Smart Groups got Smarter!

The Porthpean 3 Smart Group has been created to allow all who went along to Porthpean 3 this year to interact, exchange photos and generally encourage one another. It will also ensure that all new Blog entries are emailed to you directly and that any information about next year's camp is sent to you as soon as it is available.

 

Invitations have been sent to all Porthpean 3 Leaders and will be sent to Members as they complete and return the questionnaire that will be mailed to them tomorrow!

 

We hope you'll have fun using the Smartgroup!

Service Message to All Readers

Due to the large amount of fun, fellowship and fantastic action on camp, some of the blog items have been delayed. Please check the listing at the side to ensure that you haven't missed any!

The Kitchen on Friday

After so much time spent looking after all of us in the kitchen, Helen, Bob, Alison and Barry all enjoyed their well earned half days off. So God was put in charge! At least, this was what was put on the notice board - in reality God is always in charge. Somehow, nobody has gone hungry, which is some achievement when you consider how much "guestimating" there is.

 

Sheila received her pudding (a bowl of strawberries) express delivery when Les dropped the bowl just before its intended destination!

Ararat on Friday

Today was beach activities. We started with sit-ons and gently paddled around the coast. Unsurprisingly it only took a few minutes before people were capsizing each other - during which Ben lost his shoes. Amie even managed to paddle to paddle one that was up-side-down.

 

After lunch we coasteered - it was cold but fun. There were some big jumps with lots of flair (running man!) and lots of getting tangled in seaweed. Major highlight - getting close to two beautiful seals - thank you Lord!

 

Quote of the day: "Don't loose your bottom; if you loose your bottom you can't sit down!" Thanks for that Matt!

Zion on Friday

Enjoying the rain (drizzle) today Gerald went to Fowey. After a short journey in the bus (where he managed to loose quite a few times in a card game) he arrived at Fowey looking gorgeous in pink. Soon enough however Gerald was taken away from the attractions of the Girls and Boys of Hermon and Zion to his morning activity, sailing.

Equipped with his buoyancy aid, he braved the windless river as we powered it up using a motor...

After a while of pretending to know what we were doing, some wind found us and we were off! Unfortunately, being the capable sailors we are (not...) we ended up keeling the boat to a precarious angle, gaining a lot of water and Gerald flew across the boat, loosing a limb!

Gerald and his companions were grief stricken until they joined the other village for lunch.

Ready for canoeing after a good lunch of water, he was allowed with his special friends again and spent the rest of the a quaint afternoon being propped up on the front of the boat, being too fit (in a purely non-cardiovascular sense) to participate in the physical game of pirates. He returned home battered (brave scars) wet but still beautiful!

Sinai on Friday

Humphrey was not present.

Day 5 started off with a wake up sing-a-long on the way to the beach.

Quiet times were quiet but the smell of food cooking aroused the taste buds. Village Leaders, Dave and Jill, managed the amazing feat of keeping sand out of the food!

The classic human pyramid followed with superb strength from the glamour girls! The bicep boys equalled the girls with another fantastic pyramid; but obviously bettered with a leader effort!

Front flips from Liam and gazelle-like jumps from the rest in the long jump competition! Everyone failed at keeping a straight face in the Kung-Fu game!

The afternoon brought about the Worship Workshop - a thought provoking afternoon for all involved and a welcome rest for the leaders!

All this practice and planning came into play for the evening meeting. Some made a video, Junior & Rogers rapped, Sophie, Alex and Sam welcomed all headed by the Cha-Cha Slide from Liam and Chris!

Party poppers finished the evening off well. It was Friday... but Sunday's coming!

Foothills on Friday

This morning we did the high ropes course which was a brilliant experience (Gabriel and Molly couldn't do this though as they are still too small), first we all did the zip wire twice and then we did the leap of faith.  This is when we had to leap off a platform and touch the hanging buoy.  Some of us found this bit really hard but we all managed to jump off the platform which was really brave!  Mim got a bit of a rope burn which wasn't so good on her neck but she was really brave.  We spent the afternoon resting in the classroom as we were all sooooooooooooo tired.  Tomorrow we are going to the Eden project which is really exciting.

