The Rockwall, Road Safety and Stratford A n P show - Waiheke Island, New Zealand
Waiheke Island, New Zealand
On Monday to Friday this week Geoff and I ran road safety programmes in schools using the rock wall. It was the closest thing I've had to a routine in 3 months and it was similar to working at the Recycling Discovery Centre because we saw different schools, pupils and teachers every dayI find it interesting to see how different schools operate and the effect that has on it's pupils. And most similarly to the RDC if the kids are annoying you only have them for a day, the best kind of teaching! So most of you are probably thinking "what on earth does road safety and rock climbing have in common?" Well this is our first question to the kids and there are actually a lot of similarities; danger, rules, seatbelts, harnesses etc. Geoff runs these sessions with a scare tactic, he tells a gruesome story about a whole family that died because the 6 year old child didn't have his seatbelt on. He also explains what being "bagged and tagged" means to the kids, and asking them "would you like your parents to have to identify what is left of your body?" Moving onto rock climbing, he also scares the kids here as well, whilst reading out the rules he explains what would happen if their long hair got caught, they choked on chewing gum or the messed with the Karabina ("the worlds best nose picker because it will pick the nose right off your face"). In a session we ask the kids to get into buddy groups of 3 and give them one harness per group. It is then up to the groups to look after each other and work together. Everyone in the group has a go at climbing, while the others help them put on and take off their harness. All of the buddy group were allowed into the rock climbing area, after they had told us the password "buckle up, stay safe", because the buddies would help and encourage the climber to get to the top of the wall. This was especially important if the climber decided to wear a blindfold as they completely depended on their buddies to tell them where to go. It works really well because the emphasis isn't just on rock climbing but working together as a team, and as usual there are consequences of 10 press ups if the kids break the rules. The de-brief brings the whole session back to road safety as we ask the kids "why do people break the rules?" And we discuss the effects of adrenaline, peer pressure and trying to look cool in front of your mates on the roads. On Wednesday Geoff left me in charge of running the programme at an all girls private high school. I know my dad always tells people "my lucy isn't scared of anything", but ill let you into a little secret, I do get scared. I was worried about running the programme because Geoff has this 'hard man act' that scares the kids and I was worried that I couldn't pull it off. But then I remembered that my firm tone has the ability to make grown men quiver (as some in veolia will tell you) so a group of private school girls shouldn't be a problem. Of course it wasn't a problem. In fact it was great fun, I soon learnt that I had to be brutal and scare the kids because otherwise they would mess around on the wall. Some of the girls didn't even want to get changed into their PE kit but I made them, and I made them have a go at the wall and most successfully made it to the top. At the end of the day the teachers were saying how good it was to have a female instructor because it was inspiring for the girls. On the Friday we were running the programmes at the probation centre in New Plymouth. I was concerned about these groups but they turned out to be great. They were mostly older people who clearly hadn't had a great start in life, I was so impressed how most of them gave it a go, including 50 year old women who had clearly never done anything like this in their life. Geoff adapted his motivational speech to encourage the convicts to change their life one step at a time, just like it takes one step at a time to get to the top of the Rockwall. Most of them seemed to take it on board, apart from a couple who would break rule number 4 if they came near "no intoxicated persons on the rock wall", I doubt their intoxication was from one particular session, it takes a lifetime of drugs and alcohol to get into that state. On the Friday night, after getting stuck in the middle of anther hilarious Christmas parade, Marion had a big BBQ at her house. We met her sister and brother in law, a few nieces and nephews and the neighbours who had recently moved in. The lady from next door stole the show after she had a few too many beers and made a right royal idiot of herself. Poor Onyx was terrified as she made advances towards him, much to our entertainment. At the weekend we worked at the Stratford A n P show (I must find out what that means). The Rockwall was again linked to the Road Safe Taranaki tent, so the kids and their parents had to have a chat with the road safety team before they were allowed on the rock wall. As we had been into most of the schools in the area this week I knew most of the kids that were at the show. It was great to be recognised and give them all high 5's. Oh yeah, I haven't told you that working on the Rockwall basically means that I spend my days saying "good job buddy" "well done buddy" "high five buddy", I literally high five every kid that goes on the wall, and don't ask me where 'buddy' came from, but it works. A highlight for me was a little boy called Dylan. We went into Dylan's school earlier in the week and he came and saw us both days at the show. Dylan has quite severe developmental issues and he needed a lot of assistance on the wall, but he loved it and he kept coming back. I was helping and encouraging him every time and he was taking everything on board and getting higher up the wall each time. Another highlight was Geoff's purchases from the show. He disappeared for an hour and came back with a big cardboard box, whilst loading I threw the cardboard box to one side and to my surprise heard a few load squarks. Apparently there were 3 chickens in the box. That wasn't even the best bit, he had another box, which had three little piglets in it! He loaded both boxes into the back of the cab, but the pigs didn't sit still for long, they were straight out of the box and weeing all over our stuff in the back of the cab. Even though the piglets were cute, we had a 6 hour journey ahead of us and I didn't fancy having them running around the cab that whole time. Luckily we found a barrel and threw the pigs in there and onto the back of the truck. Poor pigs though it was such a bumpy 6 hour drive over a couple of mountain passes.