Since it began in 2001, the retreat has been led by Life Skills teacher Jeff Appell. However, after 50 retreats, math teacher Brianne Hazlewood is preparing to eventually lead the retreats.

“Ms. Hazlewood is being trained to eventually direct the life skills retreats in the future,” Appell wrote to the Talon.

Appell will still be a part of the Life Skills program to help integrate Hazlewood into the director position.

“Dr. Appell has been running the program for many years, and as he gets further along in his teaching career, he feels it is time to start transitioning the program to someone else so it can continue to be successful. Although he is not leaving anytime soon, there are so many facets to the program. He wants to make sure it is running successfully and in good hands long before he retires. Dr. Appell will continue to direct some of the retreats and I will direct some of the retreats until the time that the torch is passed to me,” Hazlewood wrote to the Talon.

Hazlewood has been assisting with the trip ever since she attended it as a senior at Oak Park in 2008. She has 10 years of experience, and for that reason, was selected to eventually take Appell’s place.

“It is important to have someone in place to eventually take the program over when I am done running it or ready to retire which may be in the next five years or so. Also, Ms. Hazlewood went on [the] retreat as a student, led in the program as a graduate and an adult and is the perfect person to come in and take the program over,” Appell wrote.

According to Appell, it is important that an experienced leader take his place as there are many important responsibilities of the director, such as supervising chaperones, or college leaders.

“The director is in charge of supervising all of the college leaders and making sure the trip runs smoothly,” Appell wrote.

Teacher chaperones, however, have various responsibilities that correspond to the amount of experience the chaperone has.

“For teacher chaperones, the responsibilities vary. For a first time chaperone, there are no responsibilities. First timers simply observe. Return chaperones generally supervise during the days and make sure that students remain on the campgrounds. They also help with whatever tasks arise during the trip,” Appell wrote.

All chaperones have additional duties as well. While many of them are secrets, many are very difficult to carry out.

“There are many duties of facilitating the trip. However, most of those duties cannot be revealed, due to the nature of secrecy that is kept for the retreat program,” Hazlewood said. “Just know that there are many that all involve a lot of time and planning, but I am taking on these willingly, even though some are very challenging!”

According to Hazlewood, it is very time consuming and difficult to have the trip, and all leaders must work very hard to allow the retreat to succeed.

“The retreat was one of the most amazing and beneficial trips I’ve ever been on. Nothing went wrong at all. All the leaders and teachers were very on top of it and know exactly what they were doing,” senior Zack Lin said.

According to senior Megan Weissman, all this hard work paid off, and the seniors thoroughly enjoyed it.

“A lot of the work was done very behind the scenes or by the teen leaders so I didn’t what the teachers did. But I know they all worked very hard to put this whole retreat together and it paid off, as I know many of us had some of the best 3 days of our lives!” Weissman said.

To ensure Hazlewood is prepared to lead, she is planning to lead a practice trip.

“I am currently directing this upcoming winter retreat in January, with the assistance of Dr. Appell as the assistant director,” Hazlewood wrote. “We are going to see how this retreat runs with the hopes of me continuing to direct following retreats in the years to come.”

According to Weissman, Hazlewood will excel as Director in years to come, in part because of her passion for the program.

“I think Ms. Hazelwood will do great as director because she seemed very passionate about the whole retreat and everything about it.” Weissman said.