Eltham College Blog

On an overcast but very exciting Wednesday morning, the Eltham College crew rolled into The Summit to kick off what turned out to be an amazing few days of camp. All was in readiness and once the staff and myself had introduced ourselves and our Five Keys to a great camp, we headed down into the park.

First up we played a couple of games and then got into the first rotation of our major activities, those being our Giant Swing, Tash’s Ladder, Leap of Faith, Scavenger Hunt and Tribe Identity.

The students were asked to come up with a group name they wanted to be known as for the remainder of camp, and they didn't disappoint!

Group 1 Stephens Hairline

Group 2 Cornastic

Group 3 Shatibat

Group 4 Flying Spiced Gru’s

Group 5 Jerome Dequavius Octavius Lincoln the 3rd!

The energy was high and it was fantastic to see some real breakthroughs of courage, creativity and teamwork so early on camp.

For some of our boys, however, the energy, unfortunately, carried through into the early hours of the morning and by breakfast, we had seven unwilling volunteers for the whole day's duty group. It was about halfway through the morning dishes that the seven boys and camp coach agreed not to tell the teachers how much fun the dishes were!

The first half of Thursday saw the completion of the round of activities, and to date, I don’t think I have ever seen anyone as excited for an activity as Josephine was for the Giant Swing! Some of the students, such as Orlando, Sean, Henry and Stephen challenged themselves and were amazing in being able to push through so many of their fears. We were so proud of them!

That afternoon we ran our epic Monster Course, our mud-run through a number of physical activities that got everyone, including the coaches and teachers, wet, muddy and exhausted. Jerome Dequavius recorded the best improvement time to win the challenge, but every group did amazingly.

We were also incredibly lucky with the weather, with the expected deluge of rain turning out to be a light sprinkling in the morning followed by a cloudy but relatively dry afternoon, which made the day even better.

On Friday the students were introduced to a couple of rounds of new activities, taking on Abseiling, Orienteering, the Sky Bridge, our Rock Wall and a session with our snakes and nail board, before voting their tribe's Values winner, or the person they felt committed most to our Five Keys. We then wrapped up the day with some thank you’s and read out the times and revealed the values winners from each group before we sadly said our goodbyes.

The times and scores for the activities and the values winners were:

Thank you all again from Myself, Centauri, Sarah, Sophie, Shanara and Rohan, and we can't wait to see the Eltham College students back again next year.

Adam

The Summit