October 28 - Sr high retreat @Clearwater recap

I planed and led the Sr high retreat for the Presbytery of the Twin cities area. It was a successful and different retreat for many reasons. First it was a very small group, total size youth and adults was 34. So we all stayed in eagle Lodge and had small groups with mixed ages and mixed churches. I realize now I could have done a better job mixing genders ( three out of the four boys were in one of the four small groups). The small total group size also allowed us unique opportunities like, crawling through the tunnel between the carriage house and eagle Lodge, and playing Sardines in Eagle Lodge. Gary W. had a great idea for a Presbytery youth event, playing sardines in multiple churches in one night, a couple of rounds in each church. Somewhat unentinionally this retreat was less programed than a traditional falll retreat ( it had a snow camp laid back feel to it) I think there is a balance between too much programed time and a lot of free time, think the small group we had this retreat and all staying in Eagle made this format work better than it would with a large group. Some of my ideas for activities and small group time worked and others did not, think I did not have a good grasp of the theme myself and this was reflected in the vagueness of activities and small group time. Being that I had a small group to work with myself I was not able to get a feel for how the small groups worked as I did last year when I was able to float from group to group. While I ran some ideas by a few people before the retreat I did too much myself and vow to find a co-leader/planner and to seek out more feedback from others for future retreats. I had originally planned to work with a good friend and fellow youth leader ( we had talked about various ideas for retreats) but then she moved to Nebraska.