ChildrenCampReport2011

Links to: ChildrenAndFamilies CouncilPage

Report from GWUC Camp 8-10th April 2011

1. Attendence

25 people, including 10 children (under 12) for the whole weekend. Two visitors (adult and child) for Saturday and one person for Saturday night. Greg and Judy Fry were there during the day, but stayed off-site. Chris Barnett – Synod Children and Family worker came to take some studies on Saturday morning.

2. Place

Merricks Lodge – Hillside It was decided to have the camp fully catered. This meant that the cost was a little higher, but it meant that 6 meals were supplied, plus biscuits, fruit and drinks for morning tea, afternoon tea and some cakes for supper. They also washed up for us, and did cleaning on the Sunday.

3. Cost

$110 for adults (6yo and over), $55 for children (3-5 yo), free for infants (0-2yo). These numbers were rounded up from $108 and $54 (what we paid Merricks), which allowed us to pay for Chris and have a small surplus. The forms and money were sent to the office and co-ordinated by the office.

4. Program

see below

5. Comments from Camp Co-ordinator

This was a camp that was organized in a sustainable way, i.e. I would be happy to do it again as it was not too onerous. There were three reasons for this:

• That we chose the catered option. This took away a large amount of organizing, including menu preparation, buying food, transporting it, cooking it and all the rosters. It was overwhelmingly thought that this was a very good idea, especially by the Mums, as it also made for a much more relaxing camp, i.e. gave us time and space to socialize rather than spend time doing chores. Most people were willing to pay a little extra (and I suspect it only cost a little more) for this and it made the camp much more enjoyable. I don’t think that reducing the price a little would have enabled others to come, whilst having the camp catered made the camp much easier to organize. We offered financial help to those that needed it, but the offer was not taken up.
• That people were willing to organize a part of the program. Most of the families were part of organizing one part of the program. Everyone did a great job of it, and it meant that there were a number of different styles etc. This approach actually meant that we have no meetings to organize the camp, after from a couple of discussions at the Children’s and Families team meetings.
• That the basic administration, i.e. accepting forms, doing the banking, writing cheques etc could be done through the church office. This meant that I did not have to handle money (although I did the accounting for it), which I think is important for transparency reasons as well.

I thought Chris Barnett’s input was good and having it at Merrick’s made it easy for him to join us just for the Saturday morning and lunchtime. Debbie Davey took the kids for the morning so the parents could have time with Chris without the kids. Having someone from outside to run studies/input worked well, although someone internally could do it too. It was also good to share worship on Sunday morning, which was taken by Greg Fry.

The main disappointment that was expressed is that more people, particularly other families, did not attend. However, it was also thought that having a small group was very helpful for the development of the camp community, which may be more difficult with larger numbers. So there are advantages and disadvantages for trying to make the camp large (and making it something that a large number of GWUC come to) and for making it particularly for families.

I have included the comments from people to some questions that I emailed after the camp at the end of the document.

Everyone is very keen to do it again next year at Merrick’s, also on the first weekend of the school holidays (30th March to April 1st), with catering supplied. I am happy to co-ordinate again, given the support of everyone and the use of catering.

Mark Easton.

6. GWUC Family Camp 8-10th April 2011 - Program

7. Evaluations

• What was the best thing about the camp?

Getting together in a different setting, having a chance to chat and to see the kids interacting so beautifully. And not having to cook or clean.

The best thing about camp was the opportunity to go. For me, it was the chance to chat with some other families and have time in a designated 'god-space' for a while. For the kids I think it was being with the other children, having fun, doing craft, and playing

Not being rushed and spending time with great people and God Chatting with other parents. Other good things were the scavenger hunt, good food. The desserts. Sleepover

time away from home, doing something different/fun/with church families/having weekend fully catered.

building a sense of community, and not having to cook or clean up lots of different people taking responsibility for different activities/sharing the load seeing the fun the kids had

• What was the most disappointing thing about the camp?

That there were not others there with us.

Most disappointing was that we couldn't stay for the weekend. It would have been great to stay for longer but other commitments and the cost made it a little difficult.

no disappointments Nothing new such as a ropes course or mini-golf Meals too big. Walking on beaches & food - would of liked more bacon.

can't think of anything -except weather

we should have got a camp photo of everyone And it would have been nice if people from other congregations came along

• Were there things in the program that we should remove or other things that we could add next time?

I cannot think of anything - I liked that there was free time, as well as learning for us grown ups! I liked having scheduled activities.

I liked the structured free-time as it meant people still spent it together doing fun stuff. The craft activities were great!

program fine. Maybe a little bible study. Get rid of beach. Wanted an Easter Egg Hunt. Keep kids sleep over. Wanted hot cross buns. Remove beach, have more easter eggs

would have preferred to be more flexible so we can make best use of the weather. eg we had to keep schedule as guest speaker was coming in the morning.

more faith at home stuff

• Did you like Merricks as a campsite? Should we go there again next year? Other suggestions?

Loved Merricks. When you know how to get there and do not get lost it is not too far away, and it is much nicer than the site at Grantville. I have not seen any other Uniting Church Camps, but thought that the facilities were great, really clean, and the size of the space was good. The grounds were amazing with heaps to do - if the weather had been better - so there are still new things to do next time which is good.

Merricks was lovely. Nice and close too which is helpful when you need to get there after working on Friday. The meal we had was lovely too which is good, and the options of fruit and salad (as well as the soup and vol-u-vent) made for variety even if children didn't like one bit.

Merricks great, go again in 2 years time, maybe try a different location next year. Liked it & as a known place it is sensible to visit it again. Merricks again Merricks again.

happy with Merricks

yes, happy to go to Merricks again

• Do you have any suggestions to make the camp better next time?

Not really. Maybe promoting it a bit harder so that others will come, but having just us was nice too...

Not really sure, but I think it would be great if we could encourage some more families from GWUC to attend. It was disappointing that there are families who attend 9:30 am and none of them came along. Not sure if they didn't know about it, or thought it was only for 4:30 families, but maybe we could encourage them for next year.

No

Active sporting options such as team tunnel ball, tag, 'warm up' group games. Wanted mini-golf. More shelter if it rains, more deck area.

good - enjoyed all activities

• If we have a camp next year, we could do one of the following options:
  • A. GWUC camp, first weekend of the holidays at Merricks (30th March - 1st April)
  • B. Join in the the Synod family camp (this year it was the long weekend in March
  • C. Join in with a Merricks family camp extravaganza, where a number of different churches come together on the long weekend in March
  • D. GWUC camp, somewhere else under a different format.

I am all in favour of doing the same again, but will be there not matter what happens! I think that the camp should be, at this stage, just for GWUC as we try and build out community across families in the different services, so would prefer it if we were just GWUC in this instance. That said, in future years a group camp would be good. I think that a group camp would have made things harder to monitor the children, and made it difficult with Joel. I liked that we were more or less on our own, so we could let the kids go to a certain extent, believing them to be safe. As discussed, having the camp start on the day that school finishes is great, as the kids can be late to bed with no concerns about school and routines.

I think at the moment we should try and build up our own GWUC camp. If we meet with others then we all need to work together and this might not suit our agenda. Maybe it's something we could do later down the track. For personal reasons it would be even harder to get my partner to come along to something where there are people from other churches and he mightn't feel he has the flexibility to opt out of stuff if he wants to.

A or D A, c, or D OK. Not keen on B. A A

A - keep same. encourage more families within GWUC to attend.

Option A. This is a good opportunity to build a sense of community amongst GWUC families. I don't think we are ready (as a community) to join with other churches yet.