I LOVE MY TEAM!
One week until induction and departure for our first SPIKE and we are working hard.
Today we had our project briefing and my team rocked their first presentation to staff. We are organizing for Thursday's formal Clearance meeting. Time is running low and my stress level is rising, but I know it will all come together. Tomorrow we will do a project at the military park so we need to be ready for Clearance tonight. I have a lot to do, but luckily I have a team I can rely on.
We are Hardcore River Four, with only nine because we're so, so fine.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
We don't accept commitments, only applications.
Hello World,
Thanks to Aunt Susy for the card this week! I don't have much to report on this week- just another long week of trainings. On Monday my CMs learned about a program called safe spaces through the Save the Children Foundation. Safe spaces is about creating a safe environment for children in disaster shelters to bring some normalcy to their lives and give their parents a chance to get what they need to get some things done. I really liked this training and hope that I get a chance to use it this year. In the afternoon my team split up and went to trainings on their specialty roles. Within each team every individual has specialty roles. There are five national roles: "vehicle, safety, tools,"-handles safety conserns and manages our 15p and tools for spike "Project Outreach Liason,"-searches out and fosters relationships with possible new sponsors "Service learning initiator,"-ensures the team is fully emersed in service learning relating to the project we are on and leads reflections, "Media rep,"- writes press releases and keeps the local media informed on what our team is doing, and "CAPper (Corps Ambassador Program)"- plan and execute recruitment activities. While my CMs were in specialty roles training I spent some MUCH NEEDED time catching up on paperwork and organization. On Tuesday we did an entire day of disaster training. I don't think anyone got much from this training. It was long and boring and everyone was fighting to stay awake. The fact that Vicksburg is so small is having a big effect on the quality of the outside trainers we are entering into contact with. I hope that next year many of these hang-ups can be rectified. Wednesday we were supposed to go off site for service projects, but the plans fell through so we worked on our campus. Some people did some serious trail clearing around our woods and the majority of my team spent the day painting inside. They did a great job and had a blast doing it!
Thursday was really fun! We had three hours of free team time in the morning. We decided to all cook breakfast together and had a delicious feast! After breakfast we worked on life maps. I did one-on-ones with everyone on my team throughout the morning. In the afternoon we had time with our units for three hours. Thursday was a really good day.
Friday we were supposed to go to the military park to do trail clearing and invasive species removal but the weather did not permit, so we did project prep and more trainings all day. Friday night I had the absolute worst CPR and First Aid training I have ever experienced. After their training we took all the CMs to another room and debriefed them on everything that was improperly taught.
Saturday a group of TLs went to Crystal Springs to do some camping. We hiked, swam, and ate delicious food around our great camp fire.
This coming week is a lot of project prep. Induction is next Tuesday, so this week we will be doing project briefings and clearance meeting with staff. Our first spike is getting so close!
Thanks to Aunt Susy for the card this week! I don't have much to report on this week- just another long week of trainings. On Monday my CMs learned about a program called safe spaces through the Save the Children Foundation. Safe spaces is about creating a safe environment for children in disaster shelters to bring some normalcy to their lives and give their parents a chance to get what they need to get some things done. I really liked this training and hope that I get a chance to use it this year. In the afternoon my team split up and went to trainings on their specialty roles. Within each team every individual has specialty roles. There are five national roles: "vehicle, safety, tools,"-handles safety conserns and manages our 15p and tools for spike "Project Outreach Liason,"-searches out and fosters relationships with possible new sponsors "Service learning initiator,"-ensures the team is fully emersed in service learning relating to the project we are on and leads reflections, "Media rep,"- writes press releases and keeps the local media informed on what our team is doing, and "CAPper (Corps Ambassador Program)"- plan and execute recruitment activities. While my CMs were in specialty roles training I spent some MUCH NEEDED time catching up on paperwork and organization. On Tuesday we did an entire day of disaster training. I don't think anyone got much from this training. It was long and boring and everyone was fighting to stay awake. The fact that Vicksburg is so small is having a big effect on the quality of the outside trainers we are entering into contact with. I hope that next year many of these hang-ups can be rectified. Wednesday we were supposed to go off site for service projects, but the plans fell through so we worked on our campus. Some people did some serious trail clearing around our woods and the majority of my team spent the day painting inside. They did a great job and had a blast doing it!
