Starting off right.

[Lauren Bader]

Things are in motion at the Chris Campbell Memorial Field.  Things always happening here, but within the past few weeks things have really been moving.  Here’s what’s going down:

 

The main event is the Senior Leader training.  The training, which was for participants in the top-level of AMANDLA EduFootball’s Leadership Program, wrapped up today, took place over 10-days, and covered a cornucopia of information.  Before the training started, we recruited young men and women who already stood out as community leaders and asked them to complete a fairly extensive application for the program.  Of all the applicants, 12 were selected to participate in the training including two former AMANDLA facilitators.  To be forward: the leaders selected for 2012 are outstanding.  The group is super high energy and has a ton of enthusiasm for working with kids.  Some of them have been involved in similar programs and, for some, this is a very new experience, but it’s clear that everyone is eager to make the most of this opportunity. 

One of my favourite parts of the training has been watching each trainee take turns leading energizers after breaks.  Some these guys and gals seem to have a whole library of energizer activities to choose from, while others have participated in few and led none.  By the end of the 10 days, you couldn’t tell the former from the latter.  The group that was timid and quiet at the start of the training had no hesitation leading energizers and it seemed that at every opportunity, they were out there organizing activities for whatever kids were around.  Earlier today, I was sitting inside when, all of a sudden, it sounded like there was a choir outside the door.  Sure enough, when I went out to investigate, the whole group of Senior Leaders had organized the kids who were playing on the field during recess into a circle and were leading them in song – it was awesome. After only 10 day, it’s pretty clear that there’s a really strong group of young people working at the CCMF this year and, as a result, it’s pretty clear that it’s going to be a good year.

The other major thing happening at the field this week was induction.  From an administrative standpoint, induction week is no walk in the park – it means dealing with a lot of registration forms, taking photos of hundreds of participant, loading information into computers, but I won’t bore you with the rest of the details.  However, induction week is also very exciting for a lot of reasons.  It’s exciting to see swarms of players on the field.  It’s exciting to see so many girls’ teams registering this year.  It’s exciting to see the massive smiles on participants’ faces when I snap the photo for their player card.  It’s exciting to see how excited the teams are as they bustle around the table nervous and anxious to register their team for the league.  Like I said before, I think it’s going to be a good year.