By Nottingham YPAG,
On Saturday 10th October we had an Arts and Crafts YPAG session at the Queens Medical centre. This being my second time attending a YPAG organised event, I was a little apprehensive but everyone was very kind and welcoming.
During the meet and greet activity, we did a roleplay on the process of becoming a volunteer for a research study. Whilst it acted as an ice breaker, I found it insightful and it allowed others that were fairly new to understand this process too. As well as this, we played a game in which depending on your preference, you would stand on either side of the rope (kind of like a big game of ‘would you rather’). Some decisions were difficult to make but it was quite interesting to see how our opinions differed.
After some much loved biscuits and juice, in pairs, we started to make our research related board games. There was loads of equipment to choose from whether it would be a crab-shaped paint print…thing or some shiny pieces of card everyone made a great board game. We opted to do a classic style board game where if you were to land on a red per se, ‘the research project has been rejected,’ so you would go back two spaces.
After completing the board games, we then finished off some arts and crafts projects that were incomplete from a few sessions ago. Being assigned the job of making a title, I got to put my artistic skills to the test and found it quite enjoyable. It was nice to see everyone working together and I found that I had no problem interacting with the group.
The last session I attended was innovation themed where a researcher came in to ask us for our opinions on her research study information leaflet for the public. This was very interesting and insightful because I hope to study medicine so I got to see what doctors have to do to get their research approved. We got to do other fun activities like making catapults which tested out innovative skills. Similar to the arts and crafts session, I had no problem joining in with the group activities because everyone was friendly and supportive.
Overall, I am really glad I joined YPAG and regret not hearing about it sooner. Being a part of a programme that interacts with researchers, I can offer my opinion as a member of the public and help researchers approve their studies which could benefit our society greatly. The YPAG group are really nice and even though we are of different ages and backgrounds, everyone works together and I always leave feeling that I’ve learnt something new.
Written by Anmol, 17 years old.