St John's College - Preston Camp Blog

It was awesome to be able to introduce The Summit to the amazing staff and students from St John's College Preston, although it was also a welcome back for the head teacher, Natanya, our old PC and good friend. They were an awesome and very diverse group of humans and the three days they were here were an experience we will struggle to forget. I managed to drag everyone into the Stadium to introduce myself 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 making our way into the park, playing a quick game of Screaming Goats, showing everyone how to set themselves Targets, Stretches and Super Stretches, our epic goal-setting technique and getting into our first couple of activities.

We also introduced the game Gecko, where the last person to respond to a call had to wear something embarrassing, and Nik, you rocked that little dress, even if you did turn it into a cape.

We were looking forward to more of a team experience having such a small number of students, and the camaraderie was instant. We started Wednesday off with our Snowy River Challenge, where Despoina set the benchmark for what was to come by falling into the water one meter into the first challenge, letting Archer come to her rescue. The communication was fantastic and California Girls never sounded so good coming out of the Wombat Hole.

The Highwire was next, with Despoina again pushing herself way out of her comfort zone and letting everyone know about it! But the support from her girls made all the difference and there were some epic poses and pics to go with them of our newly christened tightrope walkers.

After a pretty quiet evening watching the Olympics, Thursday was kicked off with a chat about Intentions and a lunatic dancing around at a Boston Celtics game, before making our way over to Summit Window. Lots of fears were challenged again, with Despoina, Zahara and Mr. Edge shining through with their commitment to self-improvement.

We then ventured to the Cave, where Zahara had a little “nap” before joining us, and California Girls got more of a workout, this time from Tyhia, who was one of our braver explorers. It was great to see that Ms. Thrift was also challenged by the darkness and that no matter who we are or where we have been, we all face fear at some time. This is also where Zoe lets it slip that she gets comfort in seeing others go before her, which instantly means she is first up on the very next challenge she has!

And own it she did, on Leap of Faith, being one of two that made it all the way upside down. After Leap, we wandered back for lunch before a game of Laser Skirmish. Aathan cemented his future as a motivational speaker finding ease in yelling at everyone to either cover him or to “STAND UP SO I CAN SHOOT YOU!”

The afternoon was dominated, however, by our epic Monster Course. Two laps around an epic group of tasks and challenges, with more fun than anyone expected. Everyone pulled together, with Gigi and Tyhia leading the enthusiasm and Daniel and Aathan doing all the heavy lifting. Even Mr. Edge drew motivation from the energy of the group to get himself through every activity, much to the absolute delight of Ms. Thrift!

Thursday night was a bit quieter, an evening around the TV with more of the Olympics, and Friday bought our final two activities. We introduced two more games as a warmup with Clap Ball (who thought clapping and catching a ball would be that hard!) and Yee Hah, and if you are reading this and don’t know what that is, make them show you! We then had a run around with our Orienteering, before putting Daniel in a lovely purple blouse for losing Gecko (it really suited you) and hitting the Giant Swing.

We then asked everyone to vote on who they thought gave everything they could over the whole camp to be our Values winner or the person that best represented the Five Key values The Summit holds. Archer was a clear winner and rewarded with a ride in our WW2 Army Tank, along with everyone else, because why not?!

A massive thank you to Natanya, Dylan and all the students from St Johns College Preston for all the effort they put in to make this camp as amazing as it was. I can't wait to see you back again very soon.

Adam J

The Summit