Behind the scenes in the OLT

Joy’s work this semester has mainly been pouring into a wonderful support staff team for the OLT (Outdoor Leadership Team). She not only coaches these staff in their work as employees, but strives to develop them as whole people, who lead lives of integrity, truth and intentionality. She meets with them as a group every other week and encourages them to challenge each other in their work. She also meets with them one on one to personally mentor them in work and life. We have two Montreat College students this fall, Ryan and Melissa, who are fulfilling their internship requirements by working with the OLT.
Joy enjoys the coaching/mentoring role in her work the most. She also spends much time meeting with key people in other departments such as training, conferences, finance, communications, and development to continue developing the ministry of the OLT within the CCO as a whole.

Family First Sports Park

Much of Francois’ work this fall has been developing a partnership with Family First Sports Park (FFSP) in Erie, PA. It is a large facility which contains a low ropes course, a climbing wall, and an alpine tower, all used for team building activities. FFSP is connected with a nearby church, day school, and boarding school.

Most recently, we facilitated two days of team building for the 40 inaugural students at the boarding school, Family First Academy. We presented to them the story of Earnest Shackleton, in which the arctic explorer in the early 1900’s took an expedition to be the FIRST to the south pole. He put an ad in the paper for a crew that read something like, “...terrible conditions, safe return doubtful, acclaim in case of success.” We challenged this group of forty 8-12^th graders from Asia, South Africa, UK, Jamaica, Mexico and US to consider the legacy they are leaving and the trajectory they are setting for the years to come at the academy. Being the FIRST means a lot, there are a lot of expectations on you, you are pioneering something that has never been done before, and setting the stage for those who come after you.