Friday night launched off in the activity hall at 8 pm with games to get us familiar with each other’s names, and getting to know each other. We always love a mixture of brand new participants and seasoned CISVers, so beginning camp this way gives us an opportunity to bond before continuing onto the rest of camp as a team.
After names games, we made our placemats for the weekend. We use this as another opportunity get familiar with each other, and then we mix up the placemats every meal time to make sure we all have a chance to talk with different people throughout camp. After completing our placemats we went off to get ready for bed, grab some biscuits and a drink of water for supper, and then gathered back together in the activity hall from our ‘wind down’ time singing a few lullabies together. At 9.30 it was lights out, ready for a big day on Saturday!
Saturday morning kicked off at 8 am with breakfast of cereal and toast, then straight onto activity one which was running games. After morning tea and a big drink of water, we met for activity two, which was on the Challenge Valley obstacle course.
Lunch was filled rolls with all the fixings! Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, ham, tuna, and hummus and mayo for everyone to make their roll.
Activity three after lunch was led by our Junior – Junior Branch. This is the group in our chapter that is transitioning up into Junior Branch. This activity was planned entirely by them, along with some guidance from the leaders, and was an opportunity for them to get some experience planning and facilitating activities. They planned a fun strategic running game, and we can’t wait to have them plan more activities in our minicamps!
After afternoon tea of a biscuit, fruit and some water, we gather back together for our big afternoon activity. As it was International Languages week a few weeks ago, Heba lead us in an activity that focused on communicating beyond language, and taught us all how to write our names in Arabic!
We had a dinner of chicken pasta bake (delicious) followed by peach crumble and ice cream, and then gathered in the hall for the camp favourite of Saturday night skits! Working in groups with the Junior branch and younger groups together, we had to come up with a short skit which included the provided character, a sentence, and be an alternative ending to a well-known movie (like The Lord of The Rings or Shrek). The skits were hilarious. After this, we went off to get ready for bed, grab some biscuits and a drink of water for supper, and then gathered back together in the activity hall to sing a few lullabies together.
On Sunday after breakfast together, we cleaned up our cabins and then met for our last activity together.
We finished the camp with a few of the favourite energisers. The JB ran a fun activity of chance, where people moved through the stages depending on the cards drawn from a deck.
Thank you so much to everyone who helped out on camp. We cannot hold our mini-camps without parent support throughout the weekend, and in the organising coming up to camp. As a non-profit organisation, everything is done for the love of it, so it makes a huge impact any time that people can put aside to contribute to our camps and our organisation.
CISV New Zealand 