Viney Hill 2010

Extracts from the CO's Camp Report .....

Viney Hill Christian Adventure Centre is set in the pretty, rural village of Viney Hill on the edge of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The site consists of 3 separate self-contained areas situated next to All Saints Church: The Old Vicarage building and Cross Meadows campsite, and Wild Meadow (a more basic campsite which was not used).

We had an excellent group of leaders supporting us, many who had camped with us previously. Some took on different roles, which they all fulfilled admirably.

The centre runs a number of half-day activity sessions on and off-site with their own qualified instructors. From these, we selected Canoeing, Raft Building, Kayaking, Rock Climbing, Abseiling, Low Ropes, Team Building, Archery and Bush craft, allowing the youngsters to do 3 of these each with spare places available for adults.

We also arranged an enjoyable outing to Clearwell Caves, where the guide informed us that scenes from Doctor Who and Merlin had been filmed, and a private swimming session at Lydney Leisure Centre. The Delta also had an extra outing to Chepstow one morning during the week for shopping and a meal together

For the rest of the on-site activities, we had a campfire for the whole camp with toasted marshmallows, whilst Juno and CrossTrax activities included hunt the leader, games, wet games and craft and the Delta programme included an extra Campfire,

scavenger hunt, a prayer walk through the forest and wet games.

The food was varied and nutritious, and there was plenty of it with seconds, thirds and even fourths available

Our Chaplains were Tim West (who has been our chaplain in previous years) for the Delta and Helen Webster for the Junos and CrossTrax. Tim focused on the theme of "What God is to us and what we are going to do about it". He gave powerful messages, which were really thought provoking and challenging, as well as sharing informal discussion times with the group. Tim also led our joint worship time on the Sunday, and worked together well with Adj. in organising the Delta programme.

Helen (who was taking on the chaplain role for the first time) chose a Doctor Who theme, linking clips from the series to her bible messages. She provided a varied programme for the Junos and CrossTrax meetings, with thought provoking messages and introduced a variety of different methods for the youngsters to participate in prayer. The room was decorated in Doctor Who memorabilia with a large Tardis console drawn by Helen herself. For our leaders, we had a morning thought from the Bible led by various leaders, and a Prayer Meeting at night.

We felt the morale on camp was good and that everyone worked well as a team. All the leaders seemed to get on well together and get on with any jobs that needed doing. Without the help of all the leaders, the camp could not have run as successfully as it did.

Colin & Tracy Guy, Camp CO's

Camp Photo Album