Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Group Reflections

Your middle school teachers really weren't kidding when they told you you would have to work in groups in the 'real world'.  Upon trying to list all the groups I've worked in or with in some capacity, I've filled up a whole page with no problems.  I've narrowed it down to the two best extremes I can think of...

The first is my historically favorite 'great' group-The 2007-2008 officers of the Towson University Rock Climbing Club.  To be totally honest, upon running for officer of RCC I had NO idea at all what I was getting myself into.  Luckily, the three other officers all had experience with the club and made my transition super easy.  One of the essential components of our success was our communication.  Each week we held a meeting to talk about what was going on with our club supervisor and have a small chunk of time to get some work done.  After our hour long meeting we would all go out to a secret  lunch spot together so that we could have some fun time as well. Aside from our communication efforts, we all filled specific niches in our group.  Ian was our 'techy', having a wide knowledge of climbing equipment and techniques.  Bob was our muscley workout master pushing us in workouts, but also supporting the officers to keep getting more work done.  Alli was our group mom and workhorse who kept everyone happy and loved while all the while being a master of paper work and technicalities.  All of this hard work and group cohesion really paid off when we planned our clubs first cross country trip to New Mexico in the spring of 2008.  It took a lot of extra work to convince our administration that we were prepared, but with a glossary of terms in your powerpoint, how could you ever go wrong? The leadership team finished off the year strong by making a solid transtion into new leadership for the fall semester when the club traveled to California and Alabama to climb. We definitely left a legacy-Kudos to you all; Ian Brown, Bob Spielman, and Alli Kreuzer!

And then of course, my classic 'bad group'. If you've ever experienced a humid New Jersey summer, you know it can be quite unpleasant.  In particular, working in a field with no shade from 8-4 as a slave with a 20 minute lunch break really seemed to bring out the worst in people.  Of the 13 staff, 6 were returning and good hard workers.  Another 6 had never worked at a camp, and more significantly had no experience on a ropes course.  Then of course, right in the middle was me.  I had a good amount of experience climbing and belaying but had not worked at a summer camp before.  So let me put it this way, despite all efforts to bring everyone to the same level of training and operational standards, information seemed to evaporate into thin air for the new folks.  Things that were obvious and clear to people with experience(like anchoring down and belaying with 2 hands) just didn't stick with the new guys.  Eventually the experienced folks got tired of trying to teach and the new folks got tired of trying to learn information that just didn't come accross clearly.  Ultimately, this meant that the new guys got stuck doing the slave work(moving ladders back and forth and hauling screaming 5th graders 30 feet into the air on a giant swing.  I think it goes without saying that one would not want to haul children up all day in the sun when another job(launching children from the zipline) involved sitting on a shady platform in a tree for hours on end.  I don't think there was anyone in particular to blame for these misfortunes, and without adding extra days of training, there was really no way to 'correct' the problems once the season was underway.  In conclusion, I learned a lot that summer, but not enough to bring me back for another season.  Only 4 staff returned the following summer. Wah wah...

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