DLA Day 7

A week of camp has flown by, and Sunday was the day that campers did not attend classes.  Instead, DLA and Summerscape teamed up for a classic playground favorite:  a Four-Square tournament on the tennis courts.  With 14 teams all named after a fictional location such as Panem, Whoville, and Stark Tower, two people occupied one square at once to have a larger playing field, and operated in a rotation so each team could play against each other.  In the midst of the Four-Square frenzy, the two camps took a short break to attend workshops relating to careers and non-profit organizations, such as Americorps and Sole Foods.

Sunday evening held a 20+ year DLA tradition:  Poetry Night.  During Poetry Night, two events occur:  a Poetry Slam competition, and a chance for every camper to read a poem, song lyrics, or quote that they admire or feel that speaks to them.  During the Poetry Slam, campers sign up to participate in a reading of a self-written poem.  The winner of the Poetry Slam this year was Alisha Greer, and the runner up was Nathan Ryan.  The second part of Poetry Night allows DLAers to read anything they choose--the camp favorite this year were poems written by Shel Silverstein, but many others chose to share self-written poems as well.  Although Poetry Night is a serious event, it can also be lighthearted, and DLAers enjoyed this year's Poetry Night very much.

DLA Day 6

Despite the fact that DLAers still had classes on Saturday, the camp had plenty of other exciting events going on throughout the day.  A game called Assassins began on Saturday, which the Colosseum Committee (a committee dedicated to creating camp-wide games) organized; this game involves sneaky tactics and deception in order to defeat your given targets for the day.  Each morning from Saturday to Wednesday, a group of campers from each house are given a target list under their dorm doors: one person from each other house, plus an RA.  They are also given a sheet of stickers with their house color.  Their objective?  To tag their target list with the stickers on a larger sticker that each camper wears.  To make it more difficult, some times are considered safe zones, such as meal times and wings in the dorm, to make sure that campers have some refuge from being caught.  Already, this game has taken over the camp, and many campers are forming alliances and creative techniques to successfully tag all of their targets before the end of the day.

Saturday evening was also the camp dance, themed Creature Camp.  Several campers dressed up as zombies, cats, and scientists to match the theme, and shared many more memories with one another as they danced to both classic 80's songs and current songs.

DLA Day 5

By Friday, DLA campers were comfortable with their new home that would be theirs for another week: shower schedules were smoothed out, and snack supplies were already beginning to run low for some.  Unlike the night before with the chaos of Mayhem, Friday evening offered relaxing activities: for one, the Art Committee handed out giant puzzle pieces to each camper for coloring and expressing their artistic abilities.  Then, campers had the choice of going swimming or playing bizarre games with RAs.  After a week of intense activities, Friday night was very easygoing and allowed campers to take a short break.

DLA Day 4

A seemingly normal day at DLA quickly became frantic as the surprise Mayhem popped up, disguised as a vague leadership activity and activity night to hang out at the pool.  Campers were sent around Drury campus in search of "portals," as this year's Mayhem was themed after the video game Portal, and solving challenging word puzzles and riddles.  Other Mayhem activities included entering a room with flashing strobe lights looking for specific objects carrying more clues and wrapping one house group member in toilet paper as a mummy, blindfolding them, and guiding them on colored tape to retrieve various objects.  Mayhem lasted until 11 PM, which is normally Lights Out for DLA campers.  Although Mayhem was successful for yet another year, and is promised to be over, campers can't help but joke that there is another part of Mayhem.

DLA Day 3

After two nights of team building activities, campers experienced a 45-minute questionnaire on Gallup that identified 5 strong leadership qualities in each individual camper.  Some of these qualities included input, learner, focus, and a personal favorite, "woo."  Each of these qualities were surveyed among the camp after the questionnaire was finished to identify any patterns across the camp.  Many campers shared the intellection and learner traits, and many also possessed the "woo" trait.  These traits were discussed among house groups in an attempt to find every trait in the system at least once amongst the many traits that each camper had.  Not surprisingly, though, discipline was one trait that not one person had--not that anybody was complaining!

