This is a guest article by MG
2 Sundays ago, we took the Feature Youth Club up to Sedbergh for this free event. Here’s an account of what happened. If anybody has any comments about this review, please feel free to discuss them with me. You'll probably all know my usual disclaimer by now, so I won't post it again.
I began the day by rising earlier than usual in order to do my Sunday paper round (the same one that I was passed from Martin Bell sometime in the mid-nineties) prior to setting off for the Leisure Centre in order to meet-up with the crew. To compound things, I wasn’t feeling great, as Double Hop consumption from the night prior was doing its usual trick of messing with my head and body! But despite this, I tried to get into the right frame of mind for the day ahead.
I arrived at the Leisure Centre to find a whole host of adults and children all awaiting the coach to arrive to ferry us to Sedbergh School. Yes, you heard me correctly – a coach. We had been allocated 40-odd seats on a coach that was also transporting the local Spirit of Youth group to the same event. In his usual style, Dru had managed to fill most of the allocated seats with children and leaders, and when we actually boarded the bus it transpired that nearly all of the seats were filled in one way or another anyway, thus meaning that in terms of transportation the planning had come off with relative success!
Once on the road, it was just a case of waiting until we reached our destination. Which, of course, can be highly challenging with a bus full of children! Thankfully, I was sat to the right of J, who was considerably more on the ball than I was (despite his claims of not being so!), and he had built a good rapport with the surrounding kids, keeping them entertained / amused. Excellent stuff. At one point, we found that crumpled, wet paper was being thrown at us from the rear of the bus. We tried to spot who it was for a while (we thought it may have been one of the other group), only for it to turn out that it was actually Faye G (hysterics). We should have guessed.
As we approached Sedbergh, the bus was becoming increasingly rowdy (if I remember correctly), and I passed comment that I was thankful that the current trend of this happening closer to a journey’s end rather than at the beginning was highly favourable. It means that you can grit your teeth and bear it out, rather than continually having to tell the kids off (hysterics).
Sedbergh School is not small. Its based on more than one site, and covers an area that’s probably on a similar scale to that of UVHS (I’ve got to remember how big UVHS is here!), if not larger. Once manoeuvred into position (this took a fair while!), the bus came to a standstill a few hundred yards away from the Celebration Day site. We grabbed our stuff, evacuated the bus and headed off. It wasn’t what I was expecting when I got there (regular readers of these articles probably know that I’m not great at predicting what these sorts of events entail!). The school field had been partially filled with a whole host of tents, stands, mobile units and other gear. We split into groups, with the idea that each group would tour the area, visiting whichever tents the children wanted. Me and J were given a group of 7 lads, who in all probability had the potential to be difficult to manage. We’d give it a shot.
Directly after our group was formed, we were instantly collared by a random youth worker, and ushered towards an activity at the side of the main tent. Those of you that read the summer camp review will likely know about the activity where you have to get a group from A to B using only a few small implements to place and stand on (otherwise you ‘fall into the ‘lava’ and die’, or something), and with doormats replacing the small discs we used at Low Wray, the kids set about getting themselves to the other side of the laid out course. The leader here was really good – he’d worked out how many mats were needed to make them one short, but as usual, the kids were smart in repost by fitting more than one person onto each mat! This resulted with more mats being taken away whilst more and more kids squeezed onto the remainders, with a ratio of 3 kids to 1 mat being worked towards the end! The lads had done really well, and on arrival at their destination we thanked the leader and moved on.
After much deliberation / bickering / whatever (hysterics), we moved onto the paintball tent. Only half of the kids wanted a go initially, but this changed once Jack had done his rapid fire session. I got some footage of some of the kids ‘masked up’ and opening fire on the increasingly messy targets, and even I had a go, though my firing technique was more to do with precision than spraying bullets around the shop. I was pretty accurate, too, hitting a good percentage of what I aimed for. Nice.
