Winter Camp
By Isabel Ruby-Hill
On January 9th 2015 the Branksome Hall rowing team and I travelled to Camp Wanakita, where we spent the weekend with Adventure Leadership Individuality Values Empowerment (ALIVE) Outdoors for the team’s annual Winter Camp. As a senior rower, I had never talked to any of the novies, the new members of the team, because we train at different times, so I was most excited about being able to meet all of them. In my experience as a novie, this trip was very exciting for me and I remember the older girls welcoming me very warmly. As a result, getting to know the novies was such an important part of the weekend to me. I felt as though the senior team members made great strides in getting outside of our comfort zones by and taking a chance and sitting with a grade 9 instead of a fellow grade 12. The senior team members joined together to answer all of the novies’ questions about the Spring Season and their general expectations for rowing. Asking the older girls questions demonstrated remarkable courage on their part. During this time, we shared laughs over embarrassing stories and special rowing moments. It was really wonderful to see them get excited and be so interested in learning about our common passion of rowing.
