Theme Park Camp 2006

On a dry and sunny Friday early in September, a couple of Summit Network go pick up a long wheelbase transit, and go pick up the scaff tower from one place, and the disco stuff from two other places, then meet down the hut. Meanwhile another is getting all the stuff we need out of the shed (yes, we really do have a shed full). Meanwhile another is picking up more disco stuff from a mate. Meanwhile I drive the love bus** round my mum and dads house, and mum (gawd bless 'er!) helps me sort my costume, for the fancy dress night, out, as I've been too busy replying to emails, sorting out extra coaches, etc etc to sort it out. I then pop to a couple of shops for some last minute stuff. Get home with just enough time to make a sarnie, and chuck all my stuff in the back of the bus.

** a monumentally crappy minibus we borrow of a local group.

I get down the hut, and everyone who is supposed to be there is there, and the van is nearly packed. The car drivers go home, and I pick them up from there (not safe to leave the cars by the hut over the weekend), and we're off! (Via someone's house to pick up some saucepans)

It's all a blur of unpacking, setting up, and taking a moment to enjoy this currently peaceful corner of Cobham. It's then another blur of action as over the next few hours 400 people turn up and are shown round and told where to camp. About 250 are 14-18, the rest leaders and Network, we have groups from Barnstable , Coventry , Sussex , Essex, Suffolk , and many points in between.

Over the weekend we run a couple of discos, one fancy dress, in which 23 of us all dress up as Star Wars characters (I'm the evil emperor), run bingo (6 and 9, 69, dinner for two), there's a couple of inflatable things on Saturday night, one's the biggest slide I've EVER seen. Ace! I read a couple of Mr Men books as bedtime stories, complete with the pictures projected onto a screen. The punters find innuendo wherever possible. We have an impromptu sing-along round the campfire. We get 400 people to Thorpe Park and 398 back (a broken wrist, and friend). Lots of people chat to lots of other people, whether they've met before or not.

Sunday morning it's still sunny, everyone packs up and sod's off. I wander round distributing bin bags, and talking to people...wow! They've really genuinely enjoyed themselves, they really have! Man, some of them look tired, but hey, they're happy! And I mean the boingy up and down "it's been totally amazing!" kind of happy. I've been too rushed off my feet to really notice, and so have some of the others, so I'm really glad I did this wander.

Once nearly everyone has gone, the toilets are given a proper clean, by the people who are on the rota to do it. We then do a proper litter sweep, if you've never seen one, it looks like when they do one of those missing person searches in parkland or something, a long line of people moving slowly across the fields. I swear it's tidier than when we got here. And that's how it should be.

Find a stupid sun hat. Put it on. Pay the marquee*** guy. Pay the campsite. Leave. Go back to hut. Re-fill the shed. Drop people off home. Drop the minibus off. Go home. Lurch back to reality. Put the kids to bed. Take the next day off work. Catch up on sleep.

*** Did you know pink post-it notes leech when wet? And it stains plastic marquees? No, neither did I. Not even bleach got it out. Good job we have a damages contingency.

Since then we've had a steady stream of comments and emails, such as...

"=D theme park camp was the actual best!! made loadsa m8s n sooo def comin bak nxt yr if u hav 1!!! please have 1 next year or we wont see everyone again!! thanks sooooo much"

Some are a bit more literate than that ; ) But all say the same thing, thanks for organising it, it was really great, see you next year. Even the 1st aider wants to do it again! So that's kind of why I do it.

Talked to one mum last week, her daughter was ready to give up Explorers when she'd finished her DofE bronze, then she went on our camp, and she's a little bouncy tigger about it again, and she not leaving. So that's also kind of why I do it.

Ian Wilkins, Organiser, September 2006