest after a long journey and starting to get to know each other in the relaxing atmosphere of the bar in our hostel.

20 June 2009 work was started. In the morning we did some games to learn each other names, dates of birth, favorite food and some more personal information like color underwear each of liked and the size of your penis. Then those who were participated in APV in Heemskerk, (6-10 March 2009) made a small overview for all participants on how the project was started, what was discussed there, what topics where selected and why. Participants had chance to give their own opinions on selected topics and add new ones after discussion in country group.
After lunch we all went to the most beautiful city in the world to take part in the opening of new exhibition in Richter gallery, called “Moving machines”, Remco poured out the wine, while all the others were tangent to contemporary art. Two hours later boat brought us back to Texel and to presentations of work which was done by participants in their countries before coming to 2d meeting. This day, like all the others, finished with reflection in country groups, meeting of leaders and having fun together while discovering the sorts of local beer.

21 June 2009 was started with the games, where we were normal rabbits, king-rabbits and oranges hunters. Later during the work participants experienced different group role, like chairperson, observer and timekeeper, their discussion were focused on main topics, they shared with each other their opinions as well as the opinions of policy makers in their country. As the result they created mottos and definitions, which expressed their point of view and general vision of the issue of people from 5 different European countries. In the evening we still had energy to show people in the local bar, what it means to party and have fun.

In the morning on 22d of June 2009 we were playing with Bulgarian girl’s pillows, killing each other with the counting till 11 and for the first time singing a song, which later stacked into our minds till the end (na, na ….na,na Everybody, Bonchance! Success! Powadzenia! Sekmes!). After games participants went back to the discussions around main topics, challenging themselves with taking new roles in the group.

23 June 2009 after final evaluation in the morning each participants got the most ecological mean of transport and we went to bicycle-tour around Texel, friendly people were greeting us with a smiles, black and white sheep with glad be-be-e-e and little seals were clapping with their flappers. Happy and tired after trip we were invited by Peter and Remco to visit nice refreshing place, which was Texel brewery.

24 June 2009, you can get impression about this day if you will imagine how it is to leave the most beautiful island and city in the world.

More about the results of group work during the second meeting you can found out following the link:http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgtn8cnw_11gnkr5mdg&invite=266373891