Thursday was really fun! We had three hours of free team time in the morning. We decided to all cook breakfast together and had a delicious feast! After breakfast we worked on life maps. I did one-on-ones with everyone on my team throughout the morning. In the afternoon we had time with our units for three hours. Thursday was a really good day.
Friday we were supposed to go to the military park to do trail clearing and invasive species removal but the weather did not permit, so we did project prep and more trainings all day. Friday night I had the absolute worst CPR and First Aid training I have ever experienced. After their training we took all the CMs to another room and debriefed them on everything that was improperly taught.
Saturday a group of TLs went to Crystal Springs to do some camping. We hiked, swam, and ate delicious food around our great camp fire.
This coming week is a lot of project prep. Induction is next Tuesday, so this week we will be doing project briefings and clearance meeting with staff. Our first spike is getting so close!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Team Time
Hello All, I hope you are well.
First, to clarify some terms... the Sip is derived from MissisSIPpi, CMs are corps members, TLs are team leaders, TLT is team leader training, CTI is corps training institute and POC is point of contact. I think that covers the main acronyms I use on a general basis.
I think I last left off right before the big Team Reveal.... Last Friday at 7pm we sent our CMs on a big scavenger hunt to find us (their permenant team leaders). They were each given a few pieces to a puzzle, they had to find the other 9 or 10 people with the same puzzle as them and assemble it. On the back of the puzzle was their first scavenger hunt clue. Then at each place they were sent they received a clue about their TL, when they completed the hunt they had to find a support TL and tell them who they thought their clues were leading them to. If they guessed right then they were given a clue to where we were waiting. My team found me in the staff lounge at a big round table with a cake I baked them and ice cream. We had a little kick off to the team party and we introduced ourselves to each other.
The next day, I took my team out to town and got everyone a sno cone and we did some team building at the park. Many team leaders told their teams their first spike, but I made mine wait for what seemed to them to be FOREVER! On Saturday night, I did a project reveal. I had them do an "easter egg hunt" for popsicle sticks all over the classroom building. Once they found them all, they had to assemble the roof on a popsicle stick house Sally (my fellow TL who is going to the same spike as me) and I had made. Once assembled they could read what our project was written on the roof- HABITAT FOR HUMANITY- GULF COAST in BILOXI MISSISSIPPI! I am sooooo excited for my first project- and especially excited to be stationed with Sally who is one of by very close friends here. Our teams will be living together at the H4H Camp Victor and working together on site. We leave at the beginning of September and will be on spike for 2 months.
Sunday was one of the best days I have had in a long time. We went to a lake about an hour away for the whole day. Wade, a staff member, invited us to come out on his boats for the day. His wife, nephew, brother and he brought three boats and spent the day pulling us around on tubes, knee boards and wake boards. The day was gorgeous- clear and sunny. It was a much needed break from campus and the corps. It was one of those days that you just really feel like you are 100% alive.
On Monday, we had an all corps work day in Rolling Fork, Mississippi- home of Muddy Waters and the setting of Teddy Roosevelt's teddy bear story. The corps was split up across five or six projects. My team helped repaint a hospital. The town's reception of us was completely moving. They welcomed us with open arms and bags of homemade goodies. They had signs all over town saying things like "God Bless Americorps" and "We Love Americorps". I have never felt so thanked for service in my life. It was an extremely uplifting day, and a great way to get started as a new team.
The remainder of the week consisted of training after training. We had a few team meetings, and I am getting to know my team pretty well. I REALLY lucked out with my team and I sometimes wonder how I happened to be so fortunate with them. I have an extremely bright and motivated group of young people who are making themselves very easy to lead. I am loving watching the team meld into a cohesive unit as their trust in each other continues to grow.
