August 23, 2000
Teens work toward goal of teamwork
Day at the beach could lead to area-wide youth organization
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
What a difference an afternoon makes.
As the wind gusted and the rain spattered Friday afternoon, 16 youth from the Boys and Girls Club, Association of Children's Mental Health and the GiveEm 40 Speakers' Bureau forged ahead in the name of teamwork.
For a full afternoon at Sunset Park, participants on each team worked together to solve problems. These problems included directing a blindfolded member to a series of items and walking in sequence together to move long boards down the beach. The event was hosted by NautiCat cruises and facilitated by its owner, Russell Schlinder, who also conducts teambuilding seminars for businesses and organizations.
After the session was complete, the young participants knew firsthand how working together is crucial to success. In just a few short hours they discovered how team spirit is born.
"We learned how to work as a team and we learned to respect one another's opinions," said Erin Bernhard, 11, secretary of the Keystone Club, a youth leadership group at the Boys and Girls Club. "Everybody had lots of fun. I had never done anything like this before but it was useful, I like working together with others."
The idea for a teambuilding seminar was a natural outgrowth of the work teens have done at the Boys and Girls Club this summer. There, members had already spent the summer practicing teamwork as they created and operated a lunch canteen at their club. Working together, they made a business plan, planned a menu, shopped and kept a budget.
This experience set the tone of teamwork for the summer, prompting Shelby Richter, teen director at the Boys and Girls Club, to create a team workshop for teens from other area youth organizations. She wanted to forge an outlet for teens' voices to be heard in the community.
"One of the assets from the GiveEm 40 survey found that teens think adults don't care," Richter said. "Our group all agreed with that and we wanted to give teens a way to change that."
The outlet Richter envisions includes members from a variety of youth-related groups, working together to improve the status of teens. Richter invited members from numerous area youth groups to participate, including the Youth Advisory Council and the GiveEm 40 Theater Group. However, representatives from these groups could not attend this time.
"We wanted to bring teens from different organizations together to meet and learn to work as a group," said Richter, who is also spearheading a Junior Optimists Club chapter in Traverse City. "Then we want them to focus on activities that will benefit the community as a whole."
For some of the participants, creating an area-wide youth organization is an idea whose time has come. This group would provide leadership on issues ranging from building a skateboard park to creating safe places for teens to hang out.
"We learned that a lot of groups are fighting for kids but they don't know what kids want," said Laura Deponil, president of the Keystone Club and also a member of the Youth Violence Council. "We first began going to violence meetings they were happy to have us there; they wanted our input."