Teambuilding

Everyone arrived to Richmond Quadrangle (residence hall) today for the start of Alternative Spring Break. We went to lunch at the Anchor Bar, famous in Buffalo for inventing chicken wings. People in Buffalo often argue about who has the best wings, but the Anchor Bar claims to be the original inventor.

We had some time to chat over lunch and on our van rides to and from campus. Then after lunch we all went to the Center for Student Leadership and Community Engagement (CSLCE) Office to do some teambuilding with Mealnie Bently-Cruz, who coordinates leadership programs in the CSLCE. Terri and I are now acting more as part of the group, so Melanie facilitated the activities and we participated as ASBers.

Melanie led us through a variety of activities. We started with some getting-to-know-you name games. We did an activity called the Color Jacuzzi, which we will be able to continue for the rest of the week. There were different colors of paper, and each color represented something different. Everyone wrote down things about themselves, ranging from "most daring thing you've done" to "what would you do if you had $1 million and had to spend it all in one day." All these things about everyone were placed in a bucket. Others would choose a piece of paper and read what it said.

We also did an activity where we all had to hold on to a rope and with our eyes closed move from a circle into a square. This one was quite challenging, but later when we were asked to come up with a group mantra, this activity came in handy.

Our group mantra was selected to be: "Achieve, Serve, Believe-- In the Box." We made a new acronym from ASB and "In the Box" refers to the circle/square activity.

Now we are all relaxing in residence for a bit. We were planning on going to Niagara Falls tonight, but will likely postpone until later in the week due to the rainy weather we are currently experiencing here in Western New York. We may spend some time tonight just getting to know each other more through playing some board, games, chatting, or watching movies together.

In the van I was driving today, we ended up talking about my favorite movie "Casablanca" because one of our ASB participants (ASBers) is from Morocco. The ASBers in my van were very interested in the film, so we stopped by my apartment to get it as well as Scrabble.

It's nice to be able to ease into the week by getting to know each other first because from tomorrow on, it will be a very busy week!