Last year I applied to be a peer support leader for O’Connor. Sadly I didn’t get one of these roles but still got to do some super fun activities while the peer support training was being run. On Monday I started off my day by going on a bus to the river and doing rowing with the rest of O’Connor who didn’t get into peer support. This was a lovely activity run by Ms Rees and the rowing teacher. We were taught the skills of rowing first on land and then we got to go in the water and test out the skills we had learned. It was surprisingly hard to balance in the canoe but after falling in the water a couple of times we headed off to yoga. Yoga was a nice relaxing, afternoon activity where we learnt single, partner and group yoga poses. It was a lot of fun and everyone was laughing by the end of it.

On Tuesday we started off our day by making cookies. These cookies were for Salvation Army who then gave them to homeless people as a little Christmas gift. This was super fun and we got to personalise our cookies to how we wanted them to look. After cookie making, we got to participate in a self-defence workshop run by a coach from out of school. This workshop was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed it a lot. We learnt many skills and even got to practice them on each other. The afternoon activity was my favourite. We got to go down to the ECC (early childhood centre) and be around the little kids for the afternoon, playing with them in the playground, doing crafts and reading Christmas stories. This activity made everyone so happy as the kids were so full of energy and excitement. We started off playing with them in the playgroup which allowed us to meet everyone and even play some chasey. We then helped them make some mini Christmas wreaths and even though we got sticky with glue everyone found it enjoyable. We finished off our afternoon by reading the kid’s Christmas stories and we even had some gingerbread men to finish off a fun day.

I really enjoyed the two-day experience and even though I was originally sad about missing out on peer support I had a really fun two days with my friends. My recommendation to someone who doesn’t make peer support is to take these two days as a bit of fun. The activities make you laugh and have a lot of fun and you get to do it with your friends.