'You don't know man, you weren't there!'

This week belonged to a group of community member’s kids. I say belonged because most of them had been coming since they were wee babies (well almost) and pretty much owned Camas.  It was a joy to see how much they loved the place and how many memories it held for them.

 We had a fun week, the usual hectic mixture of climbing, abseiling, raft-building and kayaking. We were also lucky enough to see basking sharks at market bay and in the sound of Iona. The wild camp was a wild success. The potatoes were cooked to perfection, there were songs sung with beautiful (erm) harmonies, and many an anecdote shared with the staff. We also played a succession of more and more inventive games of Mafia. Some of my favourite characters of the week included Susan the Speech Therapist (who had a lisp), Andrew who was a Doctor/Policeman and also retired member of the Mafia, Barracuda- a husky voiced fish with a Mexican accent...and many more which are far too rude to mention here. We had a great time with the camas challenge which was Olympic themed, and included an epic Camas take on the Hunger Games (no competitors were harmed!). Once we had survived bulldogs and ultimate ninjas, the evening culminated with a simply stunning reflection of a journey through our time at Camas.

Thanks for all who came, it was a really special week full of laughter and friendship.

Provenmill at Camas = Banter Central

The second week of July brought the arrival of a youth group from Provenmill in Glasgow, who also brought a lot of energy, enthusiasm and Pepperamis! It was certainly a fantastic week for all and the staff were certainly sad to say goodbye to the epic banter, hours of table tennis and the beautifully crafted friendship bracelets.

In between all the above activities, we also made time for some climbing feats on the quarry face, leaping off the pier into the deep sea below and also an adventure to the tidal island of Erraid, where one of its beautiful beaches was treated to a top quality football match, much as Market Bay was later on that week (as well as a jellyfish fight!)

As if that wasn’t enough, the week culminated with a fiercely contested raft race which was a great exhibition of the groups engineering and knot tying skills. Then to round the week off we had a fantastic Camas Challenge celebration, with what can only be described a colossal amount of baked goods: pizzas galore, garlic bread, cheesy bread and chocolate birthday cake sensation. We then put our very well fed selves to the test with a series of hilarious games, including ‘Egg’, the object of the game being to make other people laugh by jumping up and down shouting ‘Egg’. Thank you for the food, the great new game and a week of all round fun!