For the last two weeks I've been away at summer camp, being a Volunteer Team Leader on two separate YHA camps. The first was a watersports week at Lee Valley near London, and the second was an outward bound action adventure type thing at Edale in the Peak District. I did loads of different stuff over the two weeks, windsurfing, sailing, kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding, raft building, abseiling, high rope walking, caving etc. I even did something called weaseling, and I also went on an expedition where I virtually had to climb down the slippery sides of a waterfall. This was pretty much the only activity I did where I didn't have to wear a helmet, although it seemed like the one where it was most needed. By the time I finished the two weeks I had no more space for bruises, so I was starting to get bruises on bruises, and my feet were uniquely blistered on all four sides, which is something I've never achieved before. It didn't help that I left my walking boots in my mum's car before I left, and also that I didn't have wet shoes for the water activities.
Pretty much all these activities required balance, and the careful shifting of my body weight, and I didn't find that easy. I've never been any good at skateboarding or riding non-hander on a bike, so just the actual art of not falling over was hard work. But it wasn't just physical balance I was striving for, I was also looking to gain some balance in my mind and in my heart. To become more resilient and less likely to be tipped over by the unexpected.
I spent the entire fortnight wearing a green T-shirt with the title 'Volunteer Team Leader' on the front and over the course of the two weeks I had lots of cause to reflect on what those 3 words meant. The first two were easy. I was doing it for free (3 meals a day and a bed were provided so it wasn't without its perks), and I was part of a team. I love being in teams, particularly ones that work. From football and rugby when I was younger to teams of cyclists or teams at work, I love working together with others to achieve a common goal. So the first two parts were easy. The bit I really struggled with was the Leader part, and it was the third side of the triangle that I spent the last two weeks trying to figure out. When I think of what it is to be a leader, I often think of somebody standing at the front of a room talking, or else somebody being at the front of a group with other people following behind. At the very least I think of it as being a good role model, or setting a good example.
Anyway, here are some things I found out during the two weeks, which may shed some light on what it means to be a leader:
1) Leadership isn't just about wearing a green T-shirt with leader on. Leaders can be anywhere, and any age. Sometimes the leaders need to be led too. If you're trying to do activities with people who are younger, fitter, more flexible and more capable than yourself, it's probably best to follow them instead of expecting them to follow you.
2) There's no lower age limit to leadership. A 10 year old French girl who spoke very little English was my inspiration on week one, and she taught me more about courage and leadership than anyone else I met on the trip. I started off week one insecure and full of doubts about my own abilities, but when I met her, tiny and young and alone in a foreign country, trying to get by using her limited knowledge of a foreign language, I knew I could do it too. In this way, she was the best role model I found.
When I was blinded with lake water from trying to fill a cup stuck to the top of my head, she was the one who came to take my hand and help me out of the water, and she was always asking me if I was okay. Sometimes when she was tired, I carried her, but mostly it was her that carried me. On the last day she sang me the Aristocats song 'Everybody wants to be a cat' in French, and even though I could barely converse with her in either English or French, having to say goodbye to her was the worst part of the whole two weeks.
3) Sometimes it's just as important to lead from the back, as it is from the front. We had a 40 minute walk each way to the watersports centre each day on week one, and on the walk I tended to hang around near the back with the 10 year old girls, helping them carry their bags and encouraging them, and making sure they were okay. The faster, stronger, older kids don't need this help, because they can take care of themselves.
4) If you're scared of something, do it with someone who's even more scared than you are, and spend the whole experience trying to keep them calm and relaxed. It will rub off on you. This happened to me during the caving, when I spent the whole trip trying to keep another team member calm. Despite being in an environment that was very scary for me, I felt moments of real peace and calm while I was down there under the ground.
5) If you're scared of heights, distract yourself. Look into the face of the instructor who's talking to you, or look at the abseiling rope, look at anything but the thing you're scared of.
6) Just because it's dark, it doesn't mean you can't play frisbee. It's good to sharpen your reflexes sometimes by playing it on a campsite in the dark, where you only have a split second to avoid getting hit in the face.
7) Just because you're on an activity holiday, it doesn't mean every second needs to be packed with activity. Sometimes everyone needs downtime. If people are happy sitting and chatting, no real need to go all children's TV presenter / Butlins redcoat on them, and get them to play games.
8) If you do play games, sometimes it's best to keep them simple, with minimal explanation, rules etc, but with the maximum level of participation, running around, everyone involved. My favourites were 'Grab a granny' 'princes and princesses', 'the numbers game', or just simply kicking a football or chucking a frisbee. I'm sure some people are very good at complex games involving lots of props and equipment and rules and explanations, but I'm not.
