Last night was Machon Party for our machonikim. Machons are our counselors in training. Machon is an experiential and didactic counselor training program. The program accepts graduating high school seniors and provides a framework for the teaching of important skills concurrently with the experience of serving as a counselor. In addition to learning about counseling, participants work in a variety of different camper units, with a wide array of camper ages.
Our Machon class meet everyday for an hour with our Assistant Director, Albert, to learn about various skills, tactics, and methodology to being better staff members, leaders, role models, and mentors to our chanichim (campers) and being vital members of the OSRUI family and community. They are presented with a multitude of challenges and real life scenarios to test their knowledge and their ability from how to properly deal with the words “I don’t want to” to the extreme of real-life emergency situations.
Our machons will be full staff members in three different eidot (units) through the course of the summer as a way to see the various and differing experiences that are offered to our chanichim at OSRUI.
Last night, our machons were placed into their first rotation. After a quick pep talk and group prayer from Albert, their destination was revealed on small piece of paper placed inside a balloon with their name on it. Once they sat on the ballon to reveal their fate, they were dismissed (they sprinted) to the home base of their new home, community, and family for the next two weeks!
