Team Leader Training!

Hello readers! I hope all 3.5 of you have been doing well since my last post. As you may or may not know, I'm back in Denver for a second year of AmeriCorps, but this time as a team leader! (More specifically, as a Unit Development Assistant [or because the government loves acronyms, a UDA], but more about that at a later date. You know, when I actually know what that job entails.) Even though I am an office team leader, right now ALL of the team leaders are in the same training, to learn how to lead a team. I'll have specific UDA training in a few weeks I think, but right now I'm with everyone else.

I feel it is important to note that I now get to wear a color! TLs wear the exact same uniform as Corps Members, except that TL shirts are green instead of gray. Have you seen gray and khaki together? It's not attractive. Getting to wear a color in general is exciting, but green also happens to be one of my favorite colors to wear.

So how's TLT (Team Leader Training, of course) going? Well, the other TLs are wonderful so far. I have of course met them all, but haven't had a chance to talk much with some of them still. I'm in the Sun Unit again, and the other Sun TLs are great. I am with TK (who you may remember was on my team last year) again, as well as Ashley (who will be in the office with me as a Support Team Leader, but more on that later as well) and Matt, who were both Sun Corps Members last year on different teams. We also have Brandon, Meg, Cody, Lupita, and Stephanie, all of whom have never been in AmeriCorps before. It is my understanding that most of the Sun TLs from last year didn't like each other very much, so I'm happy to report that I think this year will be MUCH better in that regard.

So what have I been doing? I arrived in Denver last Monday night and was able to stay with Amy, my fabulous tentmate from my shuffle team in Big Bend last year. She lives in Denver with her sister. The next morning I picked TK up from the airport and we went to campus, where we were apparently early and no one knew what to do with us. Meg arrived right after we did, so it was nice to meet another from our unit so soon. That day, we didn't do much besides check into our rooms and unpack. AmeriCorps also took us all to dinner at Old Country Buffet, because we're classy like that.

Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot to talk about right now. It's all been fairly boring meetings so far. There's been learning about the rules of living in the dorm, learning how to use government-issued laptops that are full of people's personal information safely, registering personal vehicles that people (like me!) may have driven to campus, learning the role and responsibilities of TLs, and of course the always enjoyable TB and drug tests. I'm TB free! (Also drug free, but that doesn't rhyme.)

The only interesting "official" activity so far was yesterday, when we went to a ropes course in Genesee Park. It's at a higher elevation than Denver, so obviously it was gorgeous. After a silly version of freeze tag in the morning, we had a pretty interesting activity. There were ropes laid out on the ground in like a plus sign, but then we found out it was really an x and y axis with a whole spectrum in between. Remember math class? First, we put ourselves along the x axis. One end of the spectrum was for people who go with the flow, are happy to do what everyone else wants to do, don't usually state their needs, that sort of thing. The other end was for people who are really opinionated, state their needs, make decisions quickly, etc. After we had plotted ourselves along that line based on where we think we are in the spectrum, we moved on to the y axis. One end of that spectrum was for people who tend to think logically and gather as much information as possible before making decisions, while the other end was more emotionally charged and made decisions based on feelings. Staying where we were along the x axis, we moved along the y to where we thought we should be for that second spectrum. So now all the TLs were plotted into four different quadrants. Interestingly, most of the Sun Unit was in the same quadrant. We were called Architects and Analysts, people who go with the flow and also make decisions logically.

We then split off into our units and did some group problem-solving activities. In one, three people were blindfolded. Four other people could talk but could not see the blindfolded people, and four others could see the blindfolded people but not talk. That last group had to communicate to the group who could talk what the blindfolded people had to do, and the talkers had to instruct the blindfolded people. I think all of the tasks were just walking around and picking up objects scattered around on the ground, but it was fairly challenging.

After that, we moved to where there were like eight rows of five large flat-ish rocks laid into the ground. We had to get the entire team from one side to the other on top of the rocks, but they had to be in the right order. We went one at a time. If someone guessed a wrong rock, they had to go to the end of the line and the next person had to start from the beginning. It wasn't that hard. It was just trail and error until we figured out the pattern, and then we had so many people that it wasn't hard to remember it.

After that, we went to where the ground was lava, and we had to get all of us from one spot to another using tree stumps and six boards. If we dropped a board or if someone fell into the lava, "something strange or wonderful would happen." We dropped several, causing us to go down to three boards and losing the use of a few arms, but then we got a board back later. That one was cool. We worked pretty well together, and our facilitator told us we took a path she hadn't seen before. Also, I don't think anyone in AmeriCorps has much of a personal space bubble, but we broke through those bubbles pretty quickly with people squished together on stumps and whatnot.

After lunch was the high ropes part of the day. I unfortunately didn't actually go up on any of the three activities due to a couple not-so-good knees and a history of stress fractures in my right foot. I have no desire to have my knees or foot hurt anytime soon. But I was still able to be a spotter, help belay, and cheer people on.

At the end of the day, we got back in our units with that x and y axis. Ali, our facilitator, told us to go back to the quadrant where we were in the morning. She then had the group decide if they thought anyone should move to a different position. Most people stayed about where they were, but they said I should move closer to the middle, where the two axes meet. I think I'll take that as a compliment, that I am pretty balanced.

Tomorrow we get to do the wonderful day of driving tests. I think I heard we might be driving to Rocky Mountain National Park or somewhere cool like that, but it's still several hours in a van.

I still haven't put any pictures from Big Bend or Saguache on this thing, have I? I'll try to do that sometime soon. Apologies for laziness.

Oh! But look on the side! I figured out how to make a nifty little text box on the left side that I will fill with those beloved-by-the-government acronyms as I think of them.

Also, I just noticed that this is blog post number 101. I posted on this thing 100 times in the past year. Crazy.