On Friday the corps did the "baseline" 1.5 mile run and minutes of sit-ups and push-ups, the TLs motivated the CMs by all dressing up in neon spandex for the morning...
I spent this weekend attepting to get organized, and made some progress. I was on duty Friday night so I couldn't leave campus. Saturday night we crossed the border into Louisianna and went to an extremely sketchy dive bar but ended up having a blast.
I'm trying to get mentally prepared for beginning a new week... We have two project days this week which could be fun or stressful depending on whether the site is prepared for us. Friday night I have CPR and First Aid training until 9pm, which will probably be a challenge in motivating my CMs. There are three team leader birthdays in the next week and a half so to celebrate we are going camping next Saturday- I can't wait!!
Miss and love you all! Write to me!
Sunday, August 9, 2009
CTI week one
Hello Everyone,
It has been a huge week for me, sorry for being completely out of touch. Before I forget, I want to thank Aunt Nancy and Dulcie for writing to me, it is so nice to receive mail!
I have been so busy that there’s no way I can remember everything. On Friday we ran shuttles to and from the airport picking up the majority of the corps members. Most of them were delayed at some point or had major turbulence, so we had some unhappy arrivals. Some members were delayed over night. Friday was a loooong day (the first of many) and I wasn’t done with work until well into the night.
Saturday we did in-processing with our teams all day, which was pretty chaotic. The arrival of 144 corps members turned this quiet little campus upside-down. Everyone had questions and problems and confusions and we are the first in the chain of command to fix and answer them. By Saturday night, I was already horribly exhausted and feeling like I was being pulled in a million directions.
Sunday we had a day of planned activities for the members, so I worked all day again. I got to sleep in until 9 which was AMAZING! We did things like run church shuttles, play ultimate Frisbee, football, ice breaker games, board games, run shuttles to Walmart, and sing karaoke. It was fun to see all the CMs getting to know each other all over campus. Sunday night was intense. First we had a girl pass out on the soccer field and we went sprinting from our fourth floor dorms down the stairs outside and across about 400 yards to find out that, luckily, she was alright. She fainted from dehydration and heat. Jordan the EMT took her to her dorm and made sure everything was okay. Immediately after responding to that emergency, we found out that six of our corps members were mugged and assaulted on their way walking back from town. Everyone is fine now, but it was an extremely difficult situation. One of my temporary team members was involved and had his wallet with all his Ids and credit cards in it. We are still looking into how to get him a new state ID.
Monday was relatively calm. We did more in-processing with our temp teams and I got to know mine a lot better. I adore my temp team, everyone is really laid back and easy to please. They all like me and it is going to be hard to be assigned permanent teams at this point.
Tuesday we headed to the southern cultural heritage foundation for an all corps training. This is the same site as our last service project with the convent. Our meeting was held in the very beautiful and interesting auditorium used in Oh Brother Where Art Thou.
The team leaders were supposed to have an hour presentation to introduce ourselves to the corps members. We worked hard at putting together a cohesive presentation with songs and dances and interesting stories and icebreakers etc., but of course my favorite f-word was thrown around again. When we got to the auditorium we were informed that we would need to be FLEXIBLE and that they were breaking our presentation up. The communication between the staff and us was very poor and we weren’t told ahead of time when we were to be on stage. As TLs we were very frustrated with the entire day beyond our presentation. The times for lunch weren’t communicated to us, and when we came back from a unit TL meeting to pick up our teams, our CMs were asking us all kinds of questions we had no answers for. All in all we were very frustrated which lead to a long TL debriefing at the end of the day with our Unit Leaders and the Regional Director. Because of our meeting we missed dinner. I’d say Tuesday was a bit of a low point.
Tuesday night was a bonding time for TLs over our misery. Everyone was especially supportive of me because I was rather upset. Sophia even made me a card saying that she appreciates me which was so touching. I am so lucky to have such amazing coworkers around me. I am starting to get really sad about leaving them in a month to start our projects.
