| COPE
Tent camping, skills, Cope
Take a tour of the camp, warm yourself by the fire and enjoy good company
with your fellow Crew members.
COPE stands for Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience. It comprises
group initiative games, low course (12 feet and under), and high course
activities (about 30 feet high). Some of the activities involve a group
challenge while others test individual skills and agility. Participants
climb, jump, balance, swing, and find many solutions to a variety of
activities. Group activities are ideal for emphasizing the patrol method and
developing leadership skills. The activities are not designed to be
competitive or to be a race against time. More important goals such as
leadership, trust, teamwork, self-esteem, problem solving, communication,
and decision making are emphasized.
LEADERSHIP Leadership is sometimes appointed, elected, or just naturally
given and assumed. Leadership can be exhibited by loud commands, softly
spoken suggestions, shared participation, or no actions at all. A COPE
Course provides numerous opportunities for leadership to be displayed and
challenged. Learning the skills of leadership is one of the anticipated
outcomes of Project COPE.
PROBLEM SOLVING Problem Solving is done by the group and individual
participants at each element. The group or individual then has the
opportunity to test its solutions and evaluate the results.
COMMUNICATION Communication is important to any group attempting to
accomplish a difficult task. A tremendous amount of communication is
exhibited in many ways on a COPE Course.
SELF-ESTEEM Self-Esteem is developed by successfully accomplishing a task
as set forth by the instructor. This happens both on an individual and team
basis.
TRUST Trust in the instructors, the safety of the course, each other, and
themselves must be developed to successfully solve difficult tasks. Trust
will be challenged many times while during a COPE experience.
DECISION MAKING Decision Making requires the group to develop a solution,
think through the probable results, and evaluate the results in terms of the
resources available and required. Several possible solutions can be
evaluated until the decision is made as to which is the best solution.
TEAMWORK Teamwork is the key to everything on a COPE Course. By using
teamwork the group achieves a successful (and sometime unsuccessful)
conclusion to a variety of problems. During the period in which a group is
on the course, it will become abundantly clear that no individual can "do
it" alone, it requires a complete group effort.
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