Mount Lilydale Mercy College Year 9 Camp A & B Blog

On the 18th and 20th of March, two lots of Mount Lilydale Mercy College entered The Summit ready to take on a journey. With incredible energy and excitement to get into the action, your enthusiasm was infectious! What an action-packed 3 days we had planned for you all, let’s jog our memory of your time here at The Summit.

Both the first half and second half of Mount Lilydale started by meeting all the coaches who guided you through your camp experience. Your coaches were Logan, Odile, Spinks, Sam, Mim, Luke, Liam, Matt, Jakob, Ant, Cheyanne, Sara, Adam, and Zoe. You also became familiar with our Five Keys and if we used them 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

As your excitement to begin the activities for camp increased we got straight into a game to get our bodies moving and set the tone for camp. A classic game called 50 Up. The objective is to keep the ball up off the ground by bouncing the ball amongst everybody.

We then became familiar with a goal-setting technique. 3 goals that if set, would allow us to get the most out of camp. 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)

The incredible thing about camp here at The Summit is that all our activities are designed to (at some point) seem impossible for you to do. However, all activities at The Summit are possible and it's entirely up to you to face your fears and conquer them on your terms.

You then got split up into your activity groups and began our first 2 activities for camp!

All our activities for your experience here at The Summit were as follows:

Rock Wall, is the ultimate challenge of physical and mental strength, testing your will to keep climbing up through fear.

Inflatables, breaking up some of the action with more action focusing on just having fun!

Flying Fox, a fast and furious journey across the entire park flying through the air and enjoying the spotlight.

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.

Leap of Faith, challenging our ability to trust ourselves and the entire process, and taking a leap into the unknown regardless of what was holding us back.

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

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.

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 it is usually our belief that determines if we successfully make it across. Great work everyone on conquering the bridge and moving forward within the struggle!

Orienteering, navigating throughout the entire park to try and unlock riddles to gain as many points as possible.

Scavenger Hunt, unleashing your competitiveness between the teams to see who could complete varied challenges as a whole unit in the given time.

Trust Games, challenging our level of trust within ourselves and our team through engaging in a variety of epic physical trust exercises.

Relay Race, undertaking a series of challenges with your team and Zoe in the shortest time possible.

To wrap up your first day we all huddled together in the Lodge to question something. To discuss what our limiting (holds us back) and empowering (champions us) beliefs were. Beliefs can help us do incredible things, however the ones that go unquestioned, the ones that hold us back from doing what we want and being who we want to be, they need to be broken! Finally, the talk was over, we all got the opportunity to break a solid wooden board and smash through our limiting or empowering beliefs that were written on our board.

Your second day started off with breakfast followed by Logan talking to us all about how you want your day to go, and making a deliberate choice. Logan 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”. What an action-packed day we had planned for you all! 6 activities full of fun, laughter and growth. Great work to all those who played to all Five Keys and showed themselves what was possible.

The end of your second day concluded with an epic journey that would push you physically and mentally. The moment we had only heard rumours about it, it was time for the Night Monster Course! Running in our teams in the dark through a mud run obstacle course linked together by hand to achieve not only the best time but also a closer connection to your peers and teammates. After the first lap we followed it up with a surprise, we told you we were going to 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.

Your third day on camp began with some breakfast followed by a gratitude session with Spinks or Logan. 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 got down into the park to play an epic game and 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! 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!