For Year 9 camp, we headed off to Camp Kalbarri for a week. We learnt a lot of useful skills and got to develop our teamwork and leadership. Throughout most of our experience, we faced obstacles that we could only overcome if we worked together as a team. On the other hand, sometimes there were moments where we needed people to speak up and lead the rest of our group. So, this made it an important task to be a well-oiled team as quickly as possible if we wanted to have as much fun as we could while at camp.
Leadership Groups
On the first day of camp our group leader, Simone, put us into what she liked to call ‘leadership groups’. Each day there were different leaders that made up the leadership group. There roles included, organising the packing of breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the day, leading our group during activities and much more. At first, ‘leadership groups’ didn’t sound like a very exciting idea, especially as many other groups didn’t have to do them, but looking back they actually helped us work on leading a group and working as a team at the same time. In the groups of 3, we had to work together well to make sure we were all on the same page. This meant communication was key for us to work efficiently as a team. Once we had organised a plan together, we would gather the rest of our group so we could talk to them about or plan for today. We would tell them who is doing what and what we were going to do for the rest of the day. Doing this helped improve our leadership skills and improve our initiative when taking charge of a group.
One other example where we displayed teamwork was on our day out abseiling and rock climbing in the gorge. Once we had abseiled down, we could choose how long we wanted to spend there and how much further we wanted to explore. It was important to decide together as if some people went off on their own it would have caused a major interruption to our day, which is where our teamwork skills came in. We all talked about it together as a group, then continued the day with a plan that everyone agreed on so we could have as much fun as possible.
Finally, one time when we were hiking back up to the bus from 4 ways me and some others were up at the front leading the group. Unfortunately, the people behind us were not going as quick and we keep on going too far ahead. Our initial thought was too just walk slower and keep leading the group from the front, but Simone had a talk with us and said that sometimes it is better to lead from the back. By walking at the back of the group the slower people could set the pace, which was faster than our slow pace, and we could encourage them from behind to keep going.