Ararat on Thursday - Pt2

We had an explorative journey to Kit Hill in the morning (i.e. navigator Matt got us lost) - but no doubt everyone enjoyed the thrill of narrow twisty lanes in a warm minibus. (Phew, pukers!)

We started off with some warm-up games involving hola hoops (not the crisp!) and then moved on to the traversing wall. After completing it we were challenged to climb round / over each other which caused much hilarity - especially where Toby the giant boy was concerned!

Toby later set a new world record on the climb; ascending the rock face in 9 seconds using just 5 steps! Dan followed closely with 11 seconds.

Amy overcame her fear of heights with a great abseil, as did Emma and Hanna.

Sinai on Thursday

Canoeing and Sailing on the Fowey

 

Humphrey was present. Well the glamour girls seemed to have the sailing down to the "centre board". We even played some games where Nick got very wet! Eve just didn't paddle all the way and Suzi and Ben were just mint!

 

The Burning Bicep Boys did a Stirling job. It has to be said that Rogers came an unfortunate second back to the beech. The Ginger Demon, we are pleased to say, came last in the Polo.

 

One last note is simply to say "Barn Door"!

The Kitchen on Thursday

We were all deeply saddened by the absence of Lucy, Scott and Sarah from the kitchen. However we battled on and made some more yummy food. The major shock of the week was that Bob had to pay a visit to Tesco!

 

Today Helen contributed to the collection of broken objects with a magnificent effort involving a glass mug! Bounce... Bounce....Bounce and Smash!

 

Jill and Sarah had a cowboy showdown with some gas lighters and Bob showed his flexibility doing a Mexican wave at the evening meeting and because he is the boss so we all followed!

Carmel on Thursday

Oh well, nobody's perfect... well He was ... but that's beside the point!

Ararat on Thursday

Breakfast

 

"gasp" Hannah and Emma were ready for breakfast before the claxton!

 

Whilst mike had to be removed from the middle of the tent to the middle of the lawn....... in a sleeping bag!

 

Meanwhile, Dan was dismissed from breakfast for arriving in scrub...

 

And so, Ar-a-rat went to Kit Hill, after a long ... long ... journey we arrived! Thanks to the navigator (Matt).

 

We traversed, climbed and abseiled with Toby setting a new record on the time trial climb (a gargantuan 9 seconds) mind you he only had to take 5 steps!

 

Another day's work for the mighty Ar-a-rat!

Hermon on Thursday

We had fun on the beech and worshiping God!

 

Goodbye!  : - )

Gilead on Thursday

Today we went canoeing on the river Fowey. The estuary was a gorgeous place and a perfect setting to play lots of fun games, look at the river banks and make some brilliant sculptures - Phil was a monster buried in the seaweed.

 

In the afternoon, some of us went sailing and the rest of us did more canoeing and got very wet playing water polo. This was a warm, sunny and lush day and we hope tomorrow is brilliant too. And we hope Phil had a good birthday - he's now 15 and it was a pleasure to share his special day.

Zion on Thursday

The Adventures of Gerald - A geranium on a mission

 

Today Gerald sadly missed out on all of our brilliant adventures although he did watch from a safe distance from the boat in his own specially designed wetsuit.

 

This was due only to his allergy to salt. Mainly because of his bay watch style boat travel we have decided to rename him Gerald "the Hoff" Geranium!

Gilead on Thursday

Today we had a seminar in the seminar tent about gifts. We made a pot and did a questionnaire to help us discover our talents. We had lush and then we made our way to the lush high ropes course where we did the zip wire and made the leap of faith which was rad! Then we had a good quiet time about superheroes and the girls had Molly and Catherine joining too! Then we put up a tent, had a discussion and tidied the tent! Tea was yummy and we had strawberries and cream and a lush trifle. So all in all we had a brill day!

