So I lead an expedition group for the first time last weekend - I was rather nervous! With good reason too, a lot happened. I thought I'd summarise for you guys:
We dropped them off at their starting point at about 9:30 and left them to it until about 1. In that short space of time, they'd managed to wind each other up so much that Jess W and Becky walked off leaving the other five behind. Phil and I didn't hear from them at all about this until we went to find them at 1 to help them through a particularly difficult bit of navigation. It turned out that the two girls that had already walked off had taken a wrong turning at this point and were at that moment lost in the middle of a forest, being scared out of their wits by a fox.
We eventually found the girls and took them back to the place where they'd taken a wrong turning and told them to start again from there, though by this point the rest of the group were two hours ahead. Because two shouldn't be walking alone I met them two or three miles before the end of the route with Laura and we walked the rest with them. But because throughout the day I had to spent so much time checking up on both the groups, I didn't have any time to eat at all, and actually I'd only managed three hours sleep the night before. So I was exhausted.
We had decided not to tell them off during the day for what they'd done, as they were already tired and stressed, and in Jess W and Becky's case, quite scared. But when they were back at the campsite I realised that I would have to talk to them. Especially as two leaders had already come up to me seperately to tell me that the group were still not talking to each other.
Phil had disappeared, so although he was much more experienced, it was me who had to grab them from around the campsite and sit them all down in a circle on the grass like preschoolers to have a go at them. Now I've worked with young people before, but I've never had to tell off seven at once! I actually said that I'd fail them if they did anything so stupid and dangerous again, even though I don't have the power to fail them at all lol - and James was standing right next to me so I wonder what he was thinking haha. But it seemed to work, and on the second day they grudgingly worked together and completed their route.
I don't actually really know how well their second day went, except that they finished it, but my day was lovely! I went into Stow-on-the-Wold and bought an icecream and some sweets from a lovely traditional sweet shop. And I actually got some lunch! Haha. Seeing as my group seemed to be doing okay (though they didn't really want to talk to me lol) I went off to see Bianca and Rachael's groups, one of which was - get this - six hours behind schedule (how is that even possible?!). By then I was secretly very happy that it was some else's group that was having all the drama heheh.
And theenn I came home. I still haven't completely unpacked lol.
