I walked out of my local Budgens last night clutching a can of beans and some Cod Cakes for my dinner, and a fine sunny evening saw a group of 'youngsters' gathering with mountain bikes, ice cream, and twittering at each other with wanton abandon....(how poetic!)
Since my business corners not only on getting people to work better together, but promoting a love of music amongst young people, I saw an opportunity and so approached the group - with fascinating consequences.
How many of us assume that children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen hanging around in groups are clearly out to cause trouble? I'd hazard a guess that the percentage who answered yes to this is quite high. You'd be wrong.
Think about when you were a teenager - you get home from school, you do your homework, or at least pretend you have, you maybe have some crisps and try to watch TV which is all news that you don't understand or care about. So you go out to meet some friends and spend some time laughing, enjoying the outdoors, and messing about doing silly harmless things, only to be told off by miserable adults and avoided like the plague by anyone who happens to be a passer-by.
Bringing this back to the point, I went over to the group and simply said "Hi guys, do any of you like music?" and got a fantastic response - presumably because somebody other than their parents or a schoolteacher had given them the time of day. We had a very positive chat and they took some business cards.
By the time I'd walked away I felt far more comfortable in my neighbourhood knowing that the kids were alright. It also proved a theory that I'd been nurturing, which was that perhaps the best way of getting in front of the people you need to, is to just say hello.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Good thing you didn't do that in Luton... you'd have probably been stabbed.
ReplyDeleteOr mugged.
Or both.
:P