After slightly more that two weeks from rest from full camps, finally back to doing full camps.
But the camp that just ended is probably going to be my last camp.
School's starting next week. Going to miss camp days, miss the people and the fun we've had together...
Shall leave this for the next post or something
For the past 2 weeks, I've only been doing 1 or 2 day events here and there and going to JBac to help out in a camp.
Been taking courses these past 2 weeks too.
Well... let's talk about the camp now...
The camp didn't start well for me actually. It's the first time ever that I dreaded the start of the camp so much.
My mood wasn't right due to some personal problems.
I thought I wouldn't be in the mood to be handling 40 little monkeys, but for this camp, there a change in the system.
Instead of the usual, where the 2Ic is the station IC and only the IC follows the group.
Both Ic and 2Ic follows the group. Making the handling of campers much easier.
And apparently, according to the camp operations, the campers are quite good, so I thought it will not be so bad after all.
But on Monday I starting dreading the start of the camp again, all the way till Wednesday when the campers arrived at the campsite.
I didn't want to push away the camp just because of my mood because I though that it is irresponsible to do that.
Just because of some personal problems, if I pushed away the camp only 1 or 2 days before the camp started, the company would have a hard time trying to find replacement.
Plus, my troubles had nothing to do with the camper or the company.
I cannot affect them because of my personal problems.
I had to do what I had to do.
I locked myself for this camp, so I am responsible.
The weird thing is, when the students arrived and when I took over my group, the moment I realised there are "problematic" campers in my group, my drive came back.
Though probably not 100% of what I usually have for camps, but I felt motivated for the camp again.
The camp started with Ice-breaking which lasted slightly longer than 1 hour.
I made sure the ice breaking session was done well because--lesson learnt from Jurong West Pri camp...
Generally, the camp went on quite smoothly besides the fact that the hand full of "problem" kids giving me problems throughout the camp.
The 5 of them were constant up to some monkey business and they had very short attention span. Most of the time they did not listen to briefing and debriefs. I had to stop activities or briefings so many times just to talk to them.
Despite many repeated reminders and they still carried on their ways, they are primary school students after all, they need constant reminder.
It was really unfair for the group, having to stop and waste the group's activity time or wash-up time juts because of these few students -- look at the big picture. Don't neglect the majority for that small minority.
On the last night, I left them alone and spoke to the rest of the group only after debrief.
The few of them were blatantly lying on the floor and sleeping. Not wanting to do their reflections or listen to the debrief. So I kept them back to finish everything after I let everyone go.
Some of the activities that are especially worth mentioning are River Challenge and Command and Conquer.
River Challenge was our first activity.
The task was to get the whole class from 1 end of the "river"(the Milo pond) to the other in a given time.
On their first try,they took 18 mins and got only 8 people across because the wasted a lot of time getting in and out of the water and deciding who sends the floats and PFDs back.
Though in fact, around 13 people already went across, some of them just wanted to play more and didn't care about completing the task. So after the got out of the water and took of the PFDs, on subsequent trips, the wanted to send the floats back, so time was wasted for them to put on the PFD again, getting into the water then send the floats back.
Alot of time was wasted this way.
Largely because they didn't plan well and stick to their plan when they were given the time. Also many of them were only thinking of whether they got to play.
Had to make them learn.
So I cut the activity and debriefed them on their first try.
Wanted to prove to them how much better it would be if they planned and stuck to it. And also how much better it would be if they worked as a team.
Wanted them to know the importance of having a shared vision in a team.
I gave them the plan, told them the record timing and that usually it would only take 20mins for a class of 40 to finish the task.
Then challenged them to finish it, to prove to themselves that it can actually be done in 20mins.
In the end, the task was completed in 20min 30 sec.
Hope they learnt from that experience.
Command and Conquer is worth mentioning because of the the team spirit they showed. Especially the girls.
Command and Conquer is a game where the kids get to play with water bombs.
The task was to take out their opponent's castle or people. The number of water bombs each group/each person has is actually limited. You would expect the kids to want to throw the water bombs themselves but the girls and a few boys in my group surprised me.
The group was split into 2 smaller groups and we played against another group.
When 1 sub group ran out of water bombs I went over to the other group and ask, "hey, our other group has ran out of water bombs to defend or to attack, we are a group right? You are allowed to pass them some water bombs. Do you want to do that?"
Without any delay, they immediately handed a few water bombs.
The team work and spirit they showed really surprised me.
Maybe the debriefs really got into them.
My reflections:
After camp, for some weird reason I actually felt better.
Maybe the injury to my hamstring helped a bit too.
(I injured my hamstring AGAIN during campfire. Got sabo-ed to come out to do split during campfire. Thanks to my lousy mood I think I forgot to tell them I'm injured. 3rd time this month. It never got to recover totally. This time it serious. I couldn't walk or stand after that and also for the next day. It's stupid, but I didn't want to disappoint the kids. Passion/stupidity is going to kill me one day.)
This sounds stupid. but it was so painful I couldn't think of any other thing. Then I suddenly though to myself, what's been bothering be for the past weeks, suddenly I'm not thinking of it just because of pain. Maybe it doesn't mean so much after all??
Guess what I can bring away from this camp for myself is that don't run away from things. You'll never know what's installed for you. Maybe you'll feel better after that. It may not be the camp that really made me feel better but it's a fact that after the camp I feel better.
I'm sorry that this post may sound negative to you readers out there. But I hope you guys can understand and learn from this.
I'm not afraid of showing/sharing my feelings, even some of the more negative ones.
Even when I know that some of you(I'm not flattering myself) might look up to me as a leader of some sort.
What I hope you guys see is not just the negative side of me. But my willingness to face up to the problem and to solve the problem. Not run away from it. Some of you who have been talking to me might know that it wasn't easy for me either. It was really a mess and I was really quite lost.
But what's important is that you have to face the problem.
For those who still think that a leader needs to be perfect, this is what I think--a leader need not be perfect, no one is. You just need to have the courage to face your problem.
For those who are actually worried for me, if there are any,
sorry for making you worry.
Though it wouldn't harm if you dropped a few comments or taggies?hahha...
to let me know you're reading too...XP
I'm ok. Just that I'm still recovering form the hamstring injury.
Hope I'll recover in time for diving class tomorrow evening and for my expedition next week~
P.S.:
Thank you Jesslyn for what you said to me. It really helped.
HuiMing, thank you too^_^
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