WFS_USretreats

Hello WFS Upper School Retreats Sub Committee! Since we aren't able to meet anytime soon, I though we'd see how this works. Below I have posted what I recall from the Retreat Retreat. Please read, and then add your comments. I suggest we each use a different color for our You'll need to click the EDIT button (top right) before adding anything to the page. MaryW Cav Sara Luke Austin Emily

If I am remembering correctly, we are coming up with questions to ask the US students - then we can use that data to guide our decisions.

Seems to me we should give them 2 main choices:


 * stay with service in the morning & field day in the afternoon
 * perhaps change afternoon to advisory and/or grade groups with more competition?
 * is it possible to have a one-day bonding trip either at school or somewhere else, and have service some other day?
 * How important is the service element to you?
 * Would you like field day groups made by advisory, grade, or mixed? Would you like to have part of the day by advisory and another by mixed groups?
 * have an overnight
 * start Thursday after sports, spend the night, go all day Friday
 * start Friday morning, spend the night, finish Saturday morning (they need to consider transportation)
 * do they want to keep the service component, or move that to a separate day (MLK, Jr?)
 * What is the best way to have people arranged for sleeping
 * give options like boys in one room, girls in another; by advisory; everyone together
 * Where do kids want to sleep (gym, meeting room, classrooms etc)?

if we go with the overnight, let them select the types of activities - give choices and let them choose more than one for the poll:
 * grade-level activities
 * Choose groups or assigned groups?
 * large activities that are fun for everyone. These would be games everyone knows like capture the flag.
 * For large activities it is better to focus on being active rather than getting to know people.
 * advisory activities
 * I remember that for our 8th grade retreat we had this really deep advisory discussion where we really got to know each other on a personal level, so I think that something like that, where the advisories can really bond, would be a good idea. I think that maybe we should either present a variety of activities that advisories can do, or make this an open ended question for students to answer
 * I like the ideas before this.
 * I also feel the activities should be more camp-like in advisories. so like games with parachutes, the knot game, balance activities.
 * Yeah, I definitely feel that more personal activities could be focused on because the smaller groups. I feel like given them a variety of options for bonding "types" like the camp-like games, deep activities, etc. That way we can get a better idea of how they want to bond. Do they want to bond while staying active, or do they want to have a calmer activity? I feel like advisories could be a really close knit group that you could use for support and having a really good bonding day could definitely strengthen that feeling.
 * mixed grade activities
 * I think we should also ask students if they want the retreat to be purely by grade, or if it should be grade-split one day, and the whole school the next, or in smaller, specific inter-grade groups, like Anna suggested during our meeting.
 * Games that don't try and force bonding so nothing where you __**have**__ to share about yourself just games like the other groups would have.
 * I agree that sharing and deep discussion activities are better for advisories and maybe grade level groups than for mixed grade groups, but I guess we should ask students if they would prefer sharing activities to be by advisory/grade and have the more action-packed games be by mixed groups
 * Yeah, I definitely agree with less deep conversations, but that should really be up to the whole student body to decide because would hate to make a wrong decision on a decision that is so opinion based an would be so long lasting.
 * ideas for activities
 * dodgeball- ~and variations. ex) Dr. Dodge~
 * capture the flag
 * movie
 * interactive games
 * "Coffehouse"
 * they had this at the QYLC - kids & teachers performed (music, poetry, etc)
 * we could do this in the library (if we all fit - some of the shelves can be moved, but not all)
 * need more ideas.... (we can't include much "down time" as that is when people get into trouble...)
 * we can solicit ideas from them, as well
 * Scavenger hunt? in groups of like 4-7
 * Sharks and minnows
 * There was a game that we did in 8th grade. It was like the "cell phone" or "whisper down the lane" except you could only do it using body language. It was fun, but it would definitely be more suitable for smaller groups like advisories.

I have another question - are we still considering the idea of more fundraising, or a cheaper, more local trip? Should we be including any sort of fundraising-directed questions in our survey? Or should this just be brought up by class reps in class meeting?

Going with the question above should we be including any questions about possible off-school activities with "cost" being a large factor to think about? Or maybe a set list of off school activities that could be relatively cost effective. ~We would have to include that this would be based on sufficient funds being raised to complete the activites, so we don't have people... um... complaining.. the next year about how there were no off school retreats~

I think it would be fun to have WHOLE school activities. So like capture the flag, dodgeball, ultimate frisbee etc... The teams could be like upper classmen vs lower classmen seniors and freshmen. This would also cause bonding among different grades
 * Cav, I agree with the whole school activity idea! I also think that on the survey we should have some open response questions, if possible, so that we can get a more customized view of students' opinions.