On August 5-6, VOYCE held an amazing two-day collaborative retreat! The retreat consisted of multiple team building activities, many planning workshops to make this upcoming year a better one, and a lot of time to bond with other organizations. This retreat was very productive. Each of the seven organizations in VOYCE put its input of its past best practices and new ideas to create a general frame work for this year.

Before this retreat, I never really connected with the youth from other organizations, but this retreat broke the ice for everyone. After using our brain power to the max, the youth got together to play cards, hide-and-go seek, and shuffle board. My organization (Albany Park Neighborhood Council) played many long and competitive turns of Shuffle Board against LSNA and BPNC, which made us closer to the youth from those organizations. What made the collaborative retreat even better was the talent show that was held after our socializing time. We were able to show off our talents (singing, dancing, and rapping) to each other. I must say, this retreat was the best one I went to! :)