Developing Your Leadership
Alpengirl provides different leadership opportunities for campers and one way this is done is by selecting a camper who becomes the Leader of the Day or "LOD".
Why Leadership is Great
In daily life you may not receive many opportunities to be in a leadership position or to lead a group, so at camp we provide a safe environment for you to be a leader for a day. Throughout the day you assist your Alpenguides in motivating campers, making things happen, decision making, managing the music, providing friendship to all campers, answering camper questions, loading and unloading the van and trailer, making announcements, helping campers understand tasks, and overall leading of the day to make our activities run more smoothly. Being the Leader of the Day helps you to develop and hone your leadership skills for your future both at Alpengirl and in your daily life, so that you are more confident in a group setting or working on a group project at school.
Leadership Without Pressure
Although we encourage you to take a step out of your comfort zone, being Leader of the Day is by no means mandatory. We provide other smaller leadership opportunities for you to try if that better suits your needs. Every leader needs great followers and a great follower respects herself and offers that respect to others.
Leader Appreciation Circle
Every evening your camp group meets in an LOD appreciation circle. Everybody gets a chance to tell the Leader of the Day what they appreciated or liked about their leadership that day. After everybody gets a chance the LOD gets to appreciate themself and say what they liked about leading and their leadership. The LOD then passes the torch to tomorrow’s LOD telling the group why the next LOD was selected. The appreciation is the best part of being LOD. The group points out skills and traits about you that you now can recognize as your strengths and be very proud of yourself for them. Most LODs, when appreciating themselves, mention how surprised they were that they enjoyed leading the group and often wish they had another chance. Alpengirl provides a supportive group where you can feel safe about trying new things and stepping out of your comfort zone as a leader.