Foothills on Thursday

After getting wetsuited up – including Gabriel – we went down to the beach, Carolyn was allowed to come too! We did a bit of canoeing, rock-pooling and body boarding. It wasn't actually that cold in the sea once we got used to it cos the wetsuits helped to keep us warm. When we were in the canoe there was this glass box which floated in the sea so we could see the fish and sea weed really well at the bottom of the sea. We did some clay modelling and made some special photo frames in God space today too. In the afternoon we did some drama with Julia which was cool.

Ararat on Wednesday

After a morning discovering their spiritual gifts, the ever adventurous Araratians ventured on to the High Ropes course.

 

There was some seriously stylish leaps during the zip-wire and everyone had a go. JJ was the only one to karate kick the "floating buoy" - although his landing in the harness looked VERY uncomfortable!

 

Dan and Ben rewrote the definition of "intimacy" during their winning crate tower building. Later Ben was laughing so hard at giggly Matt wobbling on his tower that he fell off (and broke) his chair.

 

Quote of the day from Matt "I think I am missing some of the basic instincts in life"!

Carmel on Wednesday

The day began well once we'd made the sensible decision to replace Simon as tent leader with Rob who proved much more able to deal with general organisation and navigation on the Fowey!

 

It was a while departing from the luxurious beach on the river Fowey when Phil, who has been joined at camp this year by a large hairy mop which follows him everywhere, came up with one of his highly intelligent comments. David, another of our number, burst into a fantastic rendition of "in the Jungle". Phil then announced, to the world that he thought "The Lion King" was a Shakespearian novel. It took several seconds for the true genius of this phrase to sink in! Well done Phil.

 

Homeward bound and an excellent round of obvious "Eye Spy" was followed by "Obvious I Don't Spy" and finally descended into a general disagreement mainly focussed on Ali with something to vaguely relating to green cars but really that was incidental.

 

Ah, home sweet tent.... and Duncan didn't crash the minibus!

Gilead on Wednesday

We had breakfast on Pentewan Beach, the sausage were lovely, but the bacon not quite so! We built a great sandcastle and wrote "Gilead" in the sand. And the weather cheered up too! Back at the campsite we had a wonderful lunch and played some village games - including rounders and "tag bulldog". The worship workshop was amazing and we each gained something very different but very special. Some of us got creative while others used their musical talents. The rest of us did a fantastic drama which was excellent. The evening meeting was very powerful and we all had a great day!!

Foothills on Wednesday

Today we left straight after breakfast and had loads of fun at Flambards.  Bethany, Sarah & Holly went on all the scary rides, some of the others did a few of the scary rides too.  Bethany's favourite ride was the Thunderbolt which was a twisty, upside-downy ride, although we all liked the log flume and didn't get too wet which was good.  We all had a really good day and most of us brought lots of sweets too which was good as the journey home took forever as there were lots of roadworks.  Gideon, Megan & Matthea all really enjoyed the drop death-slide as well as some of the other smaller rides.  Ali took lots of photos of us all on the rides so we can see the strange faces we made on the rides too.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all great too, and Alison is making sure those of us with special diets are eating well too.  We all stayed up for part or all of the meeting tonight and had great cocoa again.  Tomorrow we are going down to the beach.

Kitchen on Wednesday

Bob only went to Tesco's 4 times today because they came to us!

 

Scott made the cheese cake - many cheese jokes during the preparation but they were "Scott on!!!"

 

The kitchen team had a break this morning and lined up in their deck chairs to watch the action on the High Wires!

 

It looked like a day out for the local "saga group"!

Zion on Wednesday

The Adventures of Gerald: A Geranium about town

 

Gerald, Gerald, Gerald our love is held in his plant pot world. Gerald and Sara went on the zip wire in the morning and enjoyed the company of Zion after we went to a seminar to find out our Godly gifts.

 

Gerald's Godly gift is that he is always blooming!

 

Then later we sun bathed and Gerald got a bit of a tan on his leaf. Then he had an early night and got some beauty sleep!

