Dear DOC, It’s hard to believe it’s already October. It seems that Trips just ended. A special thanks and congratulations to everyone who worked so hard and volunteered so much time to carry out yet another successful First Year Trips program. Trips Director Peety Kaur ’15 made a presentation about Trips to the Student Affairs Division of the College recently, and the staff attending were extraordinarily impressed by the amount of student commitment, responsibility, time and energy that goes into Trips and by the kind of inclusive welcome it provides to the incoming class. Trips sets a great tone for what it means to be part of the Dartmouth Community. The deans ask incoming students what kinds of activities at Dartmouth they would like to be involved with, and the largest group of students (526) identified “outdoor adventures” as an area of special interest, and another 500 or so identified activities that don’t involve alcohol. The club leadership is contacting them with information about how to get involved. The Club is clearly providing something that students want, and it is also doing a great job of advancing the College’s goals for a healthy and vibrant social environment. In this fall newsletter, we’d like to introduce you to our newest OPO staff member, Morgan Haas (see attached photo), remind trip leaders about the importance of pre-trip briefings, and provide information about how staff are able to work with you to support your club activities and trips: — Dan Nelson Welcome to Morgan Haas! Outdoor Programs and the Dartmouth Outing Club are proud to announce that Morgan Haas will be the first person to fill the position of Assistant Director for Leadership and Experiential Learning. Morgan graduated from West Virginia University in 2015 with a BA degree in philosophy. She is a graduate from the NOLS Outdoor Educator semester and most recently worked for Harvard’s First Year Outdoor Program. She will provide mentorship, leadership, administrative and other professional support to the Dartmouth Outing Club, its officers and leaders, to assist the DOC in its growth, development and outreach. Morgan worked as the Logistics Manager for Harvard’s First Year Outdoor Program (FOP) this year and focused on revamping organizational systems within the program, created more avenues for useful feedback from leaders and participants, and really honed in on the soft skills involved with outdoor education such as co-leader and group dynamics, facilitation, and FOP’s curriculum component. She created the FOP Curriculum Plan which is a resource used by leaders to help execute their vision for the trip by providing a facilitation guide, diversity discussion guide, and daily planning templates. She believes in the “I do, We do, You do” concept when it comes to successfully training outdoor leaders. Whether it is pertaining to hard or soft skills, she believes it is one of the best training techniques to use in the trip setting. This type of structure provides the trainee with a solid transition to leader by way of knowledge, support, and independence. Not only is it a good experience for trainees, but it creates structure for the trainer as well. It is easy to have an organized, tentative plan when using the “I do, We do, You do” model. This model works when it includes-support and communication. Those two components will help create rapport with your trainee and, hopefully, a successful leader. Morgan enjoys backpacking, road-biking, snowboarding, climbing, yoga, playing the ukulele, cooking, especially beets and kale! She is proficient in headstands, packing a pack, and baking bread on a whisper-light stove. She is very excited to be working with the DOC and everyone involved with it. She wants to meet and get to know everyone, so stop by her office inside room 13 in Robinson Hall. --Brian Kunz Don’t forget the pre-trip briefing… Anyone who is a leader in the DOC has already heard this stuff in the Risk Management seminar, but since it's hard to remember everything that happened then, it's worth reiterating. We benefit greatly here in the DOC from over a century of good stewardship and risk management. Our student leaders have wonderful freedom to run trips without professional supervision precisely because all of those who have come before you have done an excellent job of managing risk, and maintaining an excellent reputation. Indeed, our incident record is superb and we have every reason to be proud of that fact. We mustn't, however, become complacent. One of the most important aspects of risk management is ensuring that participants have appropriate expectations for the upcoming trip or activity. This starts when you first contact them, probably over e-mail. Ensuring that participants understand that the goals of the activity are, first and foremost to be safe and have a good time, and not necessarily to summit a mountain, run a particular river, or climb a given route, helps firstly with group dynamics, in