Aquinas College Camp1 Blog

On a very sunny but cool Wednesday, we kicked off a three-day camp for Aquinas College that would be one never to forget. The other coaches and I gathered in the Lodge with the students 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 and getting into our activities.

The Flying Fox and the Abseiling were the instant highlights, Sky Bridge was challenging, Bush Challenge was a revelation, Snake and Nails gave everyone a chance to meet Monty and Hercules, Orienteering managed not to lose anyone and Scavenger Hunt and Inflatable City were just fun. There were many personal boundaries pushed and fears overcome, with too many kids 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 Nonchalant Alphas     

Grp 2 - Cheezels

Grp 3 - The Sigmas

Grp 4 - 6:36 17

Grp 5 - Nuggets

Grp 6 - Big Macs

Grp 7 - The Rubber Ducks

Grp 8 - Green Apples

After an epic Trivia Night on Wednesday Night, won by “Harry Cheezel”, Tuesday was kicked off with a morning Intentions chat about how trivial things can make a significant difference to those around us before getting straight into the activities again.

That afternoon we also embarked on our epic Monster Course, a mud run around the grounds of The Summit involving tyres, charades, mud, freezing cold water, holey buckets, dirt, a ball pit, and a whole lot of craziness! 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 Big Macs, who demonstrated the resilience needed to dominate the course.

Thursday evening was filled with some very tired legends and an epic movie night (Mall Cop), before Wednesday started with another chat about gratitude and the ability to recognize what we sometimes take for granted before we embarked on our final two rotations.

After our last rotation we asked each of the kids to vote on a Values winner, or the person in their group they felt committed the most to making this a rewarding experience for not only themselves but their whole team. 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. The winners are listed below with all the times for each of the recordable activities. 

We can’t congratulate the kids and staff enough for how much energy and enthusiasm they showed from the first moment they arrived. We hope you enjoyed your experience, and we can’t wait to have you back again.

Adam, Mim, Spinks, Cal, Zoe, Chey, Ant, Sunny and Liam

The Summit