I’m really excited to be a part of the 2015 class of Leadership Troup. Leadership Troup is a leadership program led by the LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce, where existing and emerging leaders from diverse backgrounds are brought together over the period of nine months for educational programs, a leadership retreat, and more.
Earlier this week, the 22 of us went to Camp Lee in Anniston, Alabama to kick off this year’s class. After getting to know each other a little on the bus ride there (yes, they made us all ride there together) we started the two-day retreat with some group discussions about leadership and our community. I really enjoyed discussing the strengths and weaknesses of our community, something that will no doubt influence our class project.
Then came the fun.
Camp Lee has quite a few amenities and we took advantage of several while there, including the zip line and rock slide. The zip line is an official attraction, and though it’s nothing like the zip line tour at Historic Banning Mills, it was a lot of fun nonetheless. About half of the class zip lined over the lake two or three times (myself included) while the others watched and cheered (or sometimes jeered).
We all thought the rock slide was an official attraction, until we got there. After hiking about a half a mile uphill, on some pretty rocky terrain, we came to a waterfall that was a solid piece of rock maybe 18 or 20 feet tall. The rock was smoothed out from decades (centuries?) of mountain spring water flowing over it, and it was ever so slightly sloped. Getting to the top was more dangerous than sliding down, because you had to scale some slippery rocks to get down in position.
There were some photos taken from our group but I don’t have them (and not sure everyone would want me to post them anyway) so here’s a YouTube video showing the actual rock slide. Not sure why the camp name is different, but this is definitely the place:
It was a lot of fun, but I only did it once. I was afraid I’d slip trying to get down to the slide a second time, so I quit while I was ahead.
On the second day of the retreat we did some team building exercises like the trust fall and scaling a wall. It was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know my fellow classmates.
I’m really looking forward to learning more about leadership and about how we can all work together to make a difference in our community.
[…] our community (and some local organizations that are helping), civic engagement, and we had a kickoff retreat to get to know each other. I’m looking forward to learning more about how we can give back to […]