Walking the talk on wellbeing

The wellbeing of our team and all its members is euforia’s highest annual goal. Therefore, wellbeing is also part of the (r)evolutionLab in the form of personal development sessions. Our volunteers Anna and Gordon reflected about wellbeing and share their insights.

Wellbeing has become one of the main goals of the euforia movement. As part of this we have created a more holistic approach to the (r)evolutionLab (former euforia Training Programme eTP) where hard skills and practical experience are now accompanied by personal development sessions.  In the beginning of July we dug into the fertile soil of personal development as part of the preparation for autumn imp!acts. At imp!act we encourage people to step out of their comfort zone, find out more about their purpose and start acting upon it. So as a facilitator it`s key to walk the talk both on a personal as well as on a team level.

imp!act can be like dancing on a rainbow. From up there one can have a glimpse of new landscape, discover new prospects and find great dancing partners. Once the raindrop of inspiration strikes the ground it is time to see how those panoramic views can become part of your journey and how the drop becomes part of what makes you grow.

I believe that wellbeing is the goal of this journey and I see personal development as the way to get there. Wellbeing must start at the individual level, and from a good foundation you can then help those around you to develop their own well-being. With a good self and a good community 'tribe' you can then be of service to bigger issues. Where you can develop well-being as a strong component in your ideas and projects.

One of my most enriching experiences as a trainee and coach of the euforia Training Programme (eTP) for me is to experience and explore wellbeing for myself and in our community.  Our team created a space in which we supported each other to shine in our own ways, be ourselves and this gave me the opportunity to grow greatly. I hope we find ways to bring this experience to more people and help to spread this in society.

So for me personal development is the methodology. It is the thing you do to increase your wellbeing. And what is wellbeing? Well, that depends on you and on the person. But it often has something to do with nature, having the time to do things properly, creativity, fulfilling a purpose, friends and family. You can use personal developments tools to help you develop your own well-being and to help your friends and team mates to develop theirs. And then spread the love and build a world dedicated to the well-being of each and every one of us. People, animals, plants. The water and the air. Even the rocks.

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Long live our volunt’heroes!

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As a way to celebrate everything we accomplished with our volunteers and to thank them for their unreasonable engagement at euforia, we rented a scout house near Bern and celebrated our Volunteers Day.
The day started with croissants and euforia’s annual general assembly. Our president Corina Helfenstein recapped euforia’s activities in 2015 and euforia staff gave an overview of what’s cooking up for 2016, presented euforia’s financial figures and validated the volunteers circle as the new strategic commission. After sharing an indoor picnic (despite our best wishes, the sun didn’t show up in Bern), our Storytelling Wizard Sonja gave us insights and tools in a workshop on how to best tell our changemaker stories. In the afternoon we moved to sports: one group consuming (Switzerland playing against Albania at the European Championship), another implementing by climbing the local mountain Gurten. Upon their return, beer o’clock was announced and kicked off the beginning of the party night.

As you could already read in our annual report, our volunteers community is growing fast. In 2015 alone, we could count over 80 new volunteers. In total, over 400 people have been engaged in our programmes during the past nine years and many of them still are.

As our volunteers are the core of our organisation, we aim at including them as much as possible in strategic decisions and in the operational daily business. At the General Assembly we looked at how we are reaching that:

  • We launched the new “volunteers circle” at the beginning of the year. Five volunteers are part of the new team and are going to foster community building, facilitate communication between staff and volunteers and contribute to strategic decisions. Welcome Manon, Osi, Nicole and Gordon!
  • Ten volunteers are now engaged within euforia staff as “boosters”, part-time and project-based freelancers. Meet them here!
  • Local chapters are going to be built up soon in order to connect volunteers living in the same region and to bundle our whole changemaker potential. The local chapter in Zurich started a soft launch with a casual coffee meeting last Saturday.

Thank you all who were there and spent the Volunteer Day (and night) with us! If you missed it: stay tuned, the next celebration is sure to come!

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Welcome to the new EUFORIA BOOSTERS!

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The euforia family has grown! Nine “euforia boosters” officially joined the many motivated and inspiring euforia volunteers, interns, trainees and staff in this movement of change makers!

The boosters are part of the newly created Impact Career Academy (ICA). Working in small teams and equipped with new ideas and great amounts of enthusiasm they will tackle different projects in various areas of euforia. This new type of co-creation between boosters, staff, and volunteers will hopefully become a structure of working together that spreads to other businesses and workplaces!

Have a look at the profiles below to get to know the new euforia boosters and to see which part of euforia they will be boosting!

