Aquinas College Camp 2 Blog

The Aquinas College students, leaders, and staff from camp 2 buses rolled through the gates on a sunny Monday afternoon. Eager to start, they all made their way up to their accommodations.

The Summit coaches were welcomed by their team leader, Spinks, and the Five Keys were, as they are the ingredients for a great camp. These keys are:

1. Have Fun

2. Play All In

3. Make Lots of Mistakes

4. Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable.

5. Don't Go Home Wondering, ‘What if.’

As the students were shown to the stage, they played a quick game of 50 Up. Then, they were placed straight into their groups. After completing the Initiative Challenge, students were taught about an awesome goal-setting strategy called ‘targets, stretches, and super stretches’ to help them break down activities that might feel overwhelming. Two activity rotations were run, and the students had some free time before dinner!

Day two started with an intention session with Spinks,  where the students were asked to think about who they wanted to be for that day and what that looked like—told about how we can choose to let the things we can’t control determine our actions. 1. weather, 2. other people, and 3. the activities they’re doing. Students were asked to think about and share their intentions to help guide them throughout their day.  Students were led down to the volleyball court to play a game of Jockeys and had all the fun! After three massive rotations with morning tea in between, students made their way up to The Lodge for lunch. Once lunch was complete, students changed into their Monster attire, and we ran them through the last rotation for the day.  It was time to begin the Monster Course, and the students were briefed and ready; the first heat went off, followed by two, three and for, where two teams got to run side; in the contest, all groups smashed their first lap, but little did they realize that the actual test of resilience and grit was doing the Monster lap twice, the winner of the Monster Course was the tribe with the best improvement time, comparing their first lap to their second!

The last day of camp came around, and there were a lot of tired faces in the room. We read out a bunch of GMICs, followed by a gratitude session by Sam (Big Fish), where they were asked what and for whom they were grateful. We also set a quick intention, as they only had two more rotations to go, and they didn’t want to go home wondering ‘what if’. The students then reported to the stage for the final game: Crane, Tiger, Egg.

After the last two rotations had been completed, the tribes got to reflect on the camp experience with each other and then proceeded to choose a Values winner for their tribe, someone who embodied the Five Keys  consistently throughout camp (names stated in the table below)

All activities run were as follows: Flying Fox, Inflatables, Bush Challenge, Abseil, Sky Bridge, Scavenger Hunt, Orienteering, and  Snake and Nails.

On behalf of myself, the Coaches and The Summit we would like to thank you again for coming and having all the fun, all the best with the rest of the year!

Spinks, Calarnee, Mim, Cheyenne, Sam, Sam (Big Fish), Zoe, Adam.