9) Sometimes bad news can be good news. Having to drive someone to A&E on the last night of camp when you're very tired and not getting back till 2.30 am may seem like a bad thing, but it was very quiet in A&E and I got to have some peace and quiet whereas the noise levels in the cottage would have been a lot more, and so it was probably a blessing in disguise to drive to Stockport and have a sit down in the quiet.
10) It's never too late to get a second chance. Listening to AC/DC in a minibus full of 17 year olds transported me back in time to 1983 when I was also listening to AC/DC in a minibus on a rugby tour to London. Like the Coast to Coast bike ride in June where I managed to exist outside of space and time, it was the sort of out of body experience that reminded me that age is just a number and at times it's a complete irrelevance.
11) It's a lot easier to make a fool of yourself, if it's all someone else's idea. For example, dressing up as a woman in full make-up and trying to do a catwalk style walk is a lot easier if you abandon all notions of free will. I would never choose to walk into a room full of 140 people and draw attention to myself in this way, but there's something liberating about doing it when it's all someone else's idea. My team dressed me up like this on the first and last nights at Edale, and because it was all their idea, I felt pretty relaxed about the whole thing.
12) Never be afraid to join in. It's a lot easier to get to know a group by doing things alongside them, than it is from watching from the side. There are things that happen in canoes, and in caves, and up ropes, and in fields and up mountains that you can't spot from a distance. But if you're there with them, sharing the same space, everything is apparent.
13) Try to turn negatives into positives. Being given random inanimate objects by colleagues became an inspiration rather than a burden. The tray I was forced to carry for a lot of the week became an umbrella, a seat, a dance partner, as well as a symbol of unity for my group.
14) If it's possible to become attached to inanimate objects just by association, how much more attached can we become to the people they remind us of? Maybe it was because I knew I wasn't allowed to form any permanent attachments to any of my team that I found it hard to let go of the plastic lunch tray I'd carried for 46 hours, including up a mountain.
15) Sometimes it's okay to go through the bins. If you're living in a cottage with no drinking receptacles whatsoever that's up 94 steep steps away from the main youth hostel, and you've got a dry mouth syndrome, and you've just had a pee which suggests that you're dehydrated, and the kitchen's locked and the tuck shop isn't open, and you really need something to drink out of, it's okay to raid the bins for an empty water bottle. Also, it's okay to salvage the occasional bag of crisps out of the bin too.
16) Just because you don't initially appear to have anything in common with some people, doesn't mean that you can't become close to them, and grow to love them. Some 17 year old girls from the Wirral and Warrington who wanted to dress me up as a woman, a 10 year old girl from France with very little shared language, a 21 year old biker / battlefield re-enacter from Kent. Despite having completely different lifestyles and experiences, we could still become very important to each other very quickly.
17) Just because you can't keep something permanently, and you have to let go of it one day, doesn't mean you shouldn't give it everything while it lasts. I take it as a sign of me getting better as a person, that even knowing as I did that I will most likely never see any of my two groups again didn't stop me giving them everything I could while I was with them. At one time, in fact probably a year ago, when I was being dominated by feelings of loss and sadness, I would have doubted the point of putting so much effort into something that was only going to last a week, but these two weeks helped me to rediscover the power of the present.
The past and the future are always beyond reach, and we can never really hold onto anything for long, but we can have fun along the way. The past is gone and the future will take care of itself, but putting effort into relationships in the here and now, having shared experiences, and moments of togetherness and shared laughter is never a waste, even if it's temporary.
I guess these two weeks reminded me that things don't need to last in order to be worthwhile. The present is its own reward, even if it is constantly disappearing. That's probably why it's called the present.
18) When things are going well, we should be sure to notice it. The day before I left for this two weeks of learning to be a leader, I received the news that a friend of mine called Alan had died on a bike ride. I didn't know him well, but he was someone who, every time I met him, made my life better just by being in it. He was always full of fun and laughter, and full of good advice and support. I thought of him often during this past crazy two weeks, and although at times I felt sad, his passing was also a reminder to me that life is short and fragile and we should remember to treasure the happy moments we are lucky enough to find along the various paths we take. And also that as long as we're alive, whatever regrets we may have, and whatever dead ends we have inadvertedly taken, it's never too late to start again.
