Natalie Maerzluft recently completed the Recreation North Training Program. Natalie lives in Iqaluit, NU and earned a Certificate in Northern Recreation Leadership in May 2021. Natalie shared a bit about her experience.
My name is Natalie Maerzluft, and I live in Iqaluit, NU. I moved to Iqaluit with my family in high school and have been there ever since. In high school I was involved in everything I could be from clubs, to sports, and recreation jobs like day camp leader, lifeguard, and youth leader. I loved working and being a part of the fun side of people’s lives, being and interacting in the place where people come to play. I loved all the faces and community members I got to see and interact with on the daily.
My experience with Recreation North’s Training Program was a unique one. Doing the Recreation North and the Government of Nunavut Leadership programs, there was so much in the program that I wasn’t expecting to go over. It really made me revaluate what I thought was included in recreation.
It was a great learning experience to learn more of the behind the scenes in regard to what goes into planning and executing a program, knowing and identifying the benefits of the programs, and going into depth about who it’s for. I learned a lot of back end of recreation that I’m ready to bring up and use in the workplace to plan and work on my own programs in the future.
My words of wisdom would be… be open to the content and give yourself enough time to utilize and go through the resources. There is so much that you don’t get to cover in the conference calls and meetings that is available on Moodle, download it and take the time to go through it. Block off the time to sit down and give yourself 2 hours on the assignments.