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Summer Camp 2009

My name is George and I am 11 years old. I train on Mondays and Wednesdays with Mr Nicholson, and am currently a green stripe in Tae Kwon Do. Last year I went to the Summer Camp in Dorset with 3 other members of our club, I had such a great time that when Mr Nicholson mentioned it was happening again this year I didn’t hesitate to sign up for it; but little did I realise that this year I would be going on my own!

When I discovered I was the only one from the club going to summer camp, I felt very nervous and scared about the idea of being the only member of our club going, almost to the point that I didn’t want to go at all. But backing out of it completely would have been the easy thing to do. I talked about my worries to my parents and my Aunty Rebecca. My parents reminded me of what a great time I had last year and of all the new friends I had made. My Aunty Rebecca made me see what a great opportunity it was to spend a few days away from my parents and little brother Joe! I was glad I talked about my worries as their advice put me at ease, so once again I made the trip down to Dorset, and once again I had a terrific time!

I Arrived at Buddens Scout Camp on a sunny Friday afternoon, not realising that my parents had spoken to Mr Nicholson about my nerves and that he had already spoken to the camp organiser, Mr Bale, that I would be coming alone and was very nervous. But Mr Bale, along with the other team leaders made me feel very welcome and arranged for me to share a tent with two other boys; Ben and Jason. After I had set up my camp bed and unpacked my things, I felt so at ease because of everyone being so kind and friendly, that I booted my parents off camp in order for the fun to begin!

As I was getting to know my ‘tent buddies’ Ben and Jason, Mr Bale called all of the camp members together to talk about the rules of the camp, how to defend ourselves against bears and how not to lose an arm by getting too close to the monkeys at monkey world! We were given our camp T-shirts (skull and crossbones design, pretty cool!) which I put on. Then Mr Bale organised us into our teams for the weekend. My team leader was Mr Walker, and we named our team “The Burning Trotters”. Don’t ask us how we came to that name – it’s a long and complicated story! Still, it wasn’t the worst team name by far! The other teams were called, Ninja.com, Flares, G-Force, and Bow-chick-a-wow-wow! All teams also had to make up their own song.

After we’d been split into teams and eaten dinner in the camp cottage, Mr Bale told us about the midnight walk and how we should look out for heroes hiding in the woods. We all thought he’d gone a little bit mad until we bumped into Spiderman and the Ginger Ninja along the way! After an entertaining walk, I settled down to sleep with my new friends and a nice warm cup of hot chocolate.

On Saturday morning we were up bright and early. Myself, Ben and Jason tidied our tent for inspection then headed off for breakfast at the cottage. After breakfast, we changed into our Dobok’s ready for training. I thought it might be really hard training with a different instructor, but it was a lot of fun, and we played lots of games and did lots of kicking drills, a great experience!

After our TKD lesson we went to Monkey World. We spent about an hour looking at the monkeys (the Capuchins were my favourite), and another 3 hours on the obstacle course which was awesome! We had a race to the obstacle course against the instructors and the children won (sorry Mr Nicholson!), because some of the instructors were still too busy looking at the monkeys! When we returned to camp it was time for belly sliding! For those of you who don’t know what belly sliding is, it’s when you place a huge plastic sheet down the side of a hill cover it in a soapy, watery mixture and slide down it. At camp, we had the added bonus of a little pool being at the bottom of the hill so as you can imagine, we all got very wet and very muddy, but had great fun!

The belly sliding was followed by a much needed shower, BBQ, a midnight walk, more delicious hot chocolate and a good night’s sleep!

Sunday morning started in much the same way as Saturday, with breakfast, a tent inspection, followed by a TKD lesson. The lesson involved more games, martial arts and even how to build a human pyramid! After the TKD lesson we spent time in our teams in order to choreograph a demonstration to perform in front of all the parents when they came to collect us later that day. Our team’s (The Burning Trotters) demonstration included some self defence, sparring, patterns and of course, lots of kicking!

Once we had perfected our routines, we armed ourselves with our water guns for a massive water fight. I managed to catch a water bomb and throw it at my team leader Mr Walker who got just a little bit wet! After a long battle, both teams decided to call it a truce! We all dried off for lunch and had more team games in the form of the camp mini Olympics whilst we waited for our parents to arrive.

When all of the parents arrived, we performed our demonstrations and were given the results for the team events over the weekend in an awards ceremony. Much to my surprise, The Burning Trotters came first and I am now the proud owner of a gold medal from summer camp! It was the perfect end to a great weekend!

I had such a great time due to all the hard work and efforts of the team leaders and Instructors, and a huge thank-you goes out to all of them including the kind ladies at the cottage who kept us fed and watered over the weekend.

I learnt a great deal from summer camp, I got to practice my TKD, learn new things from the higher grades and greatly improve my self confidence. I have also made lots of new friends that I am looking forward to seeing again, either at next years camp or at forthcoming events such as competitions. But above all I learnt that sometimes it can be good to challenge myself, even if it seems a little bit scary at the time, and have proved to myself that once I put my mind to something I am capable of achieving anything!

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