Partners In Blogging: Staff Retreat Fun and Learning

It's that time of year again, our annual staff retreat! I want to first send a great big thank you to all the parents who helped with the snacks and the really cute quotes on them. I know this took some time and it was greatly appreciated! This year we went to Camp Caraway. Needless to say, we had a great time. We started our Friday morning with a prayer, a great breakfast, loading the bus, and of course, that last minute bathroom run. Then we all took our places on the bus for our trip.

There is one person missing in the picture, Deborah, that's because she is driving the bus!! She is an awesome bus driver if I do say so myself. Most of us talked with each other, read the paper, or just enjoyed the ride. One of us had another idea,

Upon our arrival we checked in and unpacked the bus. We usually pick our own room mates at our staff retreats, but this time was a bit different. We all had bags with special tools in them, hand sanitizer, pen, a miniature craftsman tool. Our bags had four different tags on them and that's how our room mates were picked. Now, you may be asking yourself, why? Well, this is why. So we would have the opportunity to spend some time with some co-workers we may not spend a lot of time with, for what ever the reason may be. During this free time there was some bonding of friendships, some old friendships, some new. And to enjoy some snacks!

Then it was time for what we came for, staff development and training! We had great sessions of training and learning ideas. We did some "housekeeping", and kicked off our United Way Campaign. We had a wonderful lunch prepared by the camp staff. I will also add, we had choices for a very healthy lunch. After lunch it was time for some more bonding, team building, and stepping out of our comfort zone for some of us.

We had another awsome training session with Katherine with some great make and take CSEFEL ideas.

We then had another opportunity to do more bonding with co-workers, take a walk on the trails, run on the trails, or just hang out.

Once again we went back to the meeting room for more training and All About Me and dinner. Dinner, as well as lunch, was delicious.

We then went outdoors with Kelly, which is her passion. She taught us a new song about a moose that we had to follow directions to in order to sing the song. Then, she told us we were going to be given a bucket and a few items in the bucket. We had to go in the woods and make something using all the items. But first, we divided in to three groups. I must say, this took lots of teamwork and listening to each other. This was also hard for some who were not comfortable going in to the woods in the dark, even though we had several flashlights.

We went back to the meeting room for one more training, my favorite one of the retreat, I AM ENOUGH! We watched an inspiring video I Am Enough, and an awsome video put together by Norma, Deborah, and Ashlee. I AM ENOUGH, something we should all remember!

To end the evening we went back outdoors to the fire pit and had another very moving activity on different things that have affected our "sisters".

We then made s'mores!!

And that ended our first day of our retreat. Our first day mainly focused on us, as a teacher, friend, mom, the total person. And yes, WE ARE ENOUGH!!

Our second day brought more team building, after a wonderful breakfast. This team building proved to be just that, TEAM BUILDING! We learned many things about ourselves and co-workers. But mainly that we are a TEAM, we may not always see eye-to-eye, but we keep working together to figure out what is best for us as a team, the parents we serve, and most importantly, the children we are entrusted to care for.