This weekend the Ventures organised a joint camp with Newtownpark Avenue. Everyone had a great weekend, thank you to all of the leaders who made the weekend possible.
We started on Friday with a few games to help everyone get to know each other, and then continued with a film in the leaders room. Eventually everyone got to bed and some of us even got some sleep.
On Saturday we all got up (or were dragged out of bed). We headed out to killiney hill, losing a shoe on the way. When we got there we split into two groups (girls and boys). The girls (and Fionnán) went orienteering while the boys went Rock Climbing. Both activities went really well and fortunatley this time round none of the boys decided to climb upside down. All the boys gave the climbing a go, and some even made it to the top twice. When we got back to the car park we found that the girls also got on well, having only missed one marker. After a somewhat wet lunch the groups swapped over. The girls enjoyed the climbing although not quite as much as Fionnán, who wanted to go again and again and again and again and again…. Some of the girls were scared but everyone gave it a go, and the weather had improved to we had a great afternoon. The boys came and found us once they had finished orienteering, they also missed only one orienteering marker. At which point Kevin realised that he may have possibly placed the marker in the wrong place! Once back in the car park we met Conor and packed away all of the rock climbing equipment. Oisín then organised everyone to played a game of catch the flag, followed by Tip the Can and Hide and Go Seek. When we got back to the den, eventually in the case of the group who took the DART, we made dinner which was Pasta Bolognese. After dinner Kevin lit the fire and all of Ventures sat around throughly intent on their various whittling projects. Some made spoons, others knives, others arrows and some were even making wands to go with their Halloween costumes. Later on Fionn got very excited (after some smores) about the prospect of carving a pumpkin in the shape of a Creeper (something from Minecraft). So everyone split into groups and went inside to carve pumpkins and they all turned out really well, there should be photos up here soon.
Sunday morning we were busy as we had our Tidy Towns litter pick-up organised. So we had breakfast and walked down to Blackrock Park, Orla kindly put the equipment in her car and drove it down for us. We then spent about an hour collected rubbish in the park and continued all the way back to the den. Everyone did a great job, and we had plenty of rubbish by the time we got back to the den. Then each patrol was given a country on which they had to put together a project for the rest of the afternoon. The girls got Mexico and the Boys got China, the posters that they put together are displayed in the Den on the Venture notice board. They also had to cook a meal from their country. The girls made some delicious Tacos and Nachos and the boys made a really good stir fry with Noodles and spring rolls. All of the food was excellent and Oisín and Lainey did a really good job of cleaning up afterwards while the rest of us got back to our whittling. Then unfortunately about half of our number had to go home, because they had Halloween parties to go to. So the rest of us settled down in the Leaders room to watch Young Frankenstein. We then played a very interesting game of Switch where everyone showed everyone else their cards, and mine were looked at while I was out of the room, twice! We then, after much debate, watched X-Men:The Last Stand and went to bed.
Monday was boring as all we did was clean up, smash a pumpkin and go home. Overall it was a really good weekend and hopefully we will be able to run more joint activities in the future.
