Riku Rantanen Email and Phone Number

I am part of a team leading Uusi Verso, a community church in Tampere. My responsibilities include coordinating various activities like different groups, church services and camps. I also coach volunteers, mainly young adults to grow both as individuals and as a community. Besides those responsibilities, as a team we build and lead the church.

During my five month summer employment at Suomi Camping Oy, I worked as the Camping Site Manager in Tampere Camping Härmälä. Tampere Camping Härmälä consists of a pizzeria-restaurant, kiosk, about 400 caravan pitches and 110 camping cottages. Besides them the camping site also offers a range of other services like two saunas and minigolf. As the manager, my main responsibilities included being in charge of both the 20 person staff and the business side of the camping site. Together with my leadership team of four persons, we recruited the other staff, trained them, and took care that all aspects of the camping site ran smoothly. I also was in charge of the finances, stakeholder relationships as well as marketing together with the Helsinki main office.

Coaching groups of 8th graders (14-year-olds) during week-long projects. The projects are done in collaboration with schools and are filmed. In each project teenagers come up with different ways to build peace and to provide something good for the community they live in. The projects have ranged from helping the homeless or the elderly to removing the stigma of mental health issues or helping elementary schoolers to get over their fears. My job is to coach, guide and motivate the group of teenagers during the project. During the project weeks we worked under extreme time pressure and all leadership and motivational skills were truly put in use.

Started a pop-up café with two of my friends in the heart of Tampere. Only one of us had experience of working in a café previously, so the industry was quite new. We started it anyways as we were all enthusiastic in learning something new and trying life as an entrepreneur. While the summer may not have been a huge success financially, I definitely learned a lot about the value of work, entrepreneurship, marketing, finances and business altogether.