I've been alive a really long time, and too many times in life, I've become bogged down in sadness, loss and negativity. I haven't always made the most of the time I've been given. In these recent months, with all these trips I've been taking out of my comfort zone, I've been trying to find the best of myself again, the essence of what makes me a worthwhile human being.
The process is ongoing, and it never ends, and after two weeks of random craziness, I'm not sure I'm any nearer to the answers than I was at the beginning. But I met so many people along the way who made me want to be a better person, a better leader, a better friend, a better son. Just better all round.
So I guess it was worth going for that reason alone.
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| Lodge 3 at Lee Valley - My home between 3 - 9 August 2014 |
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| Dancing - an activity requiring skills I don't have |
Anyway, here are some things I found out during the two weeks, which may shed some light on what it means to be a leader:
1) Leadership isn't just about wearing a green T-shirt with leader on. Leaders can be anywhere, and any age. Sometimes the leaders need to be led too. If you're trying to do activities with people who are younger, fitter, more flexible and more capable than yourself, it's probably best to follow them instead of expecting them to follow you.
2) There's no lower age limit to leadership. A 10 year old French girl who spoke very little English was my inspiration on week one, and she taught me more about courage and leadership than anyone else I met on the trip. I started off week one insecure and full of doubts about my own abilities, but when I met her, tiny and young and alone in a foreign country, trying to get by using her limited knowledge of a foreign language, I knew I could do it too. In this way, she was the best role model I found.
When I was blinded with lake water from trying to fill a cup stuck to the top of my head, she was the one who came to take my hand and help me out of the water, and she was always asking me if I was okay. Sometimes when she was tired, I carried her, but mostly it was her that carried me. On the last day she sang me the Aristocats song 'Everybody wants to be a cat' in French, and even though I could barely converse with her in either English or French, having to say goodbye to her was the worst part of the whole two weeks.
3) Sometimes it's just as important to lead from the back, as it is from the front. We had a 40 minute walk each way to the watersports centre each day on week one, and on the walk I tended to hang around near the back with the 10 year old girls, helping them carry their bags and encouraging them, and making sure they were okay. The faster, stronger, older kids don't need this help, because they can take care of themselves.
4) If you're scared of something, do it with someone who's even more scared than you are, and spend the whole experience trying to keep them calm and relaxed. It will rub off on you. This happened to me during the caving, when I spent the whole trip trying to keep another team member calm. Despite being in an environment that was very scary for me, I felt moments of real peace and calm while I was down there under the ground.
5) If you're scared of heights, distract yourself. Look into the face of the instructor who's talking to you, or look at the abseiling rope, look at anything but the thing you're scared of.
6) Just because it's dark, it doesn't mean you can't play frisbee. It's good to sharpen your reflexes sometimes by playing it on a campsite in the dark, where you only have a split second to avoid getting hit in the face.
7) Just because you're on an activity holiday, it doesn't mean every second needs to be packed with activity. Sometimes everyone needs downtime. If people are happy sitting and chatting, no real need to go all children's TV presenter / Butlins redcoat on them, and get them to play games.
8) If you do play games, sometimes it's best to keep them simple, with minimal explanation, rules etc, but with the maximum level of participation, running around, everyone involved. My favourites were 'Grab a granny' 'princes and princesses', 'the numbers game', or just simply kicking a football or chucking a frisbee. I'm sure some people are very good at complex games involving lots of props and equipment and rules and explanations, but I'm not.
9) Sometimes bad news can be good news. Having to drive someone to A&E on the last night of camp when you're very tired and not getting back till 2.30 am may seem like a bad thing, but it was very quiet in A&E and I got to have some peace and quiet whereas the noise levels in the cottage would have been a lot more, and so it was probably a blessing in disguise to drive to Stockport and have a sit down in the quiet.
10) It's never too late to get a second chance. Listening to AC/DC in a minibus full of 17 year olds transported me back in time to 1983 when I was also listening to AC/DC in a minibus on a rugby tour to London. Like the Coast to Coast bike ride in June where I managed to exist outside of space and time, it was the sort of out of body experience that reminded me that age is just a number and at times it's a complete irrelevance.
11) It's a lot easier to make a fool of yourself, if it's all someone else's idea. For example, dressing up as a woman in full make-up and trying to do a catwalk style walk is a lot easier if you abandon all notions of free will. I would never choose to walk into a room full of 140 people and draw attention to myself in this way, but there's something liberating about doing it when it's all someone else's idea. My team dressed me up like this on the first and last nights at Edale, and because it was all their idea, I felt pretty relaxed about the whole thing.
