Brownsea Island: Day 12

Day 12 (4th of August) (I must say this day will be lacking in detail, I recounted all of it in Australia):

Last day with participants, it was a sad farewell to the last participants but a jubilant crowd of staff shouting "NO MORE YELLOW CARD" once the participants were out of ears reach. Back at the tent when I wanted to start writing todays entry (I wrote them during the day) I was overwhelmed by the sight of the internet tent having been taken down; but there was much work to do and I got on with it. Which included taking loads of tents down because of the severe weather warning... What severe weather warning? It was sunny all day long, including the next couple of days following (silly brits; "IT ISN'T RAINING! SEVERE WEATHER")! As the day went on, rumours started spreading about meat for dinner; now if you want the attention of people who haven't eaten meat for 2,5 weeks, that is a good way to get their attention. Lo and behold, what was for dinner? Lovely crips sausages with dreamy chips (not crisps but potatoes, for those non-English people). For dinner there was a large party etc. with all that goes, and all that goes includes me going to bed.

Also the area for us to sleep in had been questioned all day long. We wanted to sleep in the wooden building that had been used for the media center, and was a part of the new tourist centre or something silly. But unfortunantly the fire alarms weren't functioning properly (because the ones in our tent are FAR better???), anyway we didn't give a grey squirrels ass about that (we did give a red squirrels ass about it) and slept in there anyway... Hooray for anarchy!

Brownsea Island: Day 11

Day 11 (3rd of August):

It is really getting obvious that the camp is nearing its end, at least for the participants. We are all (the subcamp staff of wolves) taking it more relaxed, trying to fill in for each others so we can get some rest, and my voice has suddenly started recovering (I think I missed mentioning on the 1st of August that my voiced disappeared). Today we had chain reaction which involved setting up lots of pipes that a ball had to run through as slow as possible causing a chain reaction that would eventually pull a tennis ball out of a hole so that water would fall from the bottom of a bucket and the staff member sitting underneath (not me) would get very wet. The first group did a long run of pipes eventually pushing a tennis ball filled with outwards facing pins tied to a piece of string, so that it would fly in a halfcircular motion, hitting some ballons that carried a heavy bucket, resulting in exploding ballons and the bucket pulling out the tennisball in the bucket by the use of counterweight and a very wet George (haha). The second group however went an hour over time (not a problem as for today we for some reason or another had 3 hours for lunch), but unfortunantly it didn't work as well and wasn't spectacular in any way. After a 2 hour lunch break we went off to make stuff for the carnival which took 2 hours where I didn't take part in anything, but just threw away a screw for Graham's watch and got hit in the groin by a flying melon... How often does that happen? Afterwards I had a jacket potato for dinner, had Jane sign my necker and write in my songbook. Having eaten dinner and hung around for talking we needed to get the carnival going, so we went to the site of the replica camp, got the scouts dancing and singing up to the Ford Marquee and Laura Bettinson and her band started playing music. As they had gotten in, the 3 guys dancing around in costumes started fighting and playing with each other and with Adam, now THAT was fun :)

Brownsea Island: Day 10

Day 10 (2nd of August):

Wow, 10 days? Time sure does fly, at least it really feels as if it has gone fast, if anyone had asked me, I would never had said 10 days.

But today was special because as there are a lot fewer participants for this camp (the NCC camp) then the others, so only half of the staff is necessary, therefor I had the morning off, and tomorrow I will have the evening off, and I can't describe just how good that feels, to actually have time off... Anyway as you may have noticed A LOT of posts were made today, so try and guess what I have been doing today until lunch.
Yesterday lunch was changed to some more fancy sandwiches, which makes it harder for me and Simon (curlews subcamp leader). The difference is that now it is harder to pick everything out and just eat the bread. But afterwards the scouts managed to be approx. 20 minutes late for their sound activity as the first part of canoeing had been cancelled due to bad weather (it was pouring down). After a half hour or so of the sound activity we went down to canoeing where I took some pictures and walked off for an icecream which turned into some double chocolate biscuits as they didn't sell any good ice-creams at the Brownsea island shop. Once back I relaxed a bit on the bench and just waited for the activity to be over so I could go to the computer cafe and write a bit on my blog. Also while writing this I have rememberd a funny incident at lunch, Adam (who has a slightly annoying laughter) started laughing at his own laughter, and as you might imagine that is a sort of locked circle where he just went on and on and on etc... But it made the rest of us laugh, in fact we found it hilarious and Declan even recorded it. I sat for a long time in the internet tent before I went in for dinner, just to return to the internet tent as soon as I was done. After some more time in the internet tent I went into the main tent (ford marquee) to do a little barndancing but it was so chaotic that I immediatly left (well, after half a dance). But I would like to congratulate the band for their performance back in 2005 when I was a participant here on Brownsea Island, because they played on the night of my first kiss, so I guess they did something right.

On another note I saw Adam (bulls subcamp) and Jane (curlews subcamp) kiss today which made me ponder on the inside, as Jane had told me that Adam was always going around with her and sitting next to her in an anything but nice voice, but as it turns out persistance makes a difference.

A participants letter

On the last day of the Sunrise Camp, a participant from a country I won't name presented me with a letter:

"Jens,

Thank you for all the talking, you have reminded me of things I had forgotten or just accepted. You've given me hope again, I cannot tell you how much it has meant that you knew about my country and have broadened my horizons. I hope that now I will open my eyes to the world.

Thanks, (participants name)"

If it is not clear what is being talked about, it is the political situation in the country of the participant and the relation to other countries; the participant in question comes from a poor oppressed country.

And as a postscript this quote followed:

"Those who dream at night, in the dusty recesses of their minds, awake to find all was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men lest they make their dreams possible." Which I believe is T.E. Lawrence (okay I googled it), where the original quote showes up at:

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”

I like the first one best, how about you?