Empowerment!

It’s a tiring day. For me and perhaps for everyone in the venture unit who stayed in school until 10 in the evening. Did make a lot of progress today when comes to the planning portion for the group camp 2008. However, the meetings seem to be getting longer and longer as we spent more time into the finer points of the planning progress. And this seems to be draining the committee members out. I guess now it will be a compromise between being democratic versus efficiency of the committee. I may have to adopt a more directive role during the meetings to ensure that meeting time will be cut short. But this also means that it may stifle their creativity to a certain extent? Will see how it goes.. putting thoughts into it…

Okay. Did some pioneering yesterday and manage to build the suspension bridge with the ventures. It is the first time that we built such a bridge and I really applauded the ventures for the skills. (definitely better than us when we were 18 =)). I believed that they will outdo and outshine us – something that I personally hope to achieve so that the unit will always be progressing forward.

Some pictures of the pioneering session:

Pegging the pegs - it gets tougher as you go deeper.

adding on the railings for the bridge.

Beautiful work by choon lian and moo teng on the railings too.

End product.

Let's test the strength of the bridge. All up on the bridge! look at how much it has sagged.

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Came across this blog entry from Tricia’s blog – a fellow AK coach.

COACHING!
Tricia Ang
29 Dec 2007

To me, coaching is a very meaningful job. First of all, I like working with kids. Though sometimes I’ll have to work with rebellious, naughty kids, it hasn’t stopped me from having this passion of coaching. It is from these camps and coaches that the kids get to learn things out of their textbooks, step out of their comfort zone and learn to work with one another to achieve their common goals. As a coach, I am learning together with them. The sense of satisfaction seeing them laugh their hearts out during camps, bonding together as a team and making improvements be it as individuals or as a group, is beyond words. its something valuable and irreplaceable.

As a coach, I am constantly growing as a person. I learnt many things from the AK coaching family. Their culture is one of a kind. Although I’ve only been coaching for a few camps, I have grown to be more matured and have started living in this world instead of merely existing. I’ve learnt to take up responsibility, set goals in life and living life to the fullest each day. I see things from different perspectives and learnt to analyze things before making decisions. I do things differently and handle things better than before. I start building up on my confidence level and im now a more optimistic person. Most importantly, i learnt to treasure the people around me more and not take things for granted. As compared to the old me, I am a complete new person I would say.
Past does not equal future.

I just coached a camp recently. I had this real problematic kid. Initially I really wanted to give up. However, something inside me tell me NO! It was just after a few seconds of thoughts going through my mind that I felt totally different. Why see it as a problem? Why not treat it as a challenge and a time for me to stretch out of my comfort zone. At the end of the camp, I received an appreciation note from this camper and it says: thank you for helping to change I will try my best. its all these little things that keep me going.

There are times when the going gets tough in my coaching life. I get rebellious campers, campers that refuse to cooperation and sometimes campers that stir trouble. In the past, I’ll see all these as problems and tend to give up easily. I’ll complain why is it that I am the one that gets all this shit while other coaches get all the angel campers. However, I see things with a different light now. Event (10%) + Response (90%) = Outcome. Focus on the solution and not the problem. Treat these problems as challenges and not obstacles. It all boils down to attitude.

Choices have consequences. Choose your thoughts and you’ll feel differently.
Definitely its also the OE coaching family. thank you for supporting me in times of need, giving me opportunities, helping me to improve and making my coaching journey so enjoyable.

I can relate well with this entry of hers. AK coaching culture has always been encouraging and uplifting that it draws people back to its camps. I believe that the coaches and participants derive some values from it that make them want to go back. Similarly, it also has been my aim to build the unit with the ventures to one that develops people from within in a positive environment. I will always remember this mantra – 2 things in life that will shape your life – the books you read and the people you meet and associate with. We will strive to make the venture unit into one where like-minded people congregates and grow together. The environment should be an encouraging and motivational one too.

I am who I am today because I have 2 persons who always believe that I will be someone great – Melissa and my scouter John Poon. And looking at the ventures – all of them have what it takes to become someone great – and they need affirmations from their peers that they can succeed. Your thoughts shape your life and positive injections from your surroundings( your friends) will reinforce that. Negative injections on the other hand will crumble that. And it doesn't kill one to encourage another, although I agree that it is always easier to discourage and belittle someone. It takes greater strength and courage to do the former. Who do you want to be?