The Purpose

Supporting An Experience

The Why?

My parents always created experiences for myself. I guess this was a natural by-product of home education. Every day, we walked a couple of minutes to either Wimbledon Common or Richmond Park – this is where we learnt about life.

Every summer we had parties with over 100 friends and family and there was always an Adventure. An “Officer and a Gentleman” run to the Wood of Trees (with Dad asking kids if we will “DOR”), a picnic in the “Circle of Trees” and then marching back carrying logs through Beverley Brook. My friends and I still remember these and we want to share some of these Experiences with you. However, I am not sure the other parents were too happy as 13 kids had to take showers! Another time, Dad somehow got a tractor and we enjoyed a ride through Wimbledon Common!

I will not be too descriptive as it is nice to get lost and have an Adventure – just you and your family. You can miss out any of the proposed steps, change things – there are no rules… it is what my Life Coach terms an “Experiential Learning process”.

My dad was big on Adventures away without devices (which I hated at the time). The three of us would go away to give Mum some much-deserved downtime:. Brighton, Liverpool, Wales, Europe. He would put us through “pre-season training” as we got fit for the Adventure, learnt 10 words in the local language and agreed on what we would do ahead of each trip. Planning for the annual summer party started in April with fence painting and home renovations. I will say no more than his thinking is heavily influenced by Mr Miyagi and the Karate Kid!

Dad felt that holidays with kids were crucial. He went a couple of years back to Warrington to buy a barrel, which now sits proudly in in the Coconut Cocktail Bar. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t not have it delivered. He felt it was symbolic since I swam my first length at David Lloyd Warrington! His view is when kids are in new environments, they open up their senses, forget their inhibitions and, if they have quality time with their parents, they will expand in areas including speech and walking.

I am not surprised that no one has done this. It takes a lot of planning and coordination and is not scalable or profit maximising. It relies on parents ensuring all items are put back in their place otherwise another youngster might be heartbroken.

Having “walked the walk”, I can vouch for these Experiences.

Creativity

When my dad was young and single, he agreed to be a clown at a kid’s party.

He’de gone out the night before and couldn’t find a meaningful present ‒ probably because he was worse for wear. The kids opened their presents and they had the latest technology including the Nokia banana phone. My dad got a cardboard box from Tesco’s, painted it, and made holes so it could be worn. All the kids played with that all day and for weeks after. It cost him £2 for spray paint. He was soon brought back to earth trying to make the kids laugh while nursing a hangover. Apparently, he started sweating in his clown outfit when the kids told him what they thought of his lousy jokes!

His view is that children can only retain their inherent creativity if parents are themselves creative and provide the right environment for trying new things.

Mum home-educated us, my grandparents were teachers (my grandmother was a pioneer in Montessori education) and my dad leveraged these experiences to build 15 nursery schools in Sri -Lanka offering education to the most disenfranchised.

I decided not to accept a place studying psychology at university as I prefer an experiential process where there is a safe space to try out new things and determine what I like and do not like, what my passions are and, subsequently, where my passions lie. This project is part of the process.

However, creating Experiences takes a lot of time and effort. The amount of planning needed is high and, in the modern day, it is just not feasible to do a ton of research and, pack loads of suitcases full of props. That is not a break for parents. So, the alternative is to buy tickets for events, which can be expensive, tiring and not personalised, and limits creativity and interaction. My dad’s hero is Sir Ken Robinson, a thought leader in education and creativity.

The Heavy Lifting

The Experience Hub does the heavy lifting and hosts over 75+ Experiences which can be filtered based on a number of parameters. There are 250+ resources to support each Experience.

For example, these Experiences have been grouped as follows:

	Experience Location	Number of Experiences	Description Example
1	In-house Experience	0	It's raining, so let's stay indoors
2	Garden Experience	0	Everyone' is tired, so let's us try out the Garden Experiences
3	Adventure Experience	0	Let us augment a proposed Experience and create our own Adventure on foot or by bicycle

The PULL Approach

As a child, and also as an adult, much time is spent deciding what to do, planning for it and overcoming various challenges. The main challenges with UK city breaks are the weather, understanding what kids really want to do on a specific day, and the time spent to organise these Experiences, not to mention the cost. The Experience Hub’s broad range of Experiences allows for a “PULL” vs “PUSH” approach to family buy- in on each activity.

The Opportunity

We all have things we want to try out but it might not be possible. Here are a few things that you can try out and consider incorporatingadding them into your daily lives. These include:

The Acupressure Mat
The foam roll
The Tatami Mat
The Air Fryer
Salts and Oils
Natural Spring Water
Stone based pizza oven
Stone bare foot walk

This website is not to help you book; this is done through our partners.

This website is to help you determine whether VC is right for your trip. It is also a reference point to choose your Experiences and how to undertake them.

Moreover, the Experience Hub is available from the time of booking for as long as you wish:

Supporting An Experience

VC houses over 250+ resources and complimentary items geared to enhance each Experience. From phone chargers to backpacks, from sandwich boxes to flasks, these little things can help you plan to bring fewer items to London.

Umbrellas ‒ (Please note, the Wimbledon Tennis umbrella is purely to view). In 2013, we bought it at Wimbledon on the day that Andy Murray won Wimbledon for the first time. It was first used to protect me from the sun as my dad forgot my Team GB baseball cap!

Stage	Opportunity
On booking	The family can plan their stay together and decide which Experiences they wish to undertake.
During your stay	To help find resources using simple codes on each website.
Post stay	Submit a new experience you have created or enter your scores from a Game and try and win a prize. Keep abreast of new challenges by joining Max’s mailing list and have access to the Experience Hub.