Nantyr Shores Enviroventure |
Enviro Blog Post
I haven’t written here in a while but this occasion is certainly fitting. It is hard to believe we are ready to get this thing finally started, but here we go! A reminder to bring your journal, your indoor booties/slippers, writing utensil of some sort, the next $450 installment (by the end of the week), and an open mind. For the first day only, we are going to have you meet inside the school at the corner set of doors by the café/gym hallway by 8:15. If you see us at the portable waving you in after announcements, come on out then as we have some final preparations in the portable to do before we start. You will also get to meet Hannah who will be with us from Queen’s University for the month of February!
But my best advice as we embark on this amazing 5-month adventure together is to have fun, give it everything you’ve got, and be yourself. Let go of your preconceived ideas of the program, others and even yourself! TRUST ME! My goal is for you to fully experience everything this program offers and I can’t wait to get started. And a flying start it will be with a busy week ahead with our Wilderness First Aid days this Thursday and Friday (until 5pm!). I don’t think I can count the hours of prep have gone into getting to this point, so brush the nerves off and let’s get going. There’s maybe a few hundred alumni now behind you, and the multitude of well wishes, thoughts and prayers rooting for you, so Enviro 2019 here we go!!
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It’s been one whole year since the last post. It has certainly been a while, but for good reason. This past year, life has brought some of the most difficult of personal lows, and needless to say the time and energy has been a tad limited to write. But, in the midst of challenges, there has always been a light. The past year has also shown the incredible generosity of family, friends and Enviro alumni community, the honour of an invite to the EECOM conference at Acadia University, and some fun adventures along the way. And with a miracle blessing on the horizon, I can say that 2018 already looks to be an amazing year. And with semester 1 now drawing to a close, I have to say I have never been as excited as I am now to start the next chapter of Enviro. With a week to go, and a few hundred hours of planning and prep to get started (no joke), it feels like it is forever until we actually get underway. Well, even though we may not like it, but the trials, the challenges, the hardships, and the wait that makes whatever we look forward to, just that much sweeter. And this is no exception. I can’t wait, but I have to. And trust me when I say it’s well worth it. When you invest your heart, you get great returns! On Feb. 5th, the next great Enviro adventure is set to begin. When it gets here, we need not wish the time away, but make that investment and embrace the challenges it brings, for in the end we will all be better for it. Get ready!!!
So with exams now done, and with the relief of a little pressure, we can all now look forward to Enviro to finally begin. It’s like it was never going to get here, but it has, and we can now finally get going! So to prepare you for the days ahead, you need to bring the following for the first day: your journal, some indoor slippers or booties, a pen/pencil, some prefer a binder & paper as well, and an open-mind to a whole different learning experience. As well within the first week, a reminder to please bring the next $400 payment, and your health card too. Most of you know that our home base for the semester is the middle portable. For the first day only though, I will ask that you just meet at the doors leading out to portables, by the café/gym hall. Thompson and I will come and meet you there around 8:15am that day. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask over the weekend. A massive amount of preparation has gone into this experience for you all, so to ready yourself for it properly, I ask you shed any expectations you might have of the program, the people you may know or not know, what things will be like, etc. etc. Trust me! It’s real. It’s exciting. Just be yourself and have fun! I can’t wait to start this journey together. It’s Enviro 2017 baby! Let's go!
Happy New Year! So now that we are all back from a (hopefully) restful break, it means we are now only a few days away (this Thursday!) from one of my favourite nights all year- the Banff Mountain Film Festival! This is an award-winning collection of outdoor and adventure based films that were featured at the festival in Banff each November, and then taken literally around the world with this being one of the stops. Every year the films are different, but consistently awesome. There usually ranges between 7-10 films with an intermission in the middle and a chance to win some pretty sweet prizes like snowshoes, clothing, outdoor gear, park passes, etc. We have had a few winners over the years and with 42 of us (staff and students) going, there’s a good chance one of us will win something. Everyone needs to be back here at the school so that we can leave Nantyr for 5pm sharp, so don’t be late! We will also have a pizza dinner once we get there in a small meeting room underneath the theatre. We will return back to Nantyr for approx. 11pm so make arrangements in advance please. Get ready for an awesome night. I can’t wait!
For some, I can appreciate that having snow on the ground is not their most enjoyable thing. I understand. But to me, the crisp winter air almost smells of Christmas. What’s not to love! Time with family, the warmth of the woodstove, all after a cheek-reddening day outside playing in the snow. It is fascinating that with a little time outside in winter, my brain starts working to ready itself for the upcoming adventure this time of year offers. The kind of adventure that only a new semester of Enviro can bring. I get the usual set of butterflies, the film festival anticipation, and the ending of the seemingly forever wait to get things going. This year, it has already been off to a special start. One that I could not have anticipated. We have been given the incredible opportunity and honour to attend the Canadian Environmental Education conference at Acadia University in Wolfville, NS as the only class in the country to do so. Wow. Special would be an understatement, and we haven’t even begun the semester! To have the chance to work alongside and to learn from some of the best environmental leaders in the country is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now the real challenge is to take on the monstrous task of fundraising to make the opportunity possible. Finances are the only limitation to attending, and with that, if it is meant to be I think we have no option but to step up to do what we can in order to make this adventure possible. It’s the time of year when family, friends and community are so very important, and in this first Enviro challenge, it might be the very thing we need to make this opportunity a reality. Stay tuned!
