When the buses rolled through the gates of the Summit on a warm and cloudy Monday morning, we were preparing for what was going to be an amazing week. The energy and enthusiasm of all the students was addictive and we loved it. The other coaches and I gathered in the Lodge with them to introduce ourselves and our Five Keys of Have Fun, Play All In, Make Mistakes, Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable and Don’t Go Home Wondering What If, before playing a couple of games, showing everyone our harnesses and how to set themselves Targets, Stretch and Super Stretch, and getting into our first couple of rounds of activities.
Abseiling and the Leap of Faith were the instant highlights, the Sky Bridge and High Wire were challenging, the Bush Challenge and the Cave were epic, and Laser Skirmish was just fun. There were definitely many personal boundaries pushed, and fears overcome, with too many kids to mention pushing beyond what they first thought they were capable of.
Towards the end of the first day, each group was asked to come up with a name for themselves that was agreed upon by all, and these are the names they came up with.
- Grp 1 – The Trail Blazers
- Grp 2 – Pineapples
- Grp 3 – Big Barry
- Grp 4 – Tim Tams
- Grp 5 – Fried Chicken
- Grp 6 – Nooooo!
- Grp 7 – The AC’s
After a night walk and some games on Monday, Tuesday was kicked off with a morning intentions chat about how we can impact our day and those around us with the smallest of actions before getting straight into the next round of activities. The afternoon turned out to be awesome and made the day just that much more enjoyable.
That afternoon we played a round robin of Shoe Bowling, Clap Ball and Ga-Ga. We also embarked on our epic Monster Course, a mud run around the grounds of The Summit involving tyres, charades, dirt, water, cargo nets, holey buckets, a ball pit and a whole lot of fun! The course was scored using each team’s improvement time from the first lap to the surprise second lap, with everyone doing amazingly, but being dominated by the Pineapples!
Wednesday started with another chat from Mim about Gratitude before we rounded out the camp with everyone getting to experience the last couple of activities they had yet to experience.
After we wound up the last of our group challenges, we then asked each of the kids to vote on a Values winner, or the person in their group they felt used our Five Keys the best to make camp a rewarding experience for not only themselves but their whole team. The winners are listed below with all the times for each of the recordable activities. We gathered on the stage to say our thank yous to all the people involved in making this camp epic before reading out the winners of the various activities.
Thank you so much to Samantha, the teachers and students from Emerald Secondary College for an awesome week. You were all so incredibly dedicated to ensuring your camp was an amazing experience. We at The Summit can’t wait to have you back again soon.
Adam, Sam, Taylor, Mim, Milena, Elena, Lainie, and Maddie
