Loon Lake Pursuits

Have you ever considered the foot? Well you most certainly should. Welcome or welcome to my blog, today I will be talking about our recent adventure to UBC’s Loon Lake Lodge & Retreat Centre.

A slight preface

Right before the end of the winter semester on the day of our exhibition last year, we learned about a trip our class was taking. This was an exiting announcement as we hadn’t had group trip with PLP before. The trip ended up being a great success as we linked our experiences to our Destination Imagination project. This year we went to the same location at a slightly earlier time and different purpose.

In this slightly longer (one week) trip, we worked with one of Pinnacle Pursuits special workshops to improve our self confidence, leadership, and team strength. We did many team building and group activities, as well as some exercises for recognizing our strengths and skills.

I would also like to mention the size of our group. Last year we where joined with the grade below us making us some 80+. this year we where under 30, which significantly impacted the activities we could do, and strengthened the intensity of the team building aspect.

When we got there

Right from the get-go, the learning was completely different from last year’s experience. The one comforting thing that was the same was the beautiful scenery.

The first thing we did, before unpacking was an introductory activity to warm up mentally and physically (it was very cold). We where introduced to most epic teacher/motivational speaker/instructor/friend Jono. Jono is an amazing person who was our Pinnacle Pursuits workshop instructor and guide throughout this trip. As he described the plans for the following days, I realized how different this would be and the kind of mindset we needed going into this. Within a similar vain, our next activity was a low ropes course that was completed by getting the whole team from one end of the clearing, to the other. This took a handful of attempts and iterations of our strategy and over all good communication.

Another activity that required a lot of focus and communication was our trust falls, which de did this a while later in the week. We started inside and on the ground with one or two catchers, but quickly moved outside and up on our makeshift platform. This part of the exercise has a little bit of risk, so I think it really ensures how focused we became and how the group talked to make sure everything was right. As for the leadership and self awareness/confidence part, I didn’t think as much of it. I am quite a bold person and I usually have confidence in the people I present myself to, so this side of the activity was less of a struggle to me but I recognize the challenge others may have with it.

The last “team building” group activity I want to mention is the high ropes course. Similar to the low ropes, but higher and more of a “one at a time” situation. The team aspect was still there as we found the best way to complete the objectives was to have people helping from down below. The group on the ground could recommend places to move your feet to, or help toss you materials to make the goal.

The work we completed

Aside from the outdoors activities, we did many workbook and social exercises. Much of these exercises where self reflection, taking not of what we are good at, love to do, and spent time doing. We did this one activity that I felt was really important in connection to my building of leadership. In this activity we where introduced four core competencies of Emotional Intelligence. There was self-awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management. During the activity, we traded cards with a specific competency based on one of the four areas. Our goal was to obtain 5 cards that best describe us. Once we picked the best 3 and wrote them down, we could see what category we where the strongest in and decide what would be valuable to improve on. I enjoyed this activity, and how the trading aspect gave me a sense of the types of cards my peers where trying to collect. What I also found interesting, was the how little I’ve thought about this kind of thing and how difficult it was to narrow down my cards.

Using these cards and a couple other small exercises, we worked on a poster to represent ourselves. We incorporated things we like doing, things we love, parts of our personality, what we aspire to represent and unite them into a little art piece that shows who we are. I’d like to mention a cool part of this experience that I thought linked the team bonding, with the self reflection. After every major group activity we would come back to this central cabin where our posters hung, do a short reflection (lead by our homeboy Jono), and than write a compliment or something we noticed about someone during the activity their poster. This put our outdoor/group work, toward a more personal and emotional space.

The Credo

Much of the workbook and personal work inspired our “final objective” piece, which was a short “mission statement” style text called a Credo. The Credo is sort of a culmination of ones values or beliefs and passions that guide someone’s decisions and actions. It represents what you stand for. Or, that’s how I interpreted it. I found making my credo the most challenging task of the week. I struggle with looking at myself, and what I do and feel. I tried to get some external help from peers and students to see how others view me which was super unhelpful as my friends didn’t care to help me, and my teachers encouraged me to “do it myself”. I eventually came up with a few sentences that attempt to represent me. It’s now my phone’s wallpaper.

There was also a pairing logo piece that I don’t even want to mention as it’s quite an eyesore. It did however, get at a very cool visual angle on a similar concept, which I think is equally as important as the text itself.

Thank you Loon Lake

I am a person who has struggled with leadership and confidence much less than others out there, especially with this group of super cool classmates, it feels easy to put myself out there. I’ve spent at least an hour every single school day for the last two and a half years with this class, and I think this trip shows me how you can always be tighter with a group of people. You can always be a better team, and there will always be new things you figure out about them. There was a lot of this during our trip, through the trust falls, group discussions and late nights in the cabins. As a people person I found this quite a roller coaster. However I tried to take this opportunity as more of a self improvement adventure, as I know this is something I have a much harder time with. I listened to what others said about me and what I think of myself. This was definitely an intense escapade compared to last year.

Thank you PLP students, teachers and Pinnacle Pursuits for these crazy times. Signing off, Declan.