Wednesday we headed to Jackson in teams for our physicals. Physicals took forever. My team was at the clinic for close to five hours. Luckily I have just about the most amazing temp team ever and they are always happy to roll with the punches. I made a big time team leader mistake and left our boxed lunches at home expecting that we would be back on campus much earlier than we were. I let myself get talked into leaving them against my better judgment and regretted my decision. My poor team didn’t finish physicals until 3pm. Leigh-Ann, the counselor, awesomely saved the day for me by buying my team a pizza to hold us over until we got back to campus. After we got home and recollected I brought my team to the library and downtown so they could get some idea of where they are living. The whole day ended up being some great team building and Amerilovin’ leaving us all depressed that our teams go trough the great jumble this week and we have to break up. I love my team and they give me great confidence in my ability to do this job this year because they have all expressed to me that they do not want to leave my team. I feel so lucky to have such a positive group that meshes so well and has so much excitement about their year with Americorps. I finally feel completely comfortable with my role as a Team Leader here.
Thursday was even more team bonding while we did van driver training and just aimlessly drove around Vicksburg and the vicinity. I almost wish I hadn’t gotten the time to bond with this team because it is making me really anxious about who I am going to end up with on my permanent team. Will they like me as much as this team? Will they have as much group cohesion and harmony?
Thursday night River TLs met and had a long meeting where we went through all of our CMs and discussed their strengths and weaknesses. Neal will use the list to create our teams- something we are anxiously awaiting hearing about. We also were given our project assignments for the first spike, but I can’t share that with you until I reveal it to my new team this weekend. I can say I am SUPER EXCITED!!!!! I can’t wait to tell y’all about my team and soon to be project.
So it’s Friday and I am sitting in another training session for our CMs (one that we already had during TLT). I figured I would grab some time to get caught up with you and get some business done. We are having some serious internet issues on campus so I haven’t been able to check my email, post pictures or blog since the CMs got here. We have now opened the wireless router (that was already shotty) to the whole corps which means I pretty much never get an option to use it. When too many people get online the router disconnects and needs to be rebooted, but it is locked in an office so we can’t reboot it. So please be patient with me, I am thinking of y’all and I do enjoy hearing from you even if I don’t get back to you on time or even at all sometimes. I just figured out my hours and the conservative figure I calculated was 70 hours in 6 days, just to give you an idea of how long I am on for a day (and that’s not including breakfast lunch and dinner when CMs ask questions and need help.)
This morning we had our first all corps PT session lead by Neal. I ran around with a couple other TLs at 5:15 with an airhorn and a whistle waking everyone up- it was fun. Starting at 5:30am, about half of our PT session was dark and I couldn’t even recognize people’s faces. It was crazy to think back on how much of a day I had already had when we left for the Heritage Foundation at 7:30 am! For lunch I am taking my Temp team out for a big “goodbye,” and tonight after work we have our big REVEAL of or permanent teams. I am on pins and needles.
Well that’s about it for now. I miss you all and hope to hear from you all soon. Keep me up to date with the real world please!
LOVE YOU,
Casey
It has been a huge week for me, sorry for being completely out of touch. Before I forget, I want to thank Aunt Nancy and Dulcie for writing to me, it is so nice to receive mail!
I have been so busy that there’s no way I can remember everything. On Friday we ran shuttles to and from the airport picking up the majority of the corps members. Most of them were delayed at some point or had major turbulence, so we had some unhappy arrivals. Some members were delayed over night. Friday was a loooong day (the first of many) and I wasn’t done with work until well into the night.
Saturday we did in-processing with our teams all day, which was pretty chaotic. The arrival of 144 corps members turned this quiet little campus upside-down. Everyone had questions and problems and confusions and we are the first in the chain of command to fix and answer them. By Saturday night, I was already horribly exhausted and feeling like I was being pulled in a million directions.
