St John's College - Preston Yr 9 & 10 Camp Blog

On Wednesday afternoon on the 2nd of August 2023, the students of St John's College drove through The Summit gates. Eager to get going, they were shown to their accommodations where they settled in and had some lunch.

The coaches Spinks and Sam and team leader Steph (Spinks) welcomed the students into the Blue Room where they were taught about the Five Keys (Have Fun, Play All In, Make Lots of Mistakes, Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable, and Don’t Go Home Wondering What If) to a successful camp, our goal-setting strategy called Target, Stretch & Super Stretch, and GMICs, we then ended with a quick game of GOCHA to change their state.

As they made their way down to the BBQ shelter the students were broken into their two groups to complete a round of initiatives (Key Punch and Half Pipe). After they finished their initiative, they came up with their new tribe names; the names chosen were Iggle Pickles for group one and Liam’s for group two, both teams then had the opportunity to take in The Summit's challenging Sky Bridge and epic Bush Challenge, the winner of the Bush Challenge was Iggle Pickles, who bested the Liam's by 4 seconds! (19:04 and 19:00mins)

Day two and the students started the day with an intention's session with Spinks, they talked about choosing who you wanted to be for the day and how you wanted to show up for not only their teammates, but for themselves as well. Wrote on the whiteboard the three things out of our control on a daily basis: Weather, People and Activities. We then asked students to share their intentions. To challenge the students, we played a game called “Jockeys” before the rotations begun, to change their state and play all in.

Students had the opportunity to tackle the Leap of Faith and stretch themselves on the Rock Wall, so many stretches and super stretches being done and as the session came to a close and the debrief was underway, you could feel the sense of accomplishment in the air. Up next it was time for lunch and the students were told to get into their clothes for the Monster Course. Two rotations to go of seeing an epic view up on The Summit Window and then choosing to find the fun in Laser Skirmish. The time had come to begin the epic Monster Course where the students not only completed one, but two laps! The winner of the course is the time most improved from their first lap as teams realized, they were completing against themselves. Both teams improved with Iggle Pickles improving by 10.04 mins and Liam’s getting an improvement of 9.55mins.

Day three and safe to say there were a lot of tired faces in the room as Spinks was taking the group through a Gratitude session reading out, firstly HEAPS of GMICs and then watched a video called ‘Wall of Words’ and then were asked who in their lives make them feel grateful and what makes them feel grateful. After writing it on the whiteboard they left the space to the song ‘I Want It That Way’. The game that we played was called Pirates to get us into the right state.

Feeling good and ready for the last two rotations of Giant Swing and Inflatable City, both groups became one and had all the fun, ‘checking back in’ the students definitely did not want to go home wondering ‘what if’, as they faced their fears, pushing through and getting comfortable being uncomfortable. All students went to green on the Giant Swing and Iggle Pickle were the final winners in the Inflatable City relay race.

To wrap camp up the two teams had the opportunity to debrief using the tools ‘rock and a stick’, the rock represented something that rocked their world about camp, and the stick was something that will stick with them, something they’ll always remember about the experience.

On behalf of The Summit and all of us coaches we wish you all the best for the rest of the year and thank you for coming and having all the fun.

Spinks/Sonic, Sam, Zoe and Liam