DLA Day 2

After the first day jitters, campers became more accustomed to the daily routine of DLA, as they memorized their routes to each class and developed new friendships within house groups.  Tuesday night offered an annual DLA event: Trivia Night.  Trivia questions involved a vast number of categories, including literary creatures, RA trivia, etymology, 80's pop culture, and a unique category of Groupthink.  Instead of offering difficult questions like the other topics, Groupthink involved quite a bit of human psychology, challenging campers to predict what other house groups would do in certain situations (such as a DLA version of the Prisoner's Dilemma) in order to earn house points in the annual House Cup.  Although the categories each offered difficult topics, each house demonstrated their knowledge that they may have previously thought was useless.  House group Grindylow was the victor in this year's Trivia Night, but those in Senior Experience had a surprise for both Grindylow and the RAs: trivia categories the seniors had written themselves!  The Senior Experience categories were Arachnophobia (spider trivia), Name that Song, and Disney.  Although the competition between houses is fierce, campers are becoming more tight-knit and don't let a little House Cup competition come between them.

DLA Day 1

DLA kicked off with a great start on the first night on Drury campus, with returning campers picking up jokes and conversations as if a year hadn't passed, and new campers growing accustomed to DLA's unique structure.  House groups were established differently from years prior, however, which DLA veterans were temporarily thrown off: campers were not given their house group from the beginning, instead receiving a generic name tag at check-in, and instead were introduced to their house groups while the entire camp was in one room.

On Monday, campers attended two of many classes offering a variety of topics, including the origins of comedy, creating slam poetry, and practicing living like a college student; each camper takes one morning class and one afternoon class, each lasting three hours with lunch separating the two.  Senior Experience makes a return for graduated seniors, which focuses on strengthening leadership within the community, with a pleasant surprise: these seniors, unlike previous years of the fairly new class, are able to take a morning class with their younger peers.

Monday night, campers all took a trip to the Leadership Ranch to get to know their house groups through team-building activities, such as attempting to balance the entire house group on a teetering board and helping walk their teammates across a wire.  Through these activities, house groups learned about their individual strengths that will aid in future house group competitions and in life in general.

In all, the first full day of DLA left campers in great spirits and excitement for the rest of camp!

Getting to Know You

Summerscapers have spent their first 36 hours at camp meeting new people, starting their classes and getting used to the cafeteria.  They played some hilarious Minute to Win It games on Sunday!  On Monday, they attended both of their classes and met their Activity Groups!!!  Then, it was out to the field where fun noodles, hula hoops and a rubber chicken were used in a variety of team building activities.  The word for the day was "leadership" and many campers helped to lead their teams through  the fun and thought provoking games.   Tonight, campers will be involved in a service project.  Pictures and more updates are on their way.

Dance Costumes

We have had some technical difficulties with the blog, but everything is working now and we are ready for camp.  As you are packing, did you remember to put in a costume for the dance?  If you need ideas, we have brainstormed several different creature costumes for you to think about.
How about.....
Minions from Despicable Me
Godzilla
Slimer from Ghostbusters
A Sea Serpent
Hydra
Ents from Lord of the Rings
A boggart from the Harry Potter books
A faun
A Griffin or a Hippogriff
and the list goes on and on.......

We can't wait to see you all on Sunday.

Bring Us Your Shoes!!

     This year, Drury Leadership Academy and Summerscape are proud to be partnering with the Office of Community Outreach and Leadership Development at Drury University to help the organization, Sole Food.
     Sole Food, a project of Friends Against Hunger, is a shoe collection initiative based in southwest Missouri. Sole Food works in affiliation with Shoeman Water Projects (also Missouri-based) to turn unwanted shoes into food for the hungry, as well as to support water purification projects in Kenya and Haiti.  In addition, the shoes are distributed to people in developing countries.  Shoes, Food and Water for those who need them!
      We will take pairs of shoes -- ANY kind of shoes -- ANY size of shoes -- which have the soles intact and no major holes or tears.
      Thanks for participating in this service project.  If you have any questions, you can contact us at drurysummerscape@gmail.com or druryleadershipacademy@gmail.com
    Web-site:  solefood.us