Sinai on Wednesday

Today was the day of the start of the "barn door" phrase. Nick was falling and the "barn-door" manoeuvre came into play. The glamour girls forgot their worry of their nails and clambered to the top of every climb, even trying the "first-jam"!

The "burning bicep boys" tried their cat-like reactions and attempted the "dyno" jumps; sterling efforts from Junior and Liam shone... Humphrey kept watch over us!

In the Kitchen on Tuesday

A number of philosophical statements and questions were posed when considering the events of today....

It really does help when you know what time dinner is.

Don't ask Barry about the Porridge! It would appear that the refinements of the recipe by our good friend Maurice were not recorded in the ancient manuscripts of the recipe.

Don't mention the reset button when wondering why the mixer is failing to work - always best to report it to the Overall Leaders who in turn will pass on the message to the centre staff who will state the obvious!

Some conversations are always best stated verbatim:

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Ooooooppps...... How far is it to Tescos?"

"Did you remember the Cocoa?"
"Did you ask me?"
"Don't change the question. Did you remember the Cocoa?"

Gilead on Tuesday

Today we went to Porthpean beach. In the morning we went on the sit-ons and we went 3 miles! Then we had some yummy lunch and ice cream. Then we all went off coasteering and swam a really long way - it was so cold! We scrambled on the rocks and got some cuts and bruises! But it was so worth it - we got custard creams at the end!

In our free time we played frisbee and leapfrog which which was really fin and also made a human pyramid (which was more fun for people on the the top!).

The quiet times were "very good" (Phil), "wiked day" (Sarah)!

Hermon on Tuesday

"Give it up for the herd!" - flatulence (earns praise, the cows excelled themselves on high octane white knuckle ... ok van ride... to Cheesewring where we climbed all day in the sun!

Sinai on Tuesday

Humphrey was present.

The day started with a 6am start for Eve, Ben and Junior to do some exercise! Haha (I joke, I Joke). Lou did some spectacular dives into the ground, Junior took some brave jumps off the rocks. We generally had a fantastic time. The seal made a super appearance... until the Glamour girls put their feet into the seaweed (spaghetti and tagliatelli) and then the screaming started (it hasn't quite stopped).

A massive game of frisbee began but it was time to kayak and fall in a lot (well Nick and Sam anyway)!

Jill and Dave sent us to bed but sleep wasn't to be had until 4am!

Foothills on Tuesday

After another good nights sleep - eventually! - breakfast was good again. This morning as part of our God space we created posters using paints and paper and glitter about God’s creation. We then did the bits in our quiet time notes. This afternoon we did some races like the egg and spoon, three-legged races and sack races. We then made a foothills banner using fabric paints which will hang outside our bit of grass. In the evening we chilled in da hut! Tomorrow we are going to Flambards so we are all having an early night!!

Ararat on Tuesday

Fowey Activities

 

Team Ararat had a Stirling day on the water at Fowey in the Canadian canoes. We raced, we rock pooled and of course............ got very wet!

 

Highlights included:

 

    Toby's awesome rowing skills

    Kat intimidating the locals!
    ... and everybody "walking the plank!"

Carmel on Tuesday

Today we had breakfast on the beach. We burnt sausages and built brilliant sandcastles - well they were more complete sand complexes actually!

Most impressive was Ariel's Fairy Castle although there was some dispute and it would appear that some demolition occurred before the sea took hold of the foundations!

Everyone got involved with the Worship Workshop and we're all looking forward to the results.

Zion on Tuesday

The Adventures of Gerald begin

Gerald is a brave geranium! Today he climbed high and abseiled from the same great height. At Kit Hill Gerald participated in everything that Zion Village did including cards. Like everyone else except wiggles (Will) Gerald had a shower when he got back then he went to bed.

We Made It

The 1808 from London pulled into St Austell station a little later than expected. Nonetheless a large contingent of Porthpean 3 leaders (fully charged and ready for anything) were waiting on the platform. As the doors opened 58 members poured off the train ladened with large suitcases and rucksacks packed more efficiently than the Sgt Major's locker. This was slowly followed by some weary party leaders and their luggage!

 

The transