On a warm Monday afternoon, the year 9 boys from Mt Lilydale Mercy College arrived at The Summit, eager to begin their adventure. After checking into their accommodations, they met with the coaches for lunch in the Lodge. After the meal the boys made their way down to the stage to meet their Team Leader Spinks introduced them to the space and the camp, then introduced the rest of The Summit coaches. Mim introduced the group to the Five Keys of The Summit.
These keys are:
- Have Fun
- Play All In
- Make Lots of Mistakes
- Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
- Don’t Go Home Wondering “What If”
Before starting their two activity rotations, Matt and Sam showed them how to put on a harness and helmet; Matt then introduced them to a goal-setting strategy called Target, Stretch, and Super Stretch to help break activities down into more manageable steps, and then they moved to their numbered spots. Their first lot of activities were Snowy River Challenge, Trust Games, High Wire, Laser Skirmish, Orienteering, Giant Swing, Sky Bridge, Leap of Faith, Summit Window, Abseil, Jump Free and Cave. To wrap up the day, Spinks explained the Summit way of giving written affirmations and compliments; they are called GMICs (Great Moments in Camp); the students were informed of times for dinner and breakfasts and provided a list of free-time activities. The evening activity run by coach Logan, was called Belief and Mindset where the students got to identify and then break through a limiting belief, they hold by physically breaking a wooden board they’d written on.
On day two, the students started with breakfast in the Lodge. The students when down to the stage where Spinks led an intention session where they discussed things out of their control, such as the people around you, and activities at camp and how important focus is to getting what they want. They played a game to get their bodies moving before starting the activities; the game played was Jockeys. after three rotations of activities, they had some lunch to then prepare themselves for the last three rotations for the day. After free time they had some dinner then prepared themselves for the Night Monster course., it was time for the briefing on the Monster Course and the music was on turned up and pumping. The coach led them through not just one, but two laps of the course to emphasise resilience and the importance of self-improvement. The winner had the most improved time from their first lap. Finally, they rinsed off, had a shower, washed off in the lake. Then went to bed.
Last day and there were a lot of tired faces at breakfast, teachers read out at bunch of GMICs. They then made their way down to the stage to meet Sam to run the group through a recap of the previous intention sessions and talked to them about gratitude. To cement that it was their last day at The Summit, asking the students to check back in where they were asked what, and whom they were grateful for. We also set a quick intention as they only had one more rotation to go, and a final tribe game, they didn’t want to go home wondering ‘what if’, we went to the volleyball court for the final game, students got their body moving with a game of Huckle Buckle.
In the last rotation of camp, the tribes got to reflect on their camp experience with each other, and vote for a Values winner, someone who embodied the Five Keys the most throughout camp. After having some lunch, they assembled back at the stage for the last time for a camp wrap up with the results and announced the teams’ Values winner votes, we then took a big group photo and said our goodbyes. All students than made their way to the buses and made their way back to school.
On behalf of The Summit and the coaches, we would once again like to thank you all for playing all in and joining us in having all the fun. All the best for the rest of the year!
