Future Leaders Camp
Written by Tess Giannaros
23 new faces, 23 new friends, all in three days. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from the 2009 Future Leaders Camp. I thought we’d probably be playing tennis non-stop, but I was soon to realise that this was far from the case. I embarked on this little adventure with Lloyd Iaccarino and Richard Kovacs and we had an absolute blast.
After arriving on the first day, we had lunch, met our leaders and played some introductory games (where many new nicknames started) and before we knew it we got straight into the low ropes course. After that we had some free time to play tennis, table tennis, basketball, watch TV or to start thinking about a group performance that we had to present the following day.
Tuesday was Activity Day, and the forecast was just magnificent; wind, rain, hail and more wind. In the morning we were introduced to Nick, who taught us about all the different ways of getting involved in tennis, mainly focusing on coaching. This session was great because, even though I had already done some part time coaching before, we were shown the less effective and more effective ways of going about it. Later on it was our turn to give the giant swing and high ropes course a go. For someone who is incredibly scared of heights I ended up going all the way to the top of the giant swing and even giving the extremely daunting high ropes a shot. Both were great fun but the weather could have been a little more accommodating…
That night was performance night where we had a little taste of The Biggest Loser, Wimbledon, The Perfect Match and The Price is Right. Our team’s presentation, however, was a marathon of unforgettable sporting moments including McEnroe’s “You can not be serious” and Michael Jordan’s slow-motion slam-dunk. For as embarrassing as it all may have been everyone had an absolute ball and nobody could stop laughing.
The point of this camp was for the three of us to develop leadership skills and bring them back to the club. Our job now is to perform some community services to the club; raise some money, get more people involved, and have some fun. For me, this camp was about challenging myself; from making new friends to facing my fear of heights. It was amazing how quickly everyone felt like a family. It was a great experience and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.