Jack Roberts Camp 2006 “Underwater World”
Underwater World 2006, The Jack Roberts Camp for Youth with Disabilities – What an amazing experience it was this year, it was the best and smoothest run camp I have been involved in (and that has been a few).
For the past 41 years there has been a week long camp running at the Oakbank Racecourse during January where Venturers work one-on-one with a Boy with a Disability to let them experience “Scouting”. By saying this we give these boys a chance to camp under canvas, and get out and about and take part in many activities we take for granted having the ability to do by being in scouting (obstacle courses, water fights, dunking machines, bucking drums etc).
Each Year the camp has a theme which all the activities which occur during the week are tied into, this years theme was Underwater World which fitted in really well with most of our activities. It was a hot week which lent itself to using “water” a lot which meant our theme slotted in very well indeed. During the week we run a couple of days of onsite activities as well as 2 offsite activities (Visits) and a Pool day at the local School. This year we had some fantastic onsite activities, from the dunking machine, to the water slide (thanks to Carl Bowey for setting that up for us) on the wet side of things, to the Catapults and Pirate ships on the dryer side of events, all the activities were enjoyed by all.
Our offsite activities this year were again sponsored by the Variety Club whose support is always greatly appreciated (both bus costs and entrance fees to our visits are covered by this organisation). This year we made a trip to Victor Harbour where we visited the Whale centre and then had a picnic lunch of fish and chips. We also visited Murray Bridge where the Local Lions Club arranges for a Murray River Cruise, which of course must then be followed by a visit to the Bunyip and then this year a shopping expedition into Murray Bridge.
Each year the camp is coordinated via a “Central” committee which brings together representatives of the Scout Association, CARA (agency who bring the youth with disabilities to camp) and the Onkaparinga Lions club who support the camp greatly both with storage and transportation of gear but also with gaining financial support from other Lions clubs in South Australia. This committee works hard throughout the year to ensure the camps infrastructure is all in place. One important function of this committee is to gain financial support from many different fronts and this year donations were very gratefully accepted from Dick Smith Electronics and the Royal Ancient Order of the Buffalos, as well as the various Lions clubs involved, this was all on top of the Variety club’s sponsorship of the offsite activities.
Onto the true scouting side of the camp, this year we had 28 Venturers at camp this year and our “leader” team of 16 adults from various scouting backgrounds (lifetime members, VL’s, SL’s, Rovers and PAL’s). As the camps director my aim is to always challenge the Venturers who attend our camp as I feel too much of the challenge has gone out of Venturer activities these days. These Venturers work together in patrols to look after a “buddy” one on one for the week it’s a 24 hour a day job and by the end of the week the Venturers who have come to camp are exhausted but have done so much and had so much fun that they always seem to want to come back. The work the Venturers do is just amazing, from assisting with the things we all take for granted, the ability to get up, get dressed, brush our teeth etc for some of the buddies to just being there as someone to talk to for some of the other buddies. The ideal that is enforced at camp is to make sure all of the buddies are given the opportunity and chance to take part in the activities we organise. To see the smile on the kids faces gives everyone an amazing feeling which cant be described adequately in this article.
To watch these Young Adults come along to the camp and the change that takes place during a week is just amazing to watch, and no matter how many times the Venturers come back you know that they have learnt something new about themselves each year. I know personally I still learn something about myself every year I work on this camp.
I always seem to forget to mention some people in these articles so I must extend a big thank you to our Cooks who again (for I think its now the 7th year as a team) produced another years worth of delicious food. I always say our camp is the best value for money camp there is as we have gourmet food prepared for us by 2 life-members of the association in Barb Hahesy and Eileen Peters.
Our Staff/Leader team this year was an amazing team of people, with a few new people thrown in on top of the existing core of people who have been involved in the camp for a number of years. Running the Jack Roberts Camp involves work all year round in the background to ensure activities are organised, infrastructure for a camp is available and most importantly enough Venturers are recruited.(one of my sayings is we work 51 weeks a year for a 1 week camp). All our leaders come from quite different backgrounds and with various life experiences but for 1 week each year we seem to gel and work together as a great team of people all working towards the common aim of having our “buddies” have the time of their life for that one week each year.
The camp was a great success this year, the buddies had a ball (which is the important thing) and as always I think all who attended, both Venturers and Adults were challenged and learnt something about themselves and their abilities. Planning is well underway for the Jack Roberts Camp for Youth with Disabilities 2007 (14th-21st January 2007), theme to be announced.
Ross Vivian
Camp Director (Jack Roberts Camp for Youth with Disabilities)
PC Special Needs
LOCO Venturer Leader
