The first day of the away weekend was hot and sunny, and the afternoon was spent enjoying the weather in the garden…

After dinner, we decided to explore the fields nearby and were guided by the farm’s dog who knew exactly where he wanted to take us. We also decided to make a trip to the local pub, which was a great way to settle in and to begin to get to know each other properly for the first time.

The following day was full of workshops given by small groups of the team on areas such as education, sports, arts and crafts, and dance music and singing. We all found them useful to give us initial ideas of activities we could expect to run in Sri Lanka. The sports workshop was also extremely fun as we spent most of it playing games such as stick in the mud out in the garden.

Around lunch time we visited Joy and David who had prepared a delicious lunch of vegetarian chilli, and apple crumble with ice cream for dessert. In the afternoon David gave us a talk on the history of Sri Lankan culture, and what we could expect during our stay. That night, we played a lot of Pictionary, and some other games to get to know each other better.

The away weekend was great fun.  The talks and workshops given were excellent at beginning to prepare the team for the trip. Personally, I felt the away weekend made me more excited to go to Sri Lanka, and made me realise how close the trip was. The away weekend was also a good way for the team to get to know each other better and was great for making people more comfortable with each other before travelling together