It’s hard to believe where the time went. It is now a week after our unbelievable White Mountains adventure, and it is baffling how quickly time has flown by. I am sitting down reading some incredible journals from the semester that is near complete, and again I feel so blessed to be able to go through such a meaningful experience with some incredible students. As I go through each journal, I want to go back and redo each of those experiences. Not to change a thing, but to just be able to see things from the lens of how far we have come. The character shown on our trek through the White’s was unbelievable. We stood up to the strong reputation that we have in Enviro, in not only we are doing that is amazing, but how we are doing it as a group is even more so. From digging deep in the cold, wind and rain, to stepping up to support others when they needed it, and creating a realization of what can be accomplished when 28 people band together and get through what feels like an insurmountable task at the time. As I have said, people make the experience. Was it perfect? It never is. It is not supposed to be. Without hardship, we don’t learn. Without learning, we don’t grow. When we don’t grow, we don’t realize our potential. And it is my hope, that when a future challenge of whatever kind may seem too big to overcome, that we realize that what we put our mind, body and soul into it, it can be overcome. No matter what. I am so proud of each and every one of the 24 students in our Enviro 2016 family. It is an honour to be able to go through and share in this experience with you.
Since the last entry, there is so much to share as we have had some incredible adventures and some humbling experiences over the past month, that it might be hard to share them all in one short post. Let’s start with the coming and going of our fellow family member and teacher candidate Matt to new adventures fighting fires out west, to mountain biking, meeting David Suzuki (unreal!), to the bonding experience that was our Muskoka trip, learning all there is to know about trees, to climbing and caving, slowing down at Everdale, and then gearing up for running the amazing show that was our Grade 5 week at Innisfil Central. Breathe. To think that we had visitors from the Netherlands come all the way to see us in action (yeah, really!), and to absolutely blow their minds with what we do on a daily basis. Cool. But even more awesome, was spending the past 3 days in our most pristine Algonquin Park. Seriously, how lucky are we to spend most of the week paddling and portaging our way in probably Ontario’s most beautiful classroom? And just before the onslaught of blackflies coming soon too. Time is flying a little too fast, and slowing down is again what we need to do to take in the million things we do in Enviro. You could probably pick any one of the list above (and I’m probably missing things there too) and might be what another class might choose as a focal point in a semester. But we are not a normal class. It is one thing to list the things we do, but it is so much more than that as all of us who go through it know so well. People make the experience. And after the introspection from this trip, and the past month can indicate, it is going to be surreal to put the pieces of this awesome puzzle of a semester together and see what the picture reveals in each of us.
Well a bit of time has passed since the last entry, but I have to pause after a night like tonight to share what can be accomplished, in such a short period of time by motivated people. Our Boston Pizza celebrity server night was, let’s just say it, a HUGE success. With nearly $2500 raised towards our White Mountains adventure, all I can say is that I am so proud of the hard work our group did and together accomplished. Furthermore, I am simply amazed at the generosity of the family, friends, alumni and staff that supported the cause. And what is that cause? One of the most breathtaking, eye-opening, awe-inspiring and simply life-changing adventures that most of us will ever take. One of my absolute favourite places on the planet!! I don’t take for granted for a single second, the opportunity to spend 9-days learning alongside 24 incredible students and 3 other staff. I actually can’t wait. Will it be hard work? Sure. But from what I have seen so far from this group, is that given the task, we won’t just show up, we will go the extra mile and surpass any expectation set with the heart and the drive that is needed to get the job done. So proud. Well done.
It’s really hard to believe how fast the past four weeks have gone. February is one of the busiest months in Enviro with the fast startup leading towards winter camp, the adventure show, MEC and our upcoming Navigation trip. Not to mention visits from alumni, Wilderness First Aid training, parent’s nights and NOLS coming in to our class. We have done a ton! That being said, and as busy as it has been, it has been one of the most enjoyable months of teaching I can remember. With the addition of the English component to the program, I LOVE not competing for the time and mental energy that often pulls at students in previous years away from the program while they miss class for trips, and really just want to be there with the group. It has been such an incredible treat for me as an educator to come to school every day with a group of 24 AMAZING students who want to be at school every day. Has it been challenging? Yes. Winter camp was AWESOME, but yes, challenging in all respects. But that is the fun of it. Embrace it. If things were easy, and it may be hard to grasp this, but you wouldn’t learn nearly as much. We are all going to look back at this month and say, wow, where did it go? But, man has it been fun to walk alongside and experience what the month has brought, learn from it and use it to frame our future adventures. There is A LOT to come. Maybe not all as busy as the first month has been, but I am confident that we are up for the challenge.
So here we are, almost ready to embark on our first major adventure of Enviro 2016. There are some jitters, some work still to do before we leave, and of course the last minute shopping and packing to do. I can speak from experience in that most won’t truly understand what we will be going through in the coming days until we get out there, but I can rest assure that it will be transformative. I love the opportunity this experience is set to bring for us as a group. From living off the land, relying on each other, being real and without the crutches of the needless technologies from our ‘normal’ lives. My goal is for each person to decompress and to experience the ‘serenity moments’ as I like to call them, while out on trip. We have barely had a chance to take a breath in a hectic and awesome first 2 weeks of class, but it is my hope we can start to do so on trip. Maybe it’s the quiet calm of winter, or the chance to step away from our normal routines. Whatever it is, I can’t wait! It’s hard to believe this is school sometimes. How blessed are we to get to do this and experience learning in a whole new way. Learning without walls (there are a few don't worry:), without bells, and without the limitations society places upon us. So let’s get some rest and get the last details ready to take it all in over the next few days. You ready?
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AuthorMr. Gaynik is the Enviroventure program coordinator and lead teacher in the program since 2008. Archives
February 2019
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