As a team member today, I think I was more of a follower than a leader. I had some ideas, but I was mainly listening to others plans and trying them. When we were doing The Marble Challenge, I was only a follower, but still a good friend and team leader. As a whole group, we could only come up with one plan, and it was a good one, but it didn’t work. I think it didn’t work because we had the right plan, we just weren’t executing it right. Our plan was to hold the tubes up at an angle and let the marble go through, and once you were sure that the marble had passed through the tube you were holding, you would run up to the front of the line with your tube and hold it there. Our plan was to keep repeating these actions until the marble got inside the cup, but somehow in between it always fell out. We still kept up with this plan even though at the end it still didn’t work and we were out of time. I feel like in this activity, Runyon was the biggest leader.

In our next activity, Hog Call, I think we found it pretty easy. I think I was actually a leader in this one, but still a follower at the same time. The way the game was played was that you had a word taped to your back and once everybody had a word, they had to go around and find a good pair for what was on their back. But, you couldn’t talk and you couldn’t look at the word on your back. So the plan that we came up with as a group was to have people stand in a row, and a few people would start pairing them by their word, and then the people who were already paired, would pair the people that had paired them. This ended up working very well, and we played two rounds successfully.

Our last activity was The Maze. This was very similar to a game we played at Camp Hanes, but it was a little more difficult. There was a mat with 16 squares and we had to find the pattern, and the pattern used up all 16 squares. This was pretty much a guessing game, but it also trained your memory to remember the path. We all helped each other, and Runyon got a piece of paper and wrote out the path, which helped some people, but not all. Overall, I think these three activities helped us work together, and it bonded us well.

Community and Friendship

Today in Charger Trails, I learned that teamwork and friendship are very big parts of our community. In the Marble Challenge, I learned that when you are allowed to talk, it is very important to have positive, and helpful communication with you group members. In the Hog Call, I learned to always listen to others ideas, because they could be very helpful. In the Maze, we couldn’t speak, so it was challenging, but Runyon made a map for us to use, and it was very helpful to some of us, but for the others that it did not help, Rohin stepped up and helped. This morning one of the main things that I learned was that sometimes it is good to be a leader, and other times it is good to be a follower, neither one is right or wrong, and neither one is better than the other. I had a great time at Charger Trails today, and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Community and Friendship

The Riptide worked together well because we communicated before each challenge, and also listened to each other’s ideas. We communicated a lot during the Marble Challenge. I spoke up during that challenge to help my team get through. Even though we practiced and practiced, we still couldn’t get the job done. We also listened to other’s ideas. During the Hog Call, David and Laura came up with some really good ideas. They suggested we get in a line and two people go through the line matching up people. I say we worked together and communicated during Charger Trails really splendid.

At Charger trails today we were pretty successful. We didn’t do so well in the first activity the “Marble Challenge” but other than that we did great. I didn’t act specifically as a leader of follower. I helped other people when they were confused and did what others told me to do when they had an idea. With the Maze, when I was in it I was confused on exactly where to go so I followed a team member as they told me what to do. I also helped the others as they went through and didn’t know exactly what to do. The hog call was kind of a mess but we ended up getting it right and I also helped make a few pairs.

Our group was also pretty friendly. We talked about our ideas and we kindly either accepted or explained that they didn’t really work. Everyone was included as a friend and helped each other in some way. Some of the time we had the same ideas and it was nice to know that in some ways, we thought very similarly. I think I did well being a team member and a friend. In the end everyone was happy and working together.

During Charger Trails I think that we did a really good job of sharing our ideas. We planned out the stuff that we did before we started the game. During Hog Calls I think we did really well with the planning of attack. David came up with a really good idea to help pair us up, and then we had tweaked it a bit and changed it. That was how we worked together as a team to accomplish what we needed to do. We were also really good at helping each other cross the Maze and get all of us through without having to repeat the game. We had some really good leaders in our group; Rohin was able to help us remember the path by showing us which direction to go in. We also had good strategist in our team, like the time that Runyon helped us to get across that maze also. He made a map of the right way to get across once someone had already made it across. Finally in the marble challenge we listened to everyone’s ideas and even though we did not get it in the cup we still got the right concept of working together as a team.

In Charger Trails, I was a follower in some parts of the three activities (marble challenge, hog call, and maze). I tried to help people if they forgot the correct way. In Hog Call, I think I was more of a follower but in the marble challenge, I came up with an idea that could have worked so I think that in Charger Trails, I was a mix of leader and follower.

Community and Friendship

This morning we started off our day with a series of activities called Charger Trails. The series consisted of three activities called the Hog Call, Marble Challenge, and Maze. In the hog call, I thought we were successful because we all listened to each other’s ideas. For example: David stepped up and said that we should all get in a line and he would tap you on the shoulder, so then you would partner up. In the Maze, I thought Rohin Stepped up and was a great leader because of how he guided people through the maze only using his hands and gestures. On the marble challenge, I thought that Runyon stepped up became a leader by trying to give as many ideas as he could and tried to mush them al together.

In Charger Trails this morning, we played three team-building games, Marble Challenge, Hog Call, and Maze. In the first game (Marble Challenge) we were supposed to make a marble travel through PVC pipes to go from one place to another. For this one, I helped my team by listening to their ideas and using my head if it would actually logically work without testing it out. The second game (Hog Call) we were supposed to pair up together according to the word on our back but we didn’t know our word nor could we talk. We were good at this and I helped my team by trying to sort out different people and pointing at them which person they should partner up with. For the last game (Maze) we were supposed to walk across sixteen squares, walking across each one in a specific pattern. I helped my teammates by point each square they were supposed to cross. In each of these games, I was a follower but that didn’t really affect me. As a group, I felt like we didn’t argue with each other a lot and made compromises. That saved us some time as well.

In charger trails I learned many things.  I learned how to work as a team and listen to other ideas.  We worked together to change some ideas to make them better.  I was a leader in the maze activity but in the others followers.  The marble activity is really hard but we worked through it.  I need to work on communicating through.  It the hog call everyone was sort of just working together without a leader.  In the marble challenge Runyon was the leader and he talked a lot about what we were supposed to do.  No one felt left out from their ideas.  Everyone’s ideas were listened to and some were used.

I think that I was successful in many ways as a friend and a team member. I think that in Hog Call that I was a leader because I helped come up with our idea to stand in a line and then we could find our partners. It is very important to be not only a team member but a friend. If you are not a friend to someone then you could hurt them, if you yell at them that is not being a friend. I think our advisory worked really well together and we listened to everyone’s ideas, and even if we didn’t agree with someone’s idea then we would still hear them out. I think the Charger Trail Challenges were really helpful and fun for our advisory and it was really fun and helpful for me.

For Charger Trail there were a couple of things I think I did very well. I thought that I listened to others ideas patiently even if I didn’t think they would work. For example, during the marble challenge. I listened to Alex’s ideas even though some of them I didn’t completely agree with. I still think I need to work on accepting being more of a follower than a leader sometimes. At my old school I was usually the one during projects who took on the leader role, so it’s kind of hard for me to follow other people. I still need to work on that. I also think that I tried to keep a positive attitude when things were getting tough. During the maze I started following Rohan’s example and started showing people what to do. I needed to be a little more positive during that because when people hesitated too much it kind of frustrated me. I didn’t really understand why they were stopping and I kept hitting the place they were supposed to go really hard to get them to go there and trust me. That was unfair since when I was doing the maze I hesitated too.