Junior Leadership Lake Martin visits Camp ASCCA

Juniors from Tallapoosa County Schools visited Camp ASCCA yesterday as a part of this year’s Junior Leadership Lake Martin program. A new group of students visits every year in the fall for an opportunity to grow with their fellow junior leaders and experience teambuilding activities with their new friends. The participants are from Dadeville High School, Reeltown High School, Horseshoe Bend High School, and Benjamin Russell High School.

The mission statement of Junior Leadership Lake Martin reads, “Junior Leadership Lake Martin will serve as a vehicle to help develop potential leaders for assuming positions of responsibility in their communities by helping to ensure that our youth have the training and skills required to meet the challenges they will face as future leaders.” Once everyone arrived, the students were put to the test by ASCCA staff at a variety of programs. In the morning, the students were split into two groups that were made up of a few students from each school, and Program Director Amber Cotney and Outdoor Education Director Cody Graham challenged their skills on the low ropes course.

The low ropes course involves several activities that are designed to challenge the students as a team and to push them to communicate at their best. The groups rotated through to each activity like the Nitro Course, Spiderweb, The Wall, Islands, and everyone’s favorite, The Log. Each rotation is different and often brought a different student to the forefront to lead the group and share their ideas. Several times you could hear students initially doubting themselves and their team because these tasks are not easy, but by the end, they knew that they could accomplish anything as long as they worked together. That is true leadership!

After each activity the students took a water break to rehydrate and speak with the ASCCA staff about what they learned and how they felt their team’s communication worked through each rotation. You could see the students growing and forming bonds after each activity because they began to see the capabilities in themselves and their teammates.

In the afternoon, the students were offered the opportunity to climb the Ziptower and ride down the zipline that traverses parallel to the lake. It is what we call a challenge-by-choice activity. No one is required to participate, but it is highly encouraged. The students cheered each other on as each climber worked their way to the top and rode down in celebration of everything they accomplished during the day. The Ziptower is a great challenge for the students to complete at the end of the day because they have the opportunity to practice the encouragement and teamwork that they worked on all morning.

We are thankful to have the opportunity to participate in the growth of the students each year through our partnership with Junior Leadership Lake Martin. We hope that they leave Camp ASCCA with a better understanding of what it takes to be a great leader and can implement those skills in their day-to-day lives. You can check out more moments from yesterday’s visit from Junior Leadership Lake Martin by visiting our Flickr page here. You can also keep up with all things Camp ASCCA by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!