The Challenge

What are the challenges in your field band? Are you ready to solve them? These are some of the questions PULSE asks when they travel around South Africa with The Challenge.

A challenge is a difficult task or problem – something that is hard to do – but it also tests the ability, strength or skills of someone. Every field band has its challenges and its obstacles to overcome. Once you overcome these obstacles through team work the field band and the tutors will become stronger together.

PULSE wishes that all members and all tutor teams in the Field Band Foundation can be even stronger and better – that is why we have developed The Challenge.

The Challenge is a four week long program for FBF tutor teams. Our aim is that The Challenge can help the tutor teams improve their co-operative skills, get new ideas on how to plan and conduct a field band rehearsal, and develop ways on how to face and solve challenges in their field band. When visiting different tutor teams PULSE has learned that many of them can experience difficulties when it comes to their members’ self esteem, motivation, self-expression, and lack of team work, gender equality and disability inclusion.

When facilitating The Challenge PULSE presents a list of different topics, like the ones mentioned above. The tutor teams have to discuss the topics and identify the four most challenging factors in their own field band. Then the tutors get the task to plan new, creative music and dance activities that are related to the chosen topics. When the planning session is done PULSE follows the tutor team to a rehearsal and watch them perform the planned activities with the members. At the end of the rehearsal, the tutors discuss the topic and evaluate the rehearsal with the members. By the end of the day PULSE also has a short evaluation with the tutor team.

This month two tutor teams in Northern Cape have been Challenged! Lisa, Idun and Siri had great fun working with the tutor teams in Danielskuil and Petrusville last week.

The tutor team in Petrusville conducted a whole rehearsal focusing on identity and self-expression. The tutors have experienced that many of their members would not do anything without their friends and that the children did not get that many possibilities to socialize between the different sections in the band. The tutors therefore decided to give them a different experience and rearranged the sections. They gave the members the chance to try new instruments, dance, do theatre, rap or sing.

The rehearsal ended with great performances by all the different groups. It was impressive to see what the members managed to learn and create in just an hour!

During the evaluation the members said they had lots of fun. The tutor team were very satisfied with the rehearsal and the topic of the week, and are now ready to face another challenge next week!

thumb_P1210138_1024