| 125th Anniversary Camp at Kirkham |
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As this year is the 125th Anniversary of the Boys' Brigade, the North West District organised a camp for brigades right across the region to join. 1st Haslington was one of the lucky brigades to get a place at the camp and went with a group of 10 lads up to the Boys' Brigade Training Centre in Kirkham where the event was being held.
After a rock concert of a jounery to the camp, we were all introduced to our 8 man tents which one of the two would be shared with another Company. We all set up and got to know some of the lads on site before signing up for the next day's events.
The choice of events were plentiful and there was much to choose from including Football, Self Defence, Tree Climbing, Kayaking, playing video games on a huge TV and many more. All this would be ran at a local outdoor collage opened especially for the Camp. We all selected four different events for the day and then enjoyed the activities avaliable from the camp on that Friday evening. Films, social rooms and a tuck shop was all very avaliable for boys on site and of course there were plenty of opportunities to make friends.
The next day, getting up early may have been a problem for a lot of boys as breakfast was served early and many had spent the night enjoying themselves rather than getting any sleep! 1st Haslington though rose to the challenge and got breakfast, which included sausages, bacon and cereal, and prepared for the day ahead.
We were soon at the collage, where to my great surprise learnt what tree climbing really was about. The aim of the exercise was to climb a rather high tree using ropes to lift you up. Being scared of heights myself found this all of a sudden a bit scary, however with the help of our instructor for the session I was well on the way and actually surprisingly enjoyed it.
The next activity I moved onto was the big screen computer games. For me, this was more my territory and with feet firmly on the ground, I tried my luck at Need for Speed Underground (a car racing game) and surprisingly won against Robert Dixon.
Time soon flew by and I moved onto my next activity which was Football. Football was great fun and I ended up in a team that lost all the way but still a great way to get out and enjoy the reasonable weather we were having.
After a big lunch, I went for my final activity of the day which was self defence. This was another thing I hadn't encountered before and very much looked forward to learning some basic self defence. I realised that Self Defence wasn't all about the Kong Fu stuff I imagined it to be but actually proved to be quite useful and not to mention enjoyable. It made me realise all the simple little things I could do in life to make sure I can get out of a difficult situation.
Of course though, this was only a taster of the range of things the boys could have done on the day and it was all very much enjoyed by everyone, even the leaders!
Back at the camp site, everyone settled in for another night of camping. Again the evening offered films, social areas and the 24 hour tuck shop for the boys to enjoy. It was also a chance for boys to sign up for the next day's events which were to take place on the camp site run by the leaders.
The next day everyone again got up early to enjoy another wonderful breakfast prepared by the staff and to get involved in some of the events on offer. These included: A Pub Quiz but without the booze, a shape making exercise with some ropes blind folded, Scalextric and various other activities to keep us occupied. We also had a session of worship which was made fun with bands playing and various activities and chats to help with the worship.
Many of the boys will agree with me that the Camp was really worth going on, many of us made friends and tried new activities we thought we would never do. It all came home to us what being in the Boys' Brigade is all about. Good behaviour by lads meant that 1st Haslington had a comfortable weekend camping. Well done all who attended.
Ryan Mellor