We had our first
meeting of the academic year last week and, with the month of September being a
time of new beginnings; we were delighted by the number of new members. We had
new members ranging from the ages of eleven to sixteen, making our strong Youth
Wing even more diverse, and allowing more of the youth to join our journey.
The meeting
started with a brief introduction of our aims and what we have done as a Youth
Wing to contribute to society. This
allowed us to reflect on what we have accomplished so far and prompted us to
get started on discussing new ideas for future fundraising events.
Each OSBM
meeting usually revolves around one main topic and this month we focused on
self-reflection. We talked about what we perceive to be the ‘ideal’ person,
both externally and internally. Having all had similar ideas, it was clear that
an ‘ideal’ person is expected to some key qualities in today’s society such as compassion,
positivity and honesty.
We were then set
the task of finding our core qualities. Each of us picked an ‘allergy’, a
characteristic seen in other people that we find hard to withstand. The
opposite of the ‘allergy’ was our ‘core quality’ which we used to identify our ‘pitfall’, the
extreme version of our core quality. The positive opposite of our ‘pitfall’ was
then found to be the ‘challenge’ that arose from our core quality. Therefore, we
were able to see ourselves in a different light by stopping to think about the
core quality that makes a valuable part of our unique personalities. Discovering
our pitfalls and challenges also gave us some perspective on our approaches to
certain situations that make us uncomfortable and ways in which we can improve
our attitudes. The most valuable lesson was learnt when we considered the four
categories as a whole and realised that, by finding a balance, we would be able
to make the most out of our core quality for both ourselves and others.
This meeting was a great success and, with the joining of new members
and a profound self-reflection activity, also proved to be a positive start
after our summer break. As the Youth Wing continues to grow, we are eager to
continue taking initiative and committing ourselves to make more positive
contributions to society.
