Western Port SC Years 10 to 11 Camp Blog

On the stunning afternoon of Wednesday, 20th March 2024, The Summit welcomed the year 10/11 students and teachers of Western Port Secondary Collage.

Students were promptly shown to their accommodation, where they would be staying for the next couple of days! After settling in, they were welcomed into the Stadium, where coach Spinks introduced the camp and the coaches, Aron, Odile, and Sam. We then informed the students about The Summit’s very own recipe for the best camp ever, and the ingredients to that were the Five Keys of camp. These keys are:

1. Have Fun

2. Play All In

3. Make Lots of Mistakes

4. Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

5. Don’t Go Home Wondering What If

Before leaving the Stadium, we played a game of GOTCHA with their plates and wands (not bowels); Ron won. Without further ado, we all head down to the BBQ shelter where Aron and Odile taught everyone how to put on a helmet and harness, followed by Sam telling everyone an epic goal-setting strategy called Target, Stretch, and Super Stretch that would help us to grow our comfort zones and conquer challenging activities.

Campers started their first activity with an initiative challenge that involved working together to solve a puzzle. This tested teamwork and leadership, but teams rose to the challenge! Then, we moved on to our first activity rotation. The activities that campers got to do at the camp were Laser Skirmish, Summit Window, Snake and Nails, Tash's Ladder, Abseil, High Wire, Bush Challenge and Trust Games. This range of activities challenged people’s bravery, team spirit, support, trust, creativity and problem-solving (to name a few!) 

Day one ended with introducing the students to a camp tradition called GMICs, which stands for “Great Moments in Camp” - this is all about writing down and acknowledging some of the incredible moments we’ve seen.

Day two started with an epic talk about setting a morning intention with Spinks, learning how important it is to focus on the things we can control, mainly weather and people.  Asking the students to think about who they wanted to be and how they wanted to show up for themselves, others and, of course, the activities. We then played a quick game of Jockeys before getting into the park and beginning the three activity rotations.

After lunch, the students had one more activity to complete; Ron then danced in front of everyone, with Bailey and Spinks jumping in on the action and support. It was time to do the famous Monster Course; this was a feat of teamwork, strength and resilience. As students completed the course, the groups were unaware they were running two laps of the course, so they got themselves together and then got the second lap done! The winner of the run was the team that had the biggest improvement time from their first lap. All teams improved by 7 minutes and 16 second or more, stretches and super stretches were achieved, well done! To end the day, they groups got to go through the last obstacle together called the mud crawl, where the students became mud monsters!

As the last day rolled around heaps of GMICs were read out , then Sam took the kids through a gratitude session, where the students were asked to think about who they are grateful for and what they are grateful for, to not go home wondering ‘what if’ and to ‘check back in’ for the last two rotations of activities to go. Heading down to the BBQ shelter for a game of Pirates with Aron, to warm the students up and as the final rotation came to a close the students were asked to vote for someone in their tribe who represented/embodied the Five Keys the most throughout camp. (These are listed below along with the results), after being announced, they got to have a ride in The Summit's very own WW2 army tank.

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On behalf of The Summit and coaches, we would once again like the thank you all for playing all in and joining us in having all the fun, all the best for the rest of the year!