Balloon Couch Challenge

What would you do with 20 balloons, 3 rolls of sticky tape and a little bit of initiative?

Make a balloon couch obviously!!

Girls at the ReachOut! Academy this week had 30 minutes to design and build a "couch" out of balloons with their mentors. Points were awarded for how much the final version looked like their design, uniqueness and innovation, team work and communication and finally how effective it was as a couch.

Some went for an arm chair style whilst others opted for futons, but all succeeded in holding the weight of one team member for 20 seconds!!!

Rounds of applause and kit-kat chunkies for the winning team followed before "dismantling" the couches, a pretty noisy and stressful process for all involved to be honest. However one group thought their couch was so comfy they decided to take it home to watch TV!

Did you take part in the balloon couch challenge with a group of ReachOut! mentees this week? Leave a comment and tell us how you got on!

Top Tips for mentors!

We asked last year’s ReachOut! Club Project Leaders (who were also mentors the year before!) what “Top Tips” they would give to new volunteers getting involved in mentoring with ReachOut!

Here’s what they came up with!

Just being there every session and talking to your mentees about their week can make a world of difference. – Rosy Smith

Treat all the children equally, even if they are behaving differently. – Morley Zhu

Don’t stress 1 bit!!! ;) – Maxwell Uzodinma

Just talking about anything (within reason!) with your mentee is helpful to their confidence and communication skills. – Harriet (Chipie) Melesi

Keep calm and communicate with whoever is running the session, whether this be a quick word at the end to say how the session went or even an email just to keep us up to speed on anything that needs dealt with (including praising hard work!) – Bryony Orr

Have fun! Better if everyone is louder than quieter! – Ayesha Begum

Be energetic and ever present – and the kids will respond to you! – Pete Blackwell

Enjoy it! – Paul Stewart

Hope that's helpful and good luck with your mentoring!