Preston High School Camp Blog

After an amazing two months of Christmas and New Year's holidays filled with far too much chocolate and late nights with family and friends, it was so good to see the Preston HS buses roll in the gates of The Summit to kick off what turned out to be an amazing few days of camp. Once all was in readiness and the staff and I had introduced ourselves and our Five Keys to a great camp of, Have Fun, Play All In, Make Lots of Mistakes, Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable, and Don’t Go Home Wondering What If, we headed down into the park.

First up we played a couple of games and then got into the activities, those being our Leap of Faith, Inflatable City, Rock Wall, Laser Skirmish, Flying Fox, Snake and Nails, Giant Swing, Cave, and Snowy River Challenge.

The students were asked to come up with a group name they wanted to be known as for the remainder of camp, and they didn't disappoint!

Group 1 was called Big Bananas

Group 2 Sesame Street

Group 3 Sky Rats

Group 4 Donald Ducks

Group 5 Winner, Winner, Pig Dinner

Group 6 Oily Buffalos

Group 7 Se7en

Group 8 The 8 Balls

Group 9 The Ninjas

The energy was high and it was fantastic to see some real breakthroughs of courage, creativity, and teamwork right through camp. Everyone embraced the chaos of our Inflatable City and the Snowy River Wombat hole to the speed of The Giant Swing and Flying Fox, the fear-inducing darkness of the Cave, and the dizzying heights of the Leap of Faith and the Rock Wall. Laser Skirmish was a hit, as was the chance to meet Mitch and Monty in Snake and Nails.

On Thursday morning we paused for an intentions session before our next rounds of activities. We then ran our epic Monster Course, our Mud Run through a number of physical activities that got everyone, including the coaches and teachers, wet, muddy, and exhausted. The water proved very cold and difficult to battle through towards the end of our second lap. It was so inspiring to see everyone push through to the very end.

On Friday after we completed our final rounds of activities we asked each group to vote on their tribe's Values winner, or the person they felt committed most to our Five Keys. We then wrapped up the day with some thank you’s and read out the times and revealed the values winners from each group before we were able to reward all our values winners with an epic ride in our Army Tank. We then sadly said our goodbyes as the kids boarded the buses.

The times and scores for the activities and the values winners were:

Thank you all again from Myself, Liam, Spinks, Sunny, Ella, Sam, Yves, Mim, Ash, Lina, Emily, Marcus, and Logan, and we can't wait to see the Preston students back again soon.

Adam

The Summit

Values Winners