 

The EvalNinajas — Luís and Nicoletta
The EvalNinjas will unleash the potential of evaluation to constantly improve euforia and all its programs.  Luís and Nicoletta live by their motto “Making evaluation sexy” ;)

 
 
 

Luís became a booster at euforia because he has just too much energy and happiness that needs to be shared with the rest of the world. He gets his own energy from human kindness and nature and if he were a natural energy booster himself he would be singing all day long. Originally fromPortugal, now living in beautiful Annecy, France, he brings Yoda´s patience to the EvalNinjas.

Nicoletta brings joy to the EvalNinja team!  If she was a natural energy booster, she would dance till the sun comes up. Nicoletta gets her own energy from remembering people´s happy faces. She joined the booster team with the goal to use her professional skills to improve the beautiful community of euforia.

 

 
 

The (r)Evolutionizers — Natalia, Elodie, Sidsel, Philippa
The (r)Evolutionizers will focus on the eTP structure and – as their name suggests – seek to (r)Evolutionize the eTP to make it more holistic and inclusive. All under the motto “Share & Grow”, be prepared for some big changes and new opportunities to get involved with euforia!

 
 
 

Natalia delights the people around her with a good dose of playfulness and a topping of gratefulness. Born and raised in Mexico until the age of 8, she now lives in Geneva and feels like a world citizen. As a booster she wants to disseminate the euforic culture of co-creation, support and trust and contribute to a more humane society of interrelation and interconnection with an environment that is solution oriented. As a natural energy booster she would be a joy dance and she gets her energy from deep connections with euphoric people or being upside down at Acroyoga.

Elodie loves to sing and – very fittingly – would be bird´s song if she was a natural booster. She hails from France where she still lives and just learned that she is puckish (yeah, you probably have to google that). She joined the boosters because euforia makes her happy and what better way to make other people as happy as she is?!

 
 
 
 

Sidsel is from Denmark but resides in Switzerland now. She came to join the boosters through a synergy meeting. Her “secret ingredient” is the law of attraction – so watch out! If she was a natural energy boosters she would be a meditation session; she gets her own energy from a variety of things including people, singing, running, being, playing, reading, writing, laughing, and living.

Philippa joined the boosters because euforia is just her perfect cup of tea – the moment she first read about it, she decided that she would work for euforia eventually. Being skinny dipping as a natural energy boosters, she brings bubbliness and zest for action to the (r)Evolutionizers. Creating pretty things gives new energy for new ideas and actions. She is from Germany and will move to the southern part of Germany soon.

 
 

The Waitresses — Fränzi and Marietta
The Waitresses will support euforia with its facilitation and businesses services and their ultimate goal is to deliver the best custom-made euforia menu.

 
 
 

Fränzi brings acuity and lenience to the waitresses. Euforia boosts her own life so the next step was to become a euforia booster herself. She grew up in Obfelden, studied in Zurich, is now based in Fribourg but works in Bern. Brunch with friends, sport (yoga and crossfit) and lots of sleep energize her, while she would be a ginger-banana smoothie with cinnamon topping if she was a natural energy booster.

Marietta´s “secret ingredient” is her mint-mango ability to see the good (or potential for good) in everyone. She gets her own energy from watching life and reading/writing in a small cafe, singing with others and feeling beautiful harmonies, and nature. If she was a natural energy booster she would be the feeling of cold water on your face in the morning. Originally from Hamburg but having lived – and maybe returning soon – in Geneva, she joined the boosters because co-creating a world based on abundance, true being, and connections makes her so very euphoric!

 
 

Sales & Partnerships — Bibiana
The Sales & Partnership booster will focus on euforia´s business services. The goal is to enhance euforia’s corporate expertise and know-how by enlarging its activites all across Switzerland as well as to establish fruitful and meaningful collaborations, especially in the French speaking region.

 

Bibiana would be a fresh green juice with an overdose of ginger if she was a natural energy booster. She gets energized through dancing, singing, hiking, morning mediation and yoga. Being part of euforia has already transformed her life in many ways. By joining the booster team she can use her skillset to spread the euforia virus even further, helping the organization grow and scale up sustainably. She was born and raised in Columbia but now lives in Lausanne. She smiles to the world and seeks to be grateful no matter what and to embrace compassion and kindness.

 
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Crazy Lions in les Marécottes — euforia´s first Wellbeing Retreat

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Take a deep breath in. As you breathe out, cross your eyes, stick out your tongue as far as possible, leap forward and roar like a lion. Repeat a few times. Notice how a strong and fierce energy fills the room. Also notice the laughter of all the people around you.

The “Crazy Lion” is just one exercise we used during the wellbeing retreat to explore the fierceness and fears within us as individuals and within our group of euforians.

The 3-day wellbeing retreat in the mountains around les Marécottes is one of the ways in which euforia is pushing forward on its quest to make wellbeing an integral part of the organization. What do I need as an individual for my personal wellbeing? How can euforia support the wellbeing of its staff and volunteers?

