Leadership and Social Weekend for Adults Living with PWS 2020

We invited our adult members with PWS to a Leadership and Social Weekend which was held Oct 16th – 18th 2020, at The Surrey Hotel in Auckland. The programme was aimed at developing advocacy and leadership skills and enabled us to continue the development of our newly established Leadership Group that acts in an advisory role to the PWSA, representing people with PWS.

Our programme included a mock election on the Saturday as it was General Election day, time spent contributing to the production of PWS resources for peers, a practice session using Zoom to keep in touch better, plus lots of social time doing activities such as playing games, swimming in the hotel pool, enjoying music and dancing, and a trip to a local bowling alley.

There were 15 adults with PWS who attended the weekend and they all participated with enthusiasm in all activities. It was fantastic to see leadership roles develop and wonderful to see everyone help and support each other as needed. There was lots of reflection taking place with everyone opening up and contributing to discussions. You can click here to read a summary of group thoughts about What Others Need to Know about PWS. There was much focus displayed during some activities – for example, when running for the position of Prime Minister for the day (congratulations to James!) or when learning the words and actions to Hugo’s hilarious song! Activities were completed with gusto, good sportsmanship and laughter – like when playing Cindy’s family favourite, ‘The Rubber Band Game’!

The attendees were excited to see each other again, but new people to the group were very much welcomed and accepted. Everyone was reluctant to say goodbye on Sunday afternoon and they hoped to be able to see each other again soon.

We would like to thank The Surrey Hotel for their excellent hospitality, Cindy for fervently facilitating such an engaging and fun weekend, Julie-anne (PWSA board member and Service Coordinator at Spectrum Care) for supporting Cindy, the NZ Lotteries Commission for partially funding this event, and of course, all our members with PWS who contributed so positively, plus their family member or support person who gave up their weekend to learn with us.