Sunday we had a day of planned activities for the members, so I worked all day again. I got to sleep in until 9 which was AMAZING! We did things like run church shuttles, play ultimate Frisbee, football, ice breaker games, board games, run shuttles to Walmart, and sing karaoke. It was fun to see all the CMs getting to know each other all over campus. Sunday night was intense. First we had a girl pass out on the soccer field and we went sprinting from our fourth floor dorms down the stairs outside and across about 400 yards to find out that, luckily, she was alright. She fainted from dehydration and heat. Jordan the EMT took her to her dorm and made sure everything was okay. Immediately after responding to that emergency, we found out that six of our corps members were mugged and assaulted on their way walking back from town. Everyone is fine now, but it was an extremely difficult situation. One of my temporary team members was involved and had his wallet with all his Ids and credit cards in it. We are still looking into how to get him a new state ID.
Monday was relatively calm. We did more in-processing with our temp teams and I got to know mine a lot better. I adore my temp team, everyone is really laid back and easy to please. They all like me and it is going to be hard to be assigned permanent teams at this point.
Tuesday we headed to the southern cultural heritage foundation for an all corps training. This is the same site as our last service project with the convent. Our meeting was held in the very beautiful and interesting auditorium used in Oh Brother Where Art Thou.
The team leaders were supposed to have an hour presentation to introduce ourselves to the corps members. We worked hard at putting together a cohesive presentation with songs and dances and interesting stories and icebreakers etc., but of course my favorite f-word was thrown around again. When we got to the auditorium we were informed that we would need to be FLEXIBLE and that they were breaking our presentation up. The communication between the staff and us was very poor and we weren’t told ahead of time when we were to be on stage. As TLs we were very frustrated with the entire day beyond our presentation. The times for lunch weren’t communicated to us, and when we came back from a unit TL meeting to pick up our teams, our CMs were asking us all kinds of questions we had no answers for. All in all we were very frustrated which lead to a long TL debriefing at the end of the day with our Unit Leaders and the Regional Director. Because of our meeting we missed dinner. I’d say Tuesday was a bit of a low point.Tuesday night was a bonding time for TLs over our misery. Everyone was especially supportive of me because I was rather upset. Sophia even made me a card saying that she appreciates me which was so touching. I am so lucky to have such amazing coworkers around me. I am starting to get really sad about leaving them in a month to start our projects.
Wednesday we headed to Jackson in teams for our physicals. Physicals took forever. My team was at the clinic for close to five hours. Luckily I have just about the most amazing temp team ever and they are always happy to roll with the punches. I made a big time team leader mistake and left our boxed lunches at home expecting that we would be back on campus much earlier than we were. I let myself get talked into leaving them against my better judgment and regretted my decision. My poor team didn’t finish physicals until 3pm. Leigh-Ann, the counselor, awesomely saved the day for me by buying my team a pizza to hold us over until we got back to campus. After we got home and recollected I brought my team to the library and downtown so they could get some idea of where they are living. The whole day ended up being some great team building and Amerilovin’ leaving us all depressed that our teams go trough the great jumble this week and we have to break up. I love my team and they give me great confidence in my ability to do this job this year because they have all expressed to me that they do not want to leave my team. I feel so lucky to have such a positive group that meshes so well and has so much excitement about their year with Americorps. I finally feel completely comfortable with my role as a Team Leader here.
Thursday was even more team bonding while we did van driver training and just aimlessly drove around Vicksburg and the vicinity. I almost wish I hadn’t gotten the time to bond with this team because it is making me really anxious about who I am going to end up with on my permanent team. Will they like me as much as this team? Will they have as much group cohesion and harmony?
Thursday night River TLs met and had a long meeting where we went through all of our CMs and discussed their strengths and weaknesses. Neal will use the list to create our teams- something we are anxiously awaiting hearing about. We also were given our project assignments for the first spike, but I can’t share that with you until I reveal it to my new team this weekend. I can say I am SUPER EXCITED!!!!! I can’t wait to tell y’all about my team and soon to be project.
