Summer NYLT

After school ended, I had two days of break before I left for NYLT, which was a weeklong leadership camp. I was lucky enough to get into a class where I knew some other participants and some of the staff. This helped me tremendously throughout the course as I had people to socialize with and talk to. The first thing the staff did was to take our phones, which meant that we would have no contact with the outside world during our course. Afterwards, we were introduced to our patrols, and then we made woggles for the neckerchiefs that we would get later on in the day.

We then had our first opening, where they incorporated many things, such as a “word/motion” of the day, a “workout” and others. One thing they did a lot at NYLT was songs. The participants learned many songs, such as songs like “Alice” and “Little Red Wagon”, which the TLV staff that went to NYLT incorporated into games and the campfire.

Over the course of the week, the participants went through many presentations and did activities related to the presentations. Each presentation taught a new skill, such as resolving conflict or teaching a skill to others. The very last night we slept over, we outposted, which is when we left our cabins in exchange for tents. We had to find our campsite by orienteering our way to checkpoints, which gave us coordinates.

On our final day, we had to do a skit, which was based on a quest for leadership. My patrols skit was very good, and we had a lot of laughs from the crowd. Afterwards, we graduated and got our certificates.