A life changing experience?

I’m fully aware that’s its very corny to come back from an event, or a visit, and describe it as “life changing”. I’ve heard it many times before when someone returns from a challenging convention or even a great holiday.

For me this event wasn’t really about Hong Kong and it certainly was no holiday. Don’t get me wrong, it was a huge privilege to be on the other side of the world in such a great place. More important was the work that went on in the Wu Kwai Sha youth village and I’m personally proud of the levels of effort that the English delegation contributed to the event.

We hardly saw Kie Cummings all week and if we did he had his laptop in hand, meticulously recording and writing up each session, often into the early hours of the morning. David Bennision and Mark Harrod also were heavily involved in note taking and recording.

In fact this World Council saw the English delegation contributing at many levels, from running workshops to our young people performing at the opening ceremony. There were also many other contributions from the delegation over the past seven days as well, but special mention should go to my colleague Ken Montgomery, whose endeavours both during the week and the last twelve months in preparation made our World Council experience all the more enjoyable.


Then there was the excitement of Ian Pearson’s election to the YMCA World Executive Committee. I was able to ask Ian about his vision for his new role:




I’m also thrilled that the young people within our party have come back buzzing with ideas and enthusiasm to take back to their YMCAs. Even our delegation’s youngest member, 14-year-old Kieran, played a major practical role in sorting the staff rota for our exhibition stand and was invited onto main-stage as well.

I managed to speak briefly with two of our colleagues on some of their highlights.

Graham, Northumberland Federation of YMCAs:



Matthew, West Bromwich and District YMCA


And for me personally, my view of the YMCA, being a pretty amazing movement, has been strengthened. From Gwenael’s “against the odds” rebuilding work in Haiti to the practical and innovative communications and IT that Miguel and Latin America and Caribbean colleagues are implementing, we do some awesome work.


Additionally, the world-wide enthusiasm and support for the 2012 "Hoop Springs Eternal" YMCA basketball challenge was staggering.


I’ve had some inspiring conversations over the last seven days learning about New Zealand’s YMCA week and the in-depth research process for the US’s “the Y” rebranding (incidentally this shows why “the Y” might not work in England).

The challenge is to keep these conversations going to enhance our work when we’re back at base, so that our communities can be transformed and so that young people can truly belong, contribute and thrive all around the world.

So was Hong Kong life changing?

Well, after all that we’ve seen, heard and learnt over the last seven days, for the sake of our young people it has to be.