It was on Friday the 12th of July 2019 that the Family Camp started at the Oaks Scout Campsite.
The camp started with everybody arriving at camp and setting up there tents. Later in the evening, everybody gathered around in the field for the start of wide games which were all run by the leaders. The first game that we played was a version of Mountains and Valleys where we were split into two teams and cones were spread out, upside-down and right way up one team had to make the cones be the right way up and one team had to make the cones upside down and the team that had the most the way they were meant to position them wins. The next game that we played was a game called Zombies where we had to sneak up on the leaders to try and get the reward (cake), but because it was so bright it half turned into a game of granny’s footsteps and even those who didn’t make it got a cake anyway. The final game was where everybody was split into three teams that were as equal as possible with the max amount in each team being thirteen, each team was then given all the cards of the same suit and they have to split up the cards so each member had a different number or suite, the rules are simple: cards always defeat cards lower than them, only the ace can kill the king, if there is a draw then the cards must leave each other and nothing happens and finally if you are defeated then you must give up a life line and get another one.
In the morning the camp officially started with the traditional raising of the flag, then of thinking of how we have implemented the scout laws into life and how each of the scout laws could be introduced into life to make the world better, finally we finished it off with the song that Sir Robert Baden-Powell introduced to scouting consisting of complete gibberish called Ging Gang Goolie. Now the flag was up the song had been sung, it was time to start the activities.
On the first day there were four activities to look forward to: the cave maze, bouldering, the jungle trail and orienteering. The cave maze was fun with it having multiple floors and pitch black tunnels being incredibly fun with friends. Bouldering was fun with challenges like climbing on handholds in the roof as well as walls that are suitable for younger children as long as they have an adult with them for safety. The third one is the jungle trail which is great fun as it can be used for all ages from activities that can get you tangled to activities that make you balance, also if you do not wish to attempt a certain activity there is a path around each activity so you don’t need to do what you don’t want to and move onto what you do want to do. The final activity to talk about is orienteering which will send you all around the campsite looking for the punchers to mark your paper with the certain patterns, it will help improve your map reading as well as help you see what the site has to offer.
Next there was a water-fight where everybody was split into two teams (although I think everybody forgot about them) and each team was lined up on two sides, each having a container each, waiting for everybody to be permitted to start shooting. When the start of the fight was announced, everybody started shot the announcer under the influence of Reece, it was then the fight really started with refills always happening, shooting the refillers and going for the fighters. After a while the fight started to pan out to a wider area with refills of the water bucket needing to happen more often, and even better, for a lot of the people, as the fillers couldn’t fight back as they had the heavy bucket they were a target for a lot of people to shoot at, unfortunately it was time for the fight to come to an end and for the fancy dress olympics to start!
There was then a fancy dress olympics where everybody wore some hilarious clothes for where we were that could have been worn in the olympics. Later in the evening we had a campfire that consisted of songs, skits and even more entertainment, being complimented with smores.
The next day we started the morning with some fencing as a final activity, running through some of the basics before the more boring parts of the camp started. Later there was an AGM meeting where all of the leaders and adults decided some important stuff for the group.
Afterwards the leaders organised a barbecue for lunch with burgers and hotdogs and vegetarian options too. Finally camp was closed with the lowering of the flag and packing of the tent as we left on the Sunday.
