Retreat Reflection

CBOB members come together for a weekend of team building activities to create unity and prepare for the new semester.

By: Micayla Kinder

On Saturday, the Children Beyond Our Borders team headed to Davenport, Florida, for their summer Member Retreat! Both returning and new VIP interns were present as well as executive-board members from the UCF and UF chapters. The retreat began at around 10 a.m. Saturday with the interns getting the opportunity to talk and get to know each other better. The VIP interns work together virtually, so the face-to-face interaction and quality time that the members got to have was very valuable and important for creating unity and establishing relationships to improve the communication that takes place for CBOB on a regular basis. Those attending the retreat were split into four teams: the pink team, the blue team, the green team and the purple team. Each group had a team captain and teams worked together throughout the day for several fun outdoor activities!

The sun was full ablaze as the teams walked outside and prepared themselves for the competition.The first game of the day was a high energy balloon stomp game. The game got heated and the competition was close, but in the end the blue team was victorious! The next activity was a friendly game of Tug-of-war. Though every team did their best, the green team won by a landslide (pun intended). The CBOB members then took a lunch/pool break and got to spend some time conversing. After a few brief conversations with people I was amazed to see how diverse the CBOB family is.

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I met people with different career aspirations and from all different backgrounds. There were some students studying public relations and social sciences and others who were studying biomedical engineering and biochemistry. While it was easy to note our differences, it was also inspiring to see how so many different people can come together and be unified under a common cause.

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​Mariam Hussein, the UF Campus Communications Liaison, was touched by the power that CBOB had in bringing all of us together.
“One thing I took away from the retreat was that while all of the interns and e-board members come from different backgrounds and have different majors, we all want to make a difference and help better CBOB,” Hussein said.

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It took the teams a little while to warm up to each other but by the end of the day everyone was laughing and having a good time. Teagan Murphy, the Mentorship Coordinator for CBOB, spoke about how her team transformed throughout the day.
“I really enjoyed working with my team. At first we were all a bit nervous and just wanted to get the activities over with, but we ended up becoming a bit competitive ourselves and really enjoyed the activities,” Murphy said.

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The next activity on the agenda was an intense game of Twister. The teams chose their representatives wisely and the game ended in a three-way tie between the green, blue and purple team. ​

​Around 5 p.m. the day came to a close with one final relay race. The teams gave it their all and raced to the finish line. When the points were added up the blue and green team tied for first place and they made the decision to share the prize. When the activities were completed, the members came together and shared their highs and lows from the day as well as any goals they had for the semester. Some members had goals that were specific to their position while others simply wanted to help CBOB grow as a whole. Valentina Betancur, one of the new fundraising interns, shared about how the retreat helped shape some of her goals for CBOB.
“Seeing how hard everyone was working for some of the events that CBOB is having definitely helped me to solidify my own fundraising goals and made me more serious about reaching them,” Betancur said.
Everyone took something away from the retreat and left feeling more connected to each other and to the CBOB mission.
“I think the retreat is beneficial because it really helps us to get to know each other and who you’re actually working with,” Betancur said. “Since this is a virtual internship, the people working and volunteering for the organization felt a little abstract to me. Then after meeting everyone and sweating with them, it helped solidify the whole experience.”

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The semester is already off to a great start and after a really fun weekend together, the CBOB team is ready to work hard to make CBOB the very best is can be!