Leadership is said to be a learnt skill and Year 9 camp at Kalbarri taught me a lot. While getting food sorted for our third day out at the gorges, I was appointed leader with a couple of other students. This small taste of leadership while organising food for the day helped me to understand the role of a leader and how important effective communication is. Improving leadership skills also means improving organisation and to me, having an unorganised leader means unproductivity. I put this into action when divvying out the food for a fair distribution of weight as we had to carry our lunch down into Murchison Gorge. I found that it was really important to be able to work well with the other group leaders but at the same time, be able to direct the other students to avoid chaos and keep organisation.
During the freezing nights at camp, cooking was a great way to collaborate with the other members in my group. I learnt a lot about teamwork and resilience during these nights because of the treacherous weather that left us soaked to the bone. The first night was the biggest challenge that I faced as there was a lot of new information to take in about the use of Trangia’s as well as the night that slowly crept in. Our roles in the cooking group rotated depending on the night so that one person didn’t always have the pressure of using the wok and everyone was content with their roles. I found that our communication skills reflected our compatibility as a group as without communication our team didn’t work effectively. As hard as it was to stay composed, I managed to work with our circumstances and complete the real challenge of camp.
In the future, these skills that I have learnt on camp will help me to communicate effectively both in a team and as a leader.