We then headed over to the other side of the site to see what lay there. Jack had actually managed to tax a paintball bullet and subsequently pierced it, getting paint all over the shop, with the floor thankfully being the main ‘beneficiary’ (hysterics). Once over the other side, we found an assault course and a few golfers hitting balls right in the direction of nearby buildings! Erm, that’s a little dangerous! Of course, when I had a look at the balls and realised they weren’t proper ones you’d use on a course, it all became clear. They never flew very far (i.e. 20 yards tops), unlike a real golf ball that would career into the buildings nearby if hit properly. Curtley apparently plays off a handicap of 40, and even he couldn’t get the ball to go very far. I passed (hysterics).
We then shifted rightwards towards the assault course. This entailed stepping in and out of 5 or 6 tyres, crawling through a cargo net (raised off the ground slightly), rolling a ball at 3 drinks bottles (in a ‘similar’ fashion to bowling at ten-pin bowling), dribbling a ball around some cones, before striking a goal and returning via the same route. The kids were all desperate for a go, and with J setting up some races I was ready to film with the camera. Go! The mad dashes began… Was the footage any good? Who knows. What will be hilarious for everybody except myself is when J filmed me in a race with a random young kid. He had a head-start, and when I was told to start I went about trying to catch up. All was going well until I missed the open net by a country’s width at the top of the course, and subsequently was ‘held’ in rugby style on return by a whole host of kids that wanted to stop me! Wonder how that came out…
It was about 11:35, and as we were due to meet at HQ 5 minutes down the line, we headed back to the other side of the field. Once there, the kids found a football, and a giant Connect 4 game that the lads quickly went to ‘war’ on, which was quite a civilised affair in the end! Greens had yellows trapped and scored once I iterated to the team that they could definitely win if they thought about their final move. Once all 3 groups were back together, we headed off to the swimming baths for a canoeing session. This was to last for an hour. I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to get into the water or not, and following Paul’s advice, I decided to get changed and see what happens once inside. To cut a long story short, I stayed as dry as possible, saw the kids have a ball on the water and unfortunately experienced being the victim of robbery first hand - subsequently actually catching a kid take a person’s wallet from the middle row of the changing rooms. I tried to stop him verbally… Of course, this was never going to work and the piece of lowlife scum scarpered. Hit count: 3 leaders and 2 kids. I hope I can speak for the leadership team by saying that we were extremely grateful that all of the kids (especially the victims) took it exceedingly well, and I have to thank everybody present for their attitude, in what was definitely a tough situation. I sincerely hope we don’t have to experience such incidents in the future.
On leaving the pool, we headed back to the field in order to have lunch. We hadn’t picked the best area to do this – we were stood right outside the DJing booth whilst Paul attempted to guide the troops. This wasn’t working, with some playing connect 4, some playing football and the general noise level being high (there was some terrible attempts at DJing / MCing on show – so this is where we school budding DJs who’ll no doubt get onto the local club rosters). We subsequently decided that it would be a good idea to move away from this area, and we set up a fair distance away around some rugby posts. Dinner time. All was going fairly swimmingly, with J and Karen (FYC leader) heading off with those who wished to buy lunch, and the rest all depositing their packed lunches (or candy floss!) into their stomachs before the afternoon session. Then it started to rain. Not ideal! Thankfully, it wasn’t too much of a downpour so we fared OK, though it would have been interesting if it had have thrown it down harder (not at the time, perhaps, though!). From where we were sat, there was no cover for a good distance, and even then there were only tents to go into – most of which would likely be filled with hordes of other kids from different groups! Potential problem alleviated…
Following lunch, we split into our groups once more and headed our separate ways. The lads wanted to go on the ‘bucking bronco’, which is a bull (obviously not a real one) (hysterics) that moves frantically in the attempt to dislodge its rider. I wouldn’t have stayed on for long, and the group prior to us managed a maximum of 24 seconds between them. 3 of our group lost their shoes, and had a go, with the longest stint beating the time set by the other group by 1 second. The bull wasn’t holding back (hysterics), with one of the other group being thrown off a mere 6 seconds into their attempt with a vicious turn of direction! Pass on that (I’d already made myself look like a complete idiot already during the day without being humiliated by that thing!).
