On the stunning afternoon of Tuesday the 22nd April 2025, the Summit welcomed back the students and teachers of Parkdale Secondary College. As they got off the buses they were shown to their accommodation, after they got settled, the students were welcomed into the Lodge where coach Spinks gave an introduction to camp and the coaches! Adam introduced The Summit’s very own recipe to the best camp ever, and the ingredients to that were the Five Keys of camp.
These keys are:
- Have Fun
- Play All In
- Make Lots of Mistakes
- Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
- Don’t Go Home Wondering “What If”
We then passed the floor over to Mim and Calarnee who did a helmet and harness brief and Sam shared an epic goal-setting strategy that would help us to grow our comfort zones and conquer challenging activities. Target , what you know you can do, stretch , what you think you can do and super stretch , what you think is impossible.
Campers were decided into their tribes: tribes 1- 8 were in group A and tribes 9-16 were group B
Group A activities: Abseil, Snake and Nails, Jump Free, Laser Skirmish, Bag Blitz, Snowy River Challange, Rockwell and a teacher run session called Stress Management.
Group B activities: Summit Window, Cave, Leap of Faith, Inflatables, Giant Swing, Bush Challange, High Wire and Stress Management.
Tribes completed their first two activity rotations and came up with a tribe name, the campers were informed about timings for dinner and brekkie, as well as free time areas, they also were introduced to a camp tradition called GMICs, which stands for “Great Moments in Camp” , this is all about writing down and acknowledging some of the awesome moments we’ve seen.
Day two started with a talk about setting a morning intention, and learning about how important it is to choose to focus on the things we can control, in order to get the most out of every day (but especially at camp).
When we got down into the park, we leapt into two legendary activity rotations. Even though the weather was hot, this didn’t stop students because they powered through, smashing goals and having all the fun.
After lunch we smashed out one more rotation and then it was time to do the famous Monster Course. This was a feat of teamwork, strength and resilience as students completed a huge first lap but were shocked to find out that the winning team isn’t the fastest team, but the team that improves the most on their SECOND LAP.
As the last day rolled around, coach Sam took the kids through a gratitude session, where the students were asked to think about who and or what makes them feel.
Grateful and to ‘check back in’ for the last two rotations of activities to go.
The group game played was Jockeys to warm the students up and as the final two rotations.
As they came to a close, the students were asked to vote for someone in their tribe who represented/embodied the Five Keys the most throughout camp. (listed below along with the results table) These 16 legends got to have a hot lap in The Summit’s very own army tank while being cheered on by their peers.
On behalf of the coaches and The Summit, we would like to thank you for joining us and having all the fun. We wish you all the best for the rest of the year!
Spinks, Adam, Mim, Calarnee, Sam, Simon, Elena, Milena, Enis, Anthony, Matt, Chris, Fran, Lucy, Lorrie, Cam, Karra.
Planning a school camp in Victoria? Download the School Information Pack or enquire for available dates.
