Mornington SC Year 7 Camp Blog

As the buses rumbled to a stop at the gates of The Summit, a wave of excitement developed among the year 7 students of Mornington Secondary College. What a massive 3 days planned full of excitement and nervousness that would push you physically and mentally. Day 1 started by meeting the 6 coaches who guided you through your camp experience. Logan, Aron, Spinks, Jakob, Adam and Cheyenne were your coaches. You also became familiar with our Five Keys; if we used them, it would make camp go from good to GREAT!

The Five Keys were:

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

Next is the goal-setting strategy that would help us maximise our activities. For when we got to an activity that made us nervous, it would help us face those fears to the best of our ability.

The 3 goals are as follows:

TARGET: Something you know you can do. (Not nervous at all)

STRETCH: Something you think you can do but are not 100% sure. (Nerves setting in)

SUPER-STRETCH: Something you think would be impossible for you to do. (Really nervous)

With no further ado, we played a big game of ‘50 Up’, split into our tribes and began our first activity. Your activities throughout your time here at The Summit included:

The Cave, moving through an epic small underground tunnel with no light to give hope and no sounds to comfort, challenging our fear of the unknown, and realizing the difference between perception and reality. Great work Maddy!

Sky Bridge, traversing across the lake on nothing but a bridge, using every bit of concentration and focus on your technique, only to realize that our belief usually determines if we successfully make it across. Great work everyone on conquering the bridge and moving forward within the struggle! Nice work Lucas, made it look easy!

Highwire, scaling a tree to then balance across a thin wire with your partner and come down together like a boss.

Leap of Faith, challenging our ability to trust not only ourselves but the entire process, and to take a leap into the unknown regardless of what was holding us back.

Snowy River challenge, the ultimate test of teamwork and support involving a race through 5 obstacles as fast as possible to beat the opposing team's time.

Laser Tag, dodging and weaving through our laser war zone striving to eliminate the opposition. Great laser dodging skills Levi!

Giant Swing, testing what it will take to let go of our fear and trust the process, letting go of “what if…”.

After completing your first activity you all had the opportunity to create a tribe flag. A flag that would encompass your tribe's values and presence. Then you created a tribe chant to show the other tribes what you were made of!

Day 2 had arrived! Start the morning with Spinks talking to us about how you want our day to go, and making a deliberate choice. Spinks asked us about who we wanted to be for the day (supportive, brave, funny, leaders) and to make a choice before we got down into the park. “You don’t attract what you want, you attract what you are”.

Next, we continued with 4 more activities for the morning. What an action-packed morning we had planned for you. However, it wasn’t over yet! After a delicious lunch to fuel us for the afternoon, we finished the day with one last activity. Finally, we were about to begin the epic journey that would push you physically and mentally. The moment we had only heard rumours about it, it was time for the Monster Course! Running in our teams through a mud run obstacle course linked together by hands to achieve the best time and a closer connection to our peers and teammates. After the first lap, we followed it up with a surprise, we told you we would do it twice! What a sight to see. Pushing ourselves to limits we hadn’t reached before. Congratulations to all those who truly pushed through and demonstrated to themselves a new level of resilience.

Day 3 was already on the horizon! We began with some breakfast followed by a gratitude session with Adam. This encouraged us to use gratitude as a tool to instantly FEEL joy and happiness when reflecting on the often unappreciated things we have in life. “Gratitude affects your attitude and in turn, affects your altitude”. We then commence our last 2 activities. What an epic way to finish off an incredible camp. Last but not least each team voted for somebody in your group who best demonstrated our Five Keys. Congrats to your team's Values winners, you are all epic individuals. Lastly, we all got the chance to witness our WW2 army tank go for a lap around our mud track. However, your well-deserving Values winners got to have a first-class seat inside the tank as it went to work!

Thank you Mornington Secondary College for playing all in and rocking it throughout camp.

Keep Unleashing Your Greatness!