23-25th June 2008, Simei ITE Student Council Bonding Camp.

My first ever ITE camp.
I.E., first ever camp with campers age so close to mine.

The camp is a bonding camp for the Student Council, the school wanted to Student Council to know each other better so as to work together better. There are a few different committees in the Student Council and the members from different committees not necessarily knew each other. Also, the camp was also done to instill a greater sense of belonging in the Councilors so that they will be more committed to Student Council duties.

Day 1:
Got to the school and waited for the student to arrive at school before we started taking attendance and dividing them into their groups. This took quite long as there were some problems with the groupings and it had to be done again.
After ice-breaker in school we left for Bottle Tree Park.
The first activity was Amusing Race around Yishun.
It's my first time conducting this activity around Yishun, so I'm not familiar with the place as well. But luckily, the objective of the activity did not require me to know the place well.
Objective of the activity was to make them realize the importance of communication and raise their awareness to their surroundings and well-being of their teammates. To learnt to look out for each other. Also, the importance of planning. For this camp, also for me to observe who are the more outstanding leaders.
The team forgot to check strength before moving off after a Check Point. The route to the next station went through the shop houses below an estate. There were many turns and one of the campers was lagging behind. She was spotted by one other camper but he did not stop the group to wait for her. So I decided to get her to hide with the student facilitator that was attached to my group and see how long it'll take the group to realize their team mate was missing. They didn't realize it until we arrived at the next Check Point, when I asked if everyone was around. They even answered "yes" without counting. After counting, they realized someone was missing and I asked them, "what now?"
Some of them started to stress and some started pointing fingers. Blaming the girl for lagging behind. Blaming the guy who spotted her for not stopping the group.
I got the "missing" girl to come back to join the group and gave time a time penalty of 5 mins for losing a team member, during the time, talked to them about the importance of looking out for each other.
When you are a team, always look out for each other, especially when moving in groups. They have to learn this because they are leaders and might be leading their own groups in future. They are lucky the "lost" was arranged by me and that the event is held in the urban environment. Campers are not allow to carry hand phones with them. Imagine what happens if someone in the team is actually lost during an activity in a place like Lim Chu Kang? Or say maybe Nature Rumble? In the forest?
Always look out for your friends and team mates.
Leave no one behind.
To test them furthur, as a road block for them to earn back points they lost, I challenged them to carry the "lost" girl to the next check point because she is now "injured". She not light!
But the teams performance was really impressive, not only did they make it to the next check point while carry the girl, there was ZERO complains. Many of the guys were close to their physical limit and along the way they had to keep switching guys.
Night activity was Kidnapped!
This time I took out the Ex-co member that joint the group as a camper because she have been playing a very active role in the day in leading the group during the Amusing Race. I wanted to see how the team will function without her. Wanted to force others to lead. As expected, as they are, after all leaders, people step forward to lead the team. And because it was dark, many where really counting and keeping a look out to make sure everyone was together.
During the activity, also made the team come up with 3 new cheers which took less than 5 mins each, compared to the first one which took almost 30 mins to come up with at the starting of the camp.

Day 2:
People I pointed out on the first night that I hope to see them stepping out started to get more active. Also told the Ex-co to keep quiet today so as to give the campers more chance to lead. The group have gotten more familiar with each other and can now work better together. The quieter people also started to talk more. There was more discussion going on in the team. For campfire preparation, they were expected to organise and come up with an item themselves since they are all old enough and also, they are all student leaders. 2 guys that were really laid back on the first day even took the lead for Campfire item preparation.
However, the group still lacked the sense of urgency. They had lots of time for campfire preparation, there's alot of discussion going on, but after very long, nothing solid is seen yet.
So I told them I want to see something within 15mins.
Again, the item was planned up and we started practising within 20mins.
Clearly, they needed to be able to force themselves to work faster.

Lesson for readers: Being motivated to work is not enough. We need to work fast. Do, not just say. You can lots of discussion going on but if none of these ideas are tested or tried, nothing will happen, problems withthe ideas will not be seen too. Also, a little pressure to work is alwasy good as it forces us to work fast. Look at the campers from this camp. As leaders, they are definatly motivated to work and willing to share ideas, but progress is slow until pressure was given to them to step it up. Look at how much time can be saved.
This pressure to work fast need not come from an external source.
In academic terms, this is the difference between an A1 student and and A2 student.
Though both are motivated, the A1 student pressure him/herself to work faster and more efficiently.

Day 3:
AREA CLEANING.
Area cleaning at Bottle Tree Park is so easy!
It was done in on time.
Then it was floowed by a massive photo taking session before the closing of the camp.
After the closing, I kept my group to share with them my observations that's actually meant for the repor for the teachers, but I really hope they'll know and understand their strength and weaknesses and work on them. Of course I did make it a point to tell them that those are only my observations and what I feel, if they disagree, it's fine.


The really respectable thing about this group of campers was their respect for authority. Even though the age gap between instructor and campers is so small, with some campers even older than their instructors, they are still able to respect us as instructors and learn form the camp and learn from us.

Readers: Respect of authority and willingness to learn from people, even younger than you is really really important for self-improvement. It take alot of courage to be able to recognise the ability of someone that is, in the norm, "lower" that you and later learn from them. But if one can forgo the stigma of asking and learning from the younger or someone "lower" it can really bring you to greater heights.

Though the camp was rather slow paced and a bit "low". Probably due to the camp schedule and the number of activities in the camp. Camp needs more ups and downs in order to be more fast paced. It needs more climax, which means more activites to create these ups and downs and to make it more fun and fast paced. You cant expect campers to stay "high" throughout the entire activity when activites lasted 2 to 2 and a half hours each.
I guess it can't be help since the camp was held at Bottle Tree Park and not JBac, there's only so many activites that can be done at Bottle Tree Park that's suitable for campers their age.

Fellow instructors commented that I was running the camp a bit like leadership training camp. In fact, I was....well a little. I threw in many things that are meant to bring out that leader in them and things to make them think. Actvity time was long, so debriefs were lengthy. Up to 1 hour after each activity(no complains again, as expected. they all wanted to learn), as I got everyone to share their views. I wanted my campers to gain more than just friendship and bonding from the camp. The camp objective was to get them to bond. If I can give them more, why not? Through they "hardships" that I made them go through, they bonded and they learnt.
It was really encouraging to see that the campers really wanted to learn, wanted to improve and when they thanked me on the finaly night after campfire for giving them more that just bonding.
Many of them really have the potential. Can see that many really learnt and benifited from the camp and change in them was evident.
Some who feared to lead now realise it's actually not that bad.

Overall, the camp was great. One of the best camp I've had in fact.