JB Report
Minicamp this weekend was held at Piha. Our first activity on Friday evening after playing soccer whilst waiting for everyone to arrive, started with name games, so that we all got to introduce ourselves and was a good icebreaker for the camp.
We then had lullabies and sung everyone’s favourites, including ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Love Story’. After the Junior members went to bed, we embarked on an activity run by Harrison, who has travelled up from the Christchurch Chapter, for this minicamp. This was a thought provoking activity that made us question why our rules of society exist in the way we’ve made them. This also resulted in a passionate debate amongst the JBs.
On Saturday morning, we had flag time, which involves being in a circle, and singing the CISV song. The lyrics of this represent what CISV is about. We then had breakfast, followed by Kiitos (which is a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the kitchen staff, in many different languages. We do this after each meal).
This year, CISV is focusing on diversity and therefore we try and base our Minicamp activities around this.
So the first activity on Saturday, the JBs did was run by Sophie. This activity involved showing us music videos which we had to analyse from an alien perspective, and report back to the alien leader, aka Sophie. Then we looked at it from a human perspective and showed the difference between different genders perspectives. This led to a discussion about a Pop Star in this case, Mylie Cyrus, and we discussed whether what she portrays is ok, or if it is wrong by society’s standards. The point of this activity was to get us to see how loose the rules in the music industry can be, especially when it comes to the female gender.
We then had morning tea and this was followed by Noah’s activity. In this, he got the participants to make a religion based on political ideas. The participants of the activity were then given various situations and they had to debate which was the ‘right way’ in how to act upon the situation. This led to differing opinions and Noah explored the theme of how to make a correct decision with diverse views from everyone.
Noah’s activity was followed by a yummy lunch of Nachos and salad. After Kiitos and washing up, though our voices were sore, we were ready to go into the next activity. This was run by some of the delegation who went away to the Step Up camp in Washington last year (Adam, Steven and Ellie). This activity was when everyone was split into groups and given different personas. We then had to decide as a group who to send away to a paradise island when ours was sinking. We then learnt information about our characters, every round, therefore changing our decision of whom to send. The point of this is that you can’t ‘judge a book by its cover’ and have to consider everyone as an equal person.
We then had afternoon tea and played a giant game of Snakes and Ladders, with the Juniors. The twist was every time they rolled, they had to go away and do a different activity. If they completed the activity successfully, they then could roll again. A Personal favourite of an activity, was to carry an egg around the entire rest of the game and if they cracked it, they had to start again. Also another favourite was when the group who landed on the square had to make a companion and carry him around for the rest of the game.
We then had dinner – which was a truly scrumptious curry, with Nan bread and samosas, followed by ice cream.
We then had our regular, Saturday night Minicamp skits. This involved getting into groups and making a play about Cinderella, except each group was given a different line they had to say from a Miley Cyrus song, had to use a kitchen utensil and was given a disability for one of their characters. After this, we rolled into the night activity after supper and lullabies, when the Juniors went to bed.
We played a game called ‘eggplosion / wregging ball’. This involved tying a raw egg to a string and the string around your waist with the help of sellotape. We then battled it out and tried to make the other person’s egg explode without cracking our own one. This was achieved by swaying our hips, so the egg would make contact with the other. The epic final, was between the two Step Up delegates who went to Mexico – Ruby and Noah. The rules had changed slightly for the final – it had to be yolk on the floor, instead of a slight crack. Noah and his egg were victorious and boasts about it to this day!
We awoke again to flag time on Sunday morning, followed by spaghetti on toast for breakfast. After cleaning out our cabins, had JBs had their Minicamp evaluation where the Minicamp planner, sees what could be done better for the next Minicamp.
We then had our final activity which was planned by Ruby, Caleb, Josh and Jamie, with help from Adam and Sophie to run it. This involved all the campers, and was a giant game of Cluedo, where the participants ran around and did different activities to get information from different witnesses. It finally resulted in finding out that Mr Meihoff killed Jeremy (the puppet from the snakes and ladder activity) in the lullabies room with a felt tip pen 😦
We then had flag time again, said our goodbyes to our old and new friends. We went home tired, but buzzing about another great CISV Minicamp.
Junior Branch
CISV New Zealand 