ATC'08 Year 2

Last Monday was our Annual Training Camp 2008. Although ATC is not a new experience for us Year 2s, it was really a new experience doing ATC in Camp Christine. Every year, the Year 2 trainees will lead their junior trainees in ATC, and this time, it was our turn.

At the beginning of ATC, it was a frightening experience leading so many juniors, as well as having to adapt to a new environment that we have never been before. Prior to this camp, we also had very little leadership skills such as manpower allocation and how to jing li for checkpoints or inspections as we didn’t have many opportunities to do so, leaving us to figure out the proper method within short periods of time.

We had the most problem during camp development even though we were not new about it. During skills training, camp development skills were just camp development skills and even if we tried our best, we were not so serious about finishing it as it did not come to our minds that we would be using it some day. In ATC, the day had came for us to finally see the importance of camp development, but due to poor manpower allocation, lack of urgency and prior preparedness, we kept having time extensions. We even had times where we were late for jihe due to lack of communication between patrols.

Overall, we Year 2s have learnt a lot about leadership through ATC’08 as it is our first official time leading others. We had come to the camp knowing nothing, but returned knowing most of everything. Not only that, we bonded more as a jie, as well as with the year 1s.

We want to thank the Guiders and Year 3s for giving us this chance to lead others, the YALs, YULs and Year 4s for coming back to see us through and the Year 1s for being there when we needed them and being with us through thick and thin. We want to thank everyone for making this camp a success and giving us an opportunity to show our potential.

Year 2s