So it’s Friday and I am sitting in another training session for our CMs (one that we already had during TLT). I figured I would grab some time to get caught up with you and get some business done. We are having some serious internet issues on campus so I haven’t been able to check my email, post pictures or blog since the CMs got here. We have now opened the wireless router (that was already shotty) to the whole corps which means I pretty much never get an option to use it. When too many people get online the router disconnects and needs to be rebooted, but it is locked in an office so we can’t reboot it. So please be patient with me, I am thinking of y’all and I do enjoy hearing from you even if I don’t get back to you on time or even at all sometimes. I just figured out my hours and the conservative figure I calculated was 70 hours in 6 days, just to give you an idea of how long I am on for a day (and that’s not including breakfast lunch and dinner when CMs ask questions and need help.)
This morning we had our first all corps PT session lead by Neal. I ran around with a couple other TLs at 5:15 with an airhorn and a whistle waking everyone up- it was fun. Starting at 5:30am, about half of our PT session was dark and I couldn’t even recognize people’s faces. It was crazy to think back on how much of a day I had already had when we left for the Heritage Foundation at 7:30 am! For lunch I am taking my Temp team out for a big “goodbye,” and tonight after work we have our big REVEAL of or permanent teams. I am on pins and needles.
Well that’s about it for now. I miss you all and hope to hear from you all soon. Keep me up to date with the real world please!
LOVE YOU,
Casey
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Reality Sets In
Hellllo everyone,
I am now the proud mother duck of 10 lovely foster corps member ducklings. The last couple days have been a trip. The campus has been in complete chaos as we tried to get last minute prep done for our CMs to arrive. We somehow pulled it together (for the most part) after a looooong day of work on Thursday.
Friday morning we were up early getting our vans safety checked and the dorms outfitted with all the necessary move-in preparations. I was a van driver and spent my day travelling to and from the airport with fellow TL Sanjoy. We would drive out to a furniture store near called Miskellys and wait for "the call up" to pick up a group of CMs from the airport. It was the best staging area ever- with a basketball court, a "theater," a cafe and a carousel! After we picked up the excited new corps members, we shuttled them home, gave them announcements and tried to facilitate some friendships. My last shuttle trip rolled into campus around 7pm and we rushed people off to dinner.
After dinner we had an extremely motivational all corps meeting lead by out Unit Leaders, and I got a MUCH NEEDED boost of energy before we ran a fire drill. Then I had my first ever team meeting with my temporary team. It felt good to finally have a team in front of me.
The corps member day ended somewhere around 9:30. Team Leaders were still on duty, walking the dorms, cleaning up and tying up loose ends. I realized after midnight that I was still in my uniform.
Today was even more intense. We had a full day of in-processing stations with our teams, and in true NCCC fashion, Flexibility was the word of the day. My day started off rough, but ended awesome!
I am warn out, but I am looking forward to this year. I am finally a real team leader. Off to my rounds.
I am now the proud mother duck of 10 lovely foster corps member ducklings. The last couple days have been a trip. The campus has been in complete chaos as we tried to get last minute prep done for our CMs to arrive. We somehow pulled it together (for the most part) after a looooong day of work on Thursday.
Friday morning we were up early getting our vans safety checked and the dorms outfitted with all the necessary move-in preparations. I was a van driver and spent my day travelling to and from the airport with fellow TL Sanjoy. We would drive out to a furniture store near called Miskellys and wait for "the call up" to pick up a group of CMs from the airport. It was the best staging area ever- with a basketball court, a "theater," a cafe and a carousel! After we picked up the excited new corps members, we shuttled them home, gave them announcements and tried to facilitate some friendships. My last shuttle trip rolled into campus around 7pm and we rushed people off to dinner.
After dinner we had an extremely motivational all corps meeting lead by out Unit Leaders, and I got a MUCH NEEDED boost of energy before we ran a fire drill. Then I had my first ever team meeting with my temporary team. It felt good to finally have a team in front of me.
The corps member day ended somewhere around 9:30. Team Leaders were still on duty, walking the dorms, cleaning up and tying up loose ends. I realized after midnight that I was still in my uniform.
Today was even more intense. We had a full day of in-processing stations with our teams, and in true NCCC fashion, Flexibility was the word of the day. My day started off rough, but ended awesome!
I am warn out, but I am looking forward to this year. I am finally a real team leader. Off to my rounds.
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