Student Activities Blogs

Miguel Almodovar

SUBOG and the Art of Retreating

The new SUBOG board was chosen during the first few weeks of March, while I was busy in St. Louis at NACA. A few weeks later on Friday March, 27th the new SUBOG board went on a retreat to Camp Woodstock. We were there to learn more about our roles, developing goals for next year, and getting to know each other better, since we have to work together all of next year. We all piled on to the Community Outreach bus/van with barely enough seats for all of us and started the half hour drive. I was a bit nervous at first because I didn’t know them too well and I’m kind of shy. But by the time the van pulled into Camp Woodstock I was feeling much more at ease, they seemed like a friendly bunch of kids.

Unlike this year’s board, next year’s board is mostly sophomores and juniors so they’re closer to my age, which I think made me more comfortable with them. Once we got to the cabin we split up into boys and girls, each going to their respective rooms. After that the fun began, we did some ice breakers and talked about our roles and what was expected from each of us. I’m going to be the VP of Programming next year. It was nice to get a sense of what types of personalities I would be working with. Time just flew and before I knew it, it was time for an energizer, it was my job to lead it and basically all you have to do is tie a balloon to your ankle and then try and pop everyone else’s balloon, but the catch is that you can’t pop a balloon of your same color.

This is everybody playing “Balloon Pop” it was kind of chaotic but it was fun...

The next day after a long night of word games, we went and did an outdoor rope/wall/tire teambuilding course. This is when we really got to know each other and see what type of leadership styles people had. Surprisingly it was very democratic, usually during these things one or two people take over and order everyone else around but we all talked it out and we did a great job, nobody got dropped, Hooray!

Soup crossing the wall with the help of SUBOG.

The last thing we did was go over goals for next year; there were some really great ideas, like an Iron Chef competition, an Outdoor Concert and Movie, Tailgating at Home Football games, and on and on. Needless to say next year is going to be a great time for the UConn Campus. There’s going to be a ton of new and fun stuff happening.