Visit at St Christophers Friday 10th

First visit/ Friday 10th visit

First Visit Friday

I thought Friday's visit to St Christopher's was very successful and I think more comfortable then our last visit. The last visit I felt was a bit full on because we were all strangers and the subjects jumped to pretty personal which led to the clients talking about upsetting experiences that they had been through. This made me a little more conscious of what I should say and I wasn't sure what to say some of the time because in comparison my answers were trivial, which made the whole experience more awkward for me. Jerry was really friendly and good at running the group though. I sat next to a woman called Dorothy and almost immediately she started talking to me and sharing stories about her family. She was really friendly and it was nice to listen to her experiences and I was pleased in how open she was and that she enjoyed sharing thing about herself. Though at first I didn't really know how to react because she would at times not listen to the group discussions whilst she was talking and I did not want to ignore the group conversation or seem rude.

Friday 10th June

As I said I felt like our last visit was more successful and that we had gotten further. Although not everyone from the last session came there were new people that filled the gaps. We were sat into pairs by Jerry and I was put with John. At first we just started talking a bit and sharing stories I found that we actually had quite a lot of things in common from were we where from and were we and our families have lived. He was very warm and easy to talk to and open about his life. I am usually shy with people I don't know but I found him very easy to talk to and was more open myself and found it easy to share things about myself to him. Although we were sat in groups of four for most of the time we stayed in pairs. I actually think this worked better because it was not as daunting being in groups but we could also really get to know each other better as it was 1 to 1 so the balance was good and at the end of our mini sessions we combined our two pairs to share what we wished. Throughout the session I tried the ice breaking drawing with your eyes closed and drawing each others stories. I think we both enjoyed the activities but I did feel that there was time to spare and I could of planned more activities. I started to make up some more activities when the planned ones ran out but I think these worked too. After this I just started asking him pretty light questions and telling him some things about myself. For most of the session it was just like having a conversation with a friend and it did not feel like reading a plan or talking to someone of another generation. At the end though we started to plan what we may do and what his interests may be for the final instillation. I was very pleased to here that he had an interest for birds in our conversations and also that he had his own ceramic bird collection because I was looking at making cynotyped origami birds for an instillation so I thought this might be perfect. I really think together we can make a really great instillation and I'm very happy that we're both on the same page. Next session I have asked John if he could bring in some pictures of birds that he has so we can photocopy it and use it for cynotype and he seems interested in that. But as a back up I am going to get some images of similar birds.

Overall I really enjoyed the session but I found it upsetting when John started telling me about his condition and how sudden it was. When we made our wishes Johns was to dance again which he said he had enjoyed when he was younger. Dennis joined in on the conversation telling John its just a memory and he wont ever again. I didn't really know what to say and was a taken aback but I moved on the conversation to what we all wrote for our wishes. Otherwise I think we have a really good foundation for us to build on for next week.

Sakile Stephen