This year's STARS Adventure Camp at the Wellesley Conference Centre in the Akatarawas was another great success. The weather was beautiful allowing for all sorts of fun in the sun.
As far as activities went the usual suspects were there; from the flying fox, archery, orienteering, to the confidence course, low ropes, raft making, Burma bridge and of course the early morning run up the hill!
One of the main highlights included students spending the night away from their cabins, setting up their bivvys at a nearby camp site and sleeping under the STARS! The good ol’ roasted marshmallows and camp fire made an appearance. As for singing camp fire songs, the teachers tried to ignite their old school tunes, the students sung maybe a chorus or two and the rest of the night was just about coming up with as many bad jokes as possible!
A really pleasing aspect of this year’s camp was seeing the STARS Peer Mentors really step it up in terms of participation and leadership. So much so that when the male Peer Mentors had an opportunity towards the end of the camp to have a real heart-to-heart with all their Year 9 students, they took an impromptu moment to share their individual experiences from their own STARS journeys and from being a year 9 student themselves to actually becoming a STARS Peer Mentor. The Peer Mentors spoke amazingly well and offered a lot of encouragement to the younger students. Their comments were heart-felt and received applause after applause.
Another highlight of the camp, what has become a bit of a tradition over the last few years, is the STARS Top Team Challenge. In this we see class vs. class battling in various challenges (which normally include getting really wet) for the honour of being crowned the “STARS Top Team Champions”. The overall winner is the group that has accumulated the most points at the completion of the challenge. Points were awarded for punctuality, challenge results and for team spirit.
An integral part of the Camp experience is the students putting together their Graduation Performances. This is normally the old camp skit performances but with STARS it is an opportunity for the students to perform their end-of-the-year graduation items to the rest of the STARS classes. This year’s items included singing, dancing and acting. The items were amazingly creative, hilarious and inspirational! It provided an opportunity for students who came across as being quite shy to really shine in their group environment. On the whole the students went up a level from last year’s performances and the teachers got in on the act supporting their classes with much enthusiasm.
Overall the STARS Adventure camp experience set up an excellent foundation to the STARS programme. It really created a bond and built the rapport between the Peer Mentors and their Year 9 students. This was apparent upon returning to school over the following weeks where the teachers reported seeing Year 9s genuinely excited to see their Mentors around school and the Mentors really engaging the Year 9s in the school playground.
From the STARS perspective another year, another camp, another success! Many thanks to Diana Kelly and her BVC crew, and to all the staff at Wellesley Conference Centre.
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