12) Never be afraid to join in. It's a lot easier to get to know a group by doing things alongside them, than it is from watching from the side. There are things that happen in canoes, and in caves, and up ropes, and in fields and up mountains that you can't spot from a distance. But if you're there with them, sharing the same space, everything is apparent.
13) Try to turn negatives into positives. Being given random inanimate objects by colleagues became an inspiration rather than a burden. The tray I was forced to carry for a lot of the week became an umbrella, a seat, a dance partner, as well as a symbol of unity for my group.
14) If it's possible to become attached to inanimate objects just by association, how much more attached can we become to the people they remind us of? Maybe it was because I knew I wasn't allowed to form any permanent attachments to any of my team that I found it hard to let go of the plastic lunch tray I'd carried for 46 hours, including up a mountain.
15) Sometimes it's okay to go through the bins. If you're living in a cottage with no drinking receptacles whatsoever that's up 94 steep steps away from the main youth hostel, and you've got a dry mouth syndrome, and you've just had a pee which suggests that you're dehydrated, and the kitchen's locked and the tuck shop isn't open, and you really need something to drink out of, it's okay to raid the bins for an empty water bottle. Also, it's okay to salvage the occasional bag of crisps out of the bin too.
16) Just because you don't initially appear to have anything in common with some people, doesn't mean that you can't become close to them, and grow to love them. Some 17 year old girls from the Wirral and Warrington who wanted to dress me up as a woman, a 10 year old girl from France with very little shared language, a 21 year old biker / battlefield re-enacter from Kent. Despite having completely different lifestyles and experiences, we could still become very important to each other very quickly.
17) Just because you can't keep something permanently, and you have to let go of it one day, doesn't mean you shouldn't give it everything while it lasts. I take it as a sign of me getting better as a person, that even knowing as I did that I will most likely never see any of my two groups again didn't stop me giving them everything I could while I was with them. At one time, in fact probably a year ago, when I was being dominated by feelings of loss and sadness, I would have doubted the point of putting so much effort into something that was only going to last a week, but these two weeks helped me to rediscover the power of the present.
The past and the future are always beyond reach, and we can never really hold onto anything for long, but we can have fun along the way. The past is gone and the future will take care of itself, but putting effort into relationships in the here and now, having shared experiences, and moments of togetherness and shared laughter is never a waste, even if it's temporary.
I guess these two weeks reminded me that things don't need to last in order to be worthwhile. The present is its own reward, even if it is constantly disappearing. That's probably why it's called the present.
18) When things are going well, we should be sure to notice it. The day before I left for this two weeks of learning to be a leader, I received the news that a friend of mine called Alan had died on a bike ride. I didn't know him well, but he was someone who, every time I met him, made my life better just by being in it. He was always full of fun and laughter, and full of good advice and support. I thought of him often during this past crazy two weeks, and although at times I felt sad, his passing was also a reminder to me that life is short and fragile and we should remember to treasure the happy moments we are lucky enough to find along the various paths we take. And also that as long as we're alive, whatever regrets we may have, and whatever dead ends we have inadvertedly taken, it's never too late to start again.
I've been alive a really long time, and too many times in life, I've become bogged down in sadness, loss and negativity. I haven't always made the most of the time I've been given. In these recent months, with all these trips I've been taking out of my comfort zone, I've been trying to find the best of myself again, the essence of what makes me a worthwhile human being.
The process is ongoing, and it never ends, and after two weeks of random craziness, I'm not sure I'm any nearer to the answers than I was at the beginning. But I met so many people along the way who made me want to be a better person, a better leader, a better friend, a better son. Just better all round.
So I guess it was worth going for that reason alone.
Hi Johnathann !!!
ReplyDeleteITS THE TRAYY TEAMMM/ THE BIRKO'S
we love this post and we miss everyone from camp sooo muchh you literally made it for us butttt we have to ask how your polish woman is and if ur flat was empty when you got back ?
We all think you are a very talented writer
love ya beswarzzz
tray team x
Hi Rachael. The flat was very tidy and clean when I got back and my Polish friend was still there, but she has since moved on to other things, and I haven't heard from her for a while. I went back for another week of future leaders later last August but it wasn't as good as my week with the Tray Team. They also dressed me up but not as well as you did. I miss camp too, I met some amazing people there and it helped me to come back to life after a long time in my life where I felt like the Walking Dead. Hanging out with young people last summer reminded me that I still have a pulse. I hope you and the other members of the Birkenhead Crew are well. PS. I still have the tray (but don't tell anyone).
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