the not unlikely situation that achieving that secondary goal becomes impossible while staying safe and having a good time. Managing expectations is even more critical to risk management - it ensures that participants have a good idea of what to expect and so can help the leader evaluate their own readiness and preparedness for the level and duration of the activity. It helps participants be more comfortable because they have more information about what is coming. We are privileged to be a part of Dartmouth College's legal and administrative umbrella. The general counsel has helped us craft a policy whereby we are not required to collect waiver forms for every activity. Not only would this be a massive inconvenience and administrative burden, but it would detract from the experience and we believe firmly that we should not attempt to waive our responsibility to our student participants. As part of this policy, however, it is CRITICAL that all of our trips begin with a briefing to participants about a) what the activity entails b) what some of the risks are and c) what we do to mitigate those risks. This does not have to be a 90 minute lecture, but it has to happen every trip. Typically, the time to do this would be just before hopping in the van to leave campus. Should only take a few minutes and it will serve many purposes. Pre-trip briefing. Every time. --Rory Gawler We can help you! I can help you with reserving DOC cabins – both personal reservations and club-related. To do that, please come by or call my office during my regular business hours which are 8-noon and 1:30-3:30. Office phone is 603-646-2834. I can also help you with requesting vehicles for club outings/trips. You can come by my office and fill out the reservation request and we can go over it at that time to make sure all the details are covered correctly. If you’re not a DOC member and want to become one, I’m also the person to see! I also sell climbing chalk, DOC t-shirts, and other cool DOC and Moosilauke paraphernalia! — Julie Bell I work directly with Cabin and Trail, Trail Crew, Mountain Biking, Bait and Bullet, and the Organic Farm club, so anything to do with those, chat with me. I also organize the PE classes, so if you're interested in being an instructor or have questions about that, hit me. Anything to do with websites, social media or databases is probably done by me, so anything to do with that stuff, let me know. I'm also happy to chat about anything to do with the general DOC, training, organizing events, etc. Office is right in the hallway, so feel free to stop by anytime. — Rory Gawler Outdoor Rentals: We have all your camping needs to help you get outside this fall.Please feel free to stop down in the basement of Robinson Hall to see all the equipment we have available .Trouble filling your bike tires, advice where to ride, we will be glad to help or answer any questions you may have about the area. We are open 10-5 Monday through Friday this fall term. — Mike Silverman I’m excited to be a new face in the office this year! I’m here to help you as much as I can. I’d be stoked to collaborate on planning, executing, and debriefing trips with you. I am a huge advocate for creativity and fresh ideas, so bring them my way and, hopefully, we’ll be able to turn your ideas into something awesome. I focus a lot of my time in outdoor education on inclusion, facilitation, and risk management, therefore, I can be a great resource for the discussion and questions revolving around those topics. I can also show you how to successfully splint a broken leg in the backcountry – let’s do this! — Morgan Haas I work with the financials in the Outdoor Programs Office: P-cards, cash advances, and paying bills from vendors. Please come see me in advance about making any purchases or ordering any apparel, supplies or gear. I can also help you with information about financial aid for outdoor activities. I hope you’ll stop by my office if you have any questions in these areas. —Kathy Decato As Director, I’m responsible for overseeing and supporting the activities, staff, budget and facilities of Outdoor Programs and the DOC. I’m the club partner for Ski Patrol, the Alpine Ski Club, and the Nordic Ski Club. For the past coupe of years, and for some time to come, I’m deeply involved in the Ravine Lodge project, the Moosilauke bunkhouse projects, and the Ledyard project. This fall, I’ll be regularly inviting students to join me on work days up at the ’66 bunkhouse (see this link for a brief video about the project: http://now.dartmouth.edu/2015/09/video-building-class-1966-bunkhouse?utm_source=Dartmouth+Now&utm_campaign=ba3f0343b1-Dartmouth+Now+Daily+Update&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4ae973c30b-ba3f0343b1-391095157) — Dan Nelson Daniel M. Nelson, Director Dartmouth Outdoor Programs 115 Robinson Hall PO Box 9 Hanover, NH 03755 603-646-2356 (office) 603-646-1444 (fax) [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>