It was a crisp Fall morning and the anticipation of the games swept through CHS students. Forums were split between three locations: the newly-opened front lawn, Wheeler Park and Riverside park. Whichever location, the forums’ goal was set: to win Field Day.
But this wasn’t regular Field Day. Unlike previous years, this Field Day came at the beginning of the school year on Sept. 27. The additional Field Day came after discussion between Forum Council as well as between CHS staff.
Sean Eldon’s forum decided to start the day with its own set of activities for the forum to get to know each other better. Ella Weinberger, an Eldon forum member, was grateful for the games that bonded the forum before they joined other forums to start field day.
“Forum is a safe space,” Weinberger said. “And I just like that people can be their authentic self [in forum] because it’s a welcoming environment. People have been able to come out of their shell today. I think people were asking some questions that kind of brought us into sort of not an uncomfortable place, but just a place where we usually wouldn’t have gone. I think it’s really nice to get outside of our comfort zone a little bit.”
Along with doing bonding activities, Miles McDonald, an Eldon forum member, was challenged by Eldon to a push up challenge.
“[Winning felt] amazing,” McDonald said. “I didn’t think that there would be any better feeling than that. I actually beat him very easily. I wasn’t expecting it to be that easy.”
Although CHS has done an annual Spring Field Day at Delhi Metro Park, CHS teacher Courtney Kiley feels that an additional Field Day gets the year going and encourages students to bond.
“It gets forum to bond early in the year instead of waiting for the Spring Field Day,” Kiley said. “To get that comradery and stuff going early.”
Silvester created each of the forum day activities with the help of forum council and the experience he has had being a camp director.
“I am a camp director for Huron High School’s band camp,” Silvestor said. “We do an event at band camp in Interlochen called Rat Races, which is where all the Huron River Rats compete in these little mini games and relays and activities [for a full day]. I’ve been doing that for 15 years as a counselor, as a student and now as a director, so I’ve seen all these different types of games, competition games and races being played.”
CHS staff is looking forward to student feedback and hopes to continue this tradition in the future.