With the weather not the greatest, we waited for a break before moving onto the Royal Airforce trailer at the rear of the field. I’m not sure what was going on here (it looked like a display area, and they were giving out RAF necklace-type things (I’m not asking a colleague here for what they’re called!) (hysterics). Whatever was going on, most of our 7 were seemingly occupied and interested with what was going on. This presented a perfect opportunity to relax for a few minutes, or at least until J came over and said we needed to meet up with everyone else back at the assault course. We headed off.
This is the time when I met a policeman regarding the incident in the changing room. I gave my side of the story, which he listened to closely / gave sympathy to etc and ultimately wanted me to give a sort of ID of who I saw taking the wallet. I couldn’t provide that, with this looking likely to be the huge flaw in my detective skills. I’m not particularly good at making eye contact with people anyway (probably because I often mistake people for others!), but I’ll digress. The reason we all convened was so that the victims could give our details to the police, with this being sorted over the rest of the afternoon whilst tents were pulled down, football was played and people sheltered in the drizzly / rainy conditions. The latter aspect in conjunction with the incident prior contributed heavily to the event fizzling out for myself, and it was a relief when the buses started to arrive and we could get away. With the rain persisting, we all made our way to the reception tent and waited for our bus to arrive, only to find that it was lodged in the fleet of buses away from the site! This coincided nicely with the rain easing off, so we made our way towards our transportation home.
Once we (finally) boarded, we got the kids settled into their seats and dealt with their bags, before setting the wheels in motion. Paul and myself were still stood at this point, thus being subjected to being thrown around as the bus made its way towards the motorway via the twisty exit road out of Sedbergh! Whilst on our way, the kids (and some of the leaders) were asked to fill out feedback forms that were to be used by the organisers to assist them in organising future events. The kids were eager to fill out the forms, so much so that our distinct lack of writing implements proved to be temporarily problematical! Paul gave out biscuits to pass the time (hysterics). One of the children recommended a Laserzone facility to be put on the agenda for next time. Fat chance of that (hysterics).
I finally got to sit down, and this gave me and Dru the opportunity to give our verdict of the day (hysterics). All was well (although the kids were seemingly doing to J what they were doing to Dru on night 1 of the summer camp – he was constantly being asked things!), until the bus decided to break into song. This began OK enough, until Lauren decided to start bellowing out what I’d describe as a poor version of the ‘Everywhere We Go’ chant that has been a mainstay of the Barmy Army’s vocal chords over the past couple of years, that ended in them repeating it over and over again, getting louder each time. What was resonating around the bus could only be deemed as noise pollution (hysterics). I covered my ears and grimaced, and nearly lost it when I iterated to Lauren that she should stop (hysterics). Later on, Paul managed to get the whole bus into panto mode when he tried to tell Karen that she’d be buying the leaders some beer later on. ‘Karen’s going to buy us all beer later everybody! Oh yes she is’… You can guess what ensued. He actually managed to twist it at one point so that everybody involved were in agreement. Dru winced, whilst Karen kept her money (hysterics).
With all of that out of the way, we arrived back at the swimming baths. Some of the kids departed, some decided to scrawl on a nearby bin, whilst the rest went back with the leaders to the original meeting place at the Leisure Centre. This gave us an opportunity to inform the parents whose children had been victims of the days happenings. They took it very well – one of them actually commenting that they’d emptied their son’s wallet of ID etc and just left cash in there specially for this day. Wow.
Once everybody had departed, there was only one thing left for Paul, Dru, J and myself to do. And we did it in style at an upstairs meeting where we discussed the day’s events. Usually, when things go wrong on outings, the leadership team can work a way around them and ensure that as many kids enjoy the occasion as possible. We did this last Sunday to good effect – I think we agreed that we handled the situation as best we could, but with such a powerful force being out of our control we were made to struggle. A tough day.
This is a guest article by MG, imported from Wordpress. Please ignore the 'author/contributor/posted-by' tag on this post, which is incorrect.
