Dear daughter, me, Sasha, Rae and Adelle:

• Body image/insecurities
• The cause of body positivity
• How can we boost teenagers confidence?
• Will people listen to mothers?

I was very nervous and not excited to come to this retreat, I still didn’t remember anyones names and I didn’t like any of the topics I had researched. However this weekend I got so much more comfortable, with the people and what was expected of me. The games we played got all the nerves I was feeling out of my body and helped me into my real self so I could go and make friends. Just being able to laugh got me more comfortable is the still new environment. When I was first assigned to a team I had a lot of doubts. I felt nervous all over again because there were so many other topics I was interested in. I also had no idea what topics I wanted to chose, scared I would make the wrong decision. As I started the mind map I already had in my mind that I would be switching groups, however as my group talked about the possible ways we could go I became more and more interested, to the point were I chose the topic. I was still pretty on edge. It clicked for me when we moved to the table today and really dove into it, all the possibilities and the ideas we had finally helped me realizes I had chosen the right topic. The group I’m in works together really well and we have a lot of fun. I can see our topic telling a wonderful meaningful story that can change lives and maybe even mine as the topic is something I struggle with myself. I think this retreat did a wonderful job of inspiring me and making me feel welcomed into this community.

My group struggles for a while on narrowing our topic down, it was very broad and could have gone many ways. I liked all of the possible branches of our topics that we were brain storming but non of them really stood out to me. As we kept struggling to narrow down our ideas our mentor, Emma, made a suggestion that I believe our group stuck right to. It was a topic that was unique and spoke to what we had been talking about. The process that this weekend brought us through, however grueling, lead us to an idea that my group and I are actually really excited about. It helped us flush out ideas, and kill babies and adopt new ideas that ultimately led to a solid unique topic. I don’t think as of this moment our group knows everything about our topic but we have plans on how we can obtain information regarding our topic. There is a lot of research that we can look towards to get reliable statistics and interesting intakes. We will also learn a lot from the people we talk to and they will make for a wonderful story. I feel part of my group and not like I’m on the outside or don’t know whats going on. The work so far has shown me that our group are all interested in our topic and that we will all work hard for the desired outcome.

Throughout the last two days our group has proved to be organized and hard working. We have dove into the Story Chasing Plan and I feel confident in what we have decided. We have made a plan of weekly online meeting so we can check in on our weeks process and make sure that everything is running smoothly. We will also take the time to make sure everyone is doing ok and not too stressed or confused. We will then get to our next weekly goal. Incase of burning question that need immediate attention we have a group chat to contact and check in if needed. Our group has a wide range of talents and so we have all agreed to be great resourced in others areas of discomfort, like technology, writing, researching. We have all created a plan and made sure it works with everyone about there particular areas of study for the next couple weeks, keeping in mind what people have access to and there abilities. We have agreed to keep our google doc neat so it can be used and understood easily. All in all my group is feeling very confident in our topic and the work we are expected to do.