We explored these and many other related questions by looking at and experiencing different understandings, dimensions, and strategies of wellbeing. While Jerónimo and Michelle had put together a general structure of the retreat, we decided together as a group how to fill the days with discussions, exercises and practices related to wellbeing that were most intriguing to us.

In different workshops we discussed and provided insights to each other about priority setting, energy management, the concept of neotribes, and feminine leadership. Through various mindfulness exercises we focused on the relationship between us and nature and our surroundings in general. Yoga and meditation were offered every day to explore our relationship with our bodies.

Hotel Balance was the perfect setting for all these activities and the beautiful mountains and nearby hiking trails were an open invitation for us to (re-) connect with nature. All meals were vegetarian (with vegan options) and so smashingly delicious that all 17 of us flooded the kitchen on the last day of the retreat to personally thank the cook.

We left the wellbeing retreat with our heads buzzing with ideas and intentions to integrate simple wellbeing measures into our everyday life – at home and at work. As a very first step to spread our insights of the weekend among the euforia community, we are currently putting together a “recipe book” full of “wellbeing hacks” that we collected during the retreat.

However, the greatest lesson of our days together was that finding your personal wellbeing mix is most fun when you do it together and share your wellbeing journey with a friend. Venture out and find a wellbeing buddy or group of friends with whom you want to figure this out together! Enjoy nature together, share with them your meditation or yoga experiences, share with each other what you are grateful for, practice mindfulness together, and - most importantly - be crazy lions together!

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The Volunteers circle is born

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For quite some time euforia had been thinking at how to include our volunteers more substantially when it comes to taking strategic decisions and paving the way for the future of euforia. After some brainstorming during a meeting of our most experienced volunteers (aka the level 3 eTPers),, the volunteer circle idea was born and a call was sent across the euforia community in Switzerland and abroad. We wanted to find volunteers that were ready to commit to turning this crazy idea into reality. And here they are: Gordon Keay, Manon Pétermann, Nicole Recklies and Osi König are our current members of the very first volunteers circle.

In line with euforia’s tradition, during our first meetings we brainstormed about what we love about volunteering at euforia and what we could change to make our volunteering even better, and we set our priorities and objectives accordingly. Here’s a short briefing. In the coming months, the volunteers circle will focus on 3 main areas: community building, coordination between euforia volunteers and staff and among volunteers, and euforia 3.0.

As euforia is growing, we feel it’s crucial that we focus on our community, so as to make sure that euforic people are connected and our sense of belonging around the euforia vision and values is enhanced. The first concrete step we are taking when it comes to community building is reinforcing connections between euforia volunteers at city and regional level through prototyping local chapters. Local chapters are quite common across volunteering organisations, but of course we’re thinking this the euforia way. Expect more info on this soon.

Our rapid expansion across Switzerland and abroad also means our coordination will be key to make the most of the growth process we are going through. That’s why we set improving coordination among euforic people in all capacities as one of our priorities. We’ll look into ways of improving our knowledge management and we’ll find the best possible way to join efforts when it comes to fundraising.

Finally, we love to think of euforia as volunteer-driven, that’s why through euforia 3.0 we are imagining ways of empowering our volunteers to decide what they want euforia to be like in the future. We are going as visionary as we can and it’s very likely that we’ll soon seek out for crazy ideas. Stay tuned.

If you would like to contribute to the volunteers circle or simply know more about this, please just get in touch with Manon, Gordon, Nicole or Osi. Or email me at massimiliano@euforia.ch.

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Welcome Philipp

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Hi,

My name is Philipp and im the new team member at euforia. After 1 year as a volunteer for euforia, I will now sell the euforia products and Business services within the new created Impact Career Academy (ICA) on the swiss labor market.

I worked many years for different Swiss companies in the area of new customer business. Now, the time is coming to sell euforia products and push the different trainings and programs much more that we can spread the euforia spirit all around Switzerland.

One important thing I have learned during my young Sales career is that you can loose nothing, only a chance. Thats my motto and booster to do cold calls for being succesfull. And one more thing: Set up your targets always 120%

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Volunteers Day – it's time to celebrate!

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We're super excited about our next event taking place on Saturday 11 June near Bern.

e're planning to spend a whole day togethe to celebrate all our euforic accomplishment. We have designed a diverse progra that should meet all kinds of interests: The General Assembly for the Master Number Crunchers, a hike for the fancy sports(wo)men and a Storytelling Workshop for the knowledge hungry people. Very important: bonfire, barbecue, music and party 'til early morning. And those who want the real scouts feeling (or who just don't have any choice) ca stay overnight.
Take the chance to get to know volunteers and staff who you haven't met yet and to spend a whole day full of love and fun around wonderful people. We're looking forward to a euforic day!

Check out the progra below and sign up here y 7 May.
For the volunteers from abroad: uforia can over part of your travel costs. Please get in touch with massimiliano@euforia.c by 10 May.