Kids Minicamp Report (9 – 13 yr olds):
Minicamp kicked off on Friday night with energisers and name games to get to know each other. Once we were all familiar with each other’s names, we got together to make our placemats for the following day. After supper, lullabies and flag it was lights out to get us recharged for a busy Saturday ahead.
On Saturday morning we began with flag and breakfast, and after washing our dishes we were straight into activity one. For the first half of the day we focused on teamwork and cooperation. For this we got into teams to play hockey and ‘Gemma’s Fun Chair Game’. After a morning tea break we got into teams again to play ‘cross the river’, moving across the activity hall from one side to the other without touching the floor. Then we built bridge structures that would carry an egg from one side to the other. It was very impressive how teams worked together to build their bridges with creativity and strong communication, and we managed to get through each bridge with using only one egg!
After a yummy lunch of Mac and Cheese (with seconds and thirds), we focused on communication for activity three. By practicing how easy (and sometimes funny) it is for messages to get lost in translation, and it was great to see the kids making some very thoughtful and observant discussion points on how we can better communicate with people from different cultures in our everyday interactions.
For our biggest activity of the day we drew inspiration from the Dr Seuss story of The Sneeches. From this story the kids were able to reflect together on inequality. Our amazing CISV kids applied their own knowledge of the world to interpret the story, including suggestions on how to deal with bullies at school and making friends with those who are excluded.
After dinner of cottage pie and salad, we met together with the Junior Branch and the kids to create skits. Groups created sort plays remaking a movie. The plays were very funny, with all of the kids showing us some great talent! Then supper, lullabies and lights out. On Sunday morning we enjoyed spaghetti on toast for breakfast, packed up our rooms, and then joined together for our last activity of camp. The Junior branch ran some fun inside games for us to keep us out of the rain, and then we finished up camp with a final flag and announcements for upcoming camps. Thanks for the parents and leaders who helped out, we can’t run our amazing camps without you.
JB Minicamp report (14+ yr olds) :
When we got to camp we played indoor football until all the registrations were done then we had the traditional activities of name games in order to learn everybody’s name at camp. After supper and lullabies the JB (junior branch) stayed up and did Sophie’s night activity. This involved in the JB making teams, doing many fun tasks and challenges (e.g. blowing Ping-Pong balls into a cup) and racing against the other teams. Team Iron-man took this one out and won this activity with the prize of an L&P can of drink.
In the morning, we did flag (a song explaining CISV ideals) and we had a tasty breakfast of cereal and toast and we sang Kiitos (another song thanking the cooks of the breakfast in a mix of Scandinavian languages). The JB afterwards, had Georgia’s activity which was a training on how to plan activities as we were divided into two groups and were then asked to plan an activity with the valuable knowledge that Georgia had just told as in 20 minutes and out of that came two great activities that could be used for next minicamp! We then had morning tea and then had Zoe, Helen’s and Ellie’s interesting activity on religion in school with three made up religions of custard, sausages and Macaroni attending a school as different situations came which in turn altered the school’s curriculum as the JB had to argue if the school’s decisions were right or wrong. It was a very interesting activity. All the thinking made us hungry so we were thankful that we had lunch.
After lunch we had Steven and Caleb’s activity on gender and sexual orientation activity. We were divided into 2 groups and asked to make a life story of someone who was transgender and gay/bisexual (Steven and Caleb gave us the person’s quick description) and then we swapped and based on their life story was asked to draw what we thought they would look like; resulting in two very interesting characters. We then had discussions on the “ordinary” quality of the characters and discussed why there was discrimination on people like those in the world. Another very interesting, thought provoking activity.
The JB then had a snack and a drink for afternoon tea, got dressed into clothes that could get wet and had Josh’s and Noah’s running activity on the Israel-Palestine conflict this educational activity was a fun way to educate the JB on the conflict that has been going on since after WWII and made the JB understand the main issues with the conflict and see both sides of the argument with Palestine being largely outnumbered by Israel’s until the point of near-absolute occupation.
We then had a tasty dinner, did Kiitos once more and was the Saturday night tradition of skits. These skits were based off a movie, within the skit they had to have a famous, recognisable celebrity/person in the play and also had to have a famous quote (e.g. “Luke, I am your father”). When the groups came back after their half an hour of planning there was a final twist. The leaders of the group either had their hands tied behind their backs or blindfolded. For some groups this did not matter but yet others (most notably Simba in the Lion King skit) this was a challenge overcome with great creativity and the help of laughter from the audience which summed up yet another great skit night.
After skit night, we had night time snacks, lullabies, the CISV song and after the night-angels were back from getting the kids into bed the JB did Ryun’s night activity as it was led by Mackenzie. This involved everyone writing down there greatest fear on a piece of paper, this was written on a board and people guessed whose were whose. It was really fun and this made us succeed in our goal to have fun night activities rather than serious because we are all tired compared to the minicamps before when the activities weren’t taken as seriously as they needed to be taken. We then all went to bed after we had a session of dancing in the hall.
When we awoke we had breakfast, sang Kiitos for the last time that minicamp, and went and tidied everything until it was spotless. Eventually, we had our last activity that was run by Ayesha, Ellie and Zoe as this was the classical game “Mickey mouse”. This is when everybody is originally given a Disney/ Pixar character and the person with a free spot on their right asks for a character. When called the person has to move to that spot and you have to swap card. The first of the two teams to get all their own team members on 4 key spots wins, a game of memory and fun! Especially well done to Ayesha, Ellie and Zoe as their initial activity was supposed to be outside, but it rained so well done to them for being adaptable! Finally, we then all said good-bye to each other and especially to the delegation that was going to Spain in the next week.
Overall, for the JB it was a success, fun minicamp and all there is to do is make it better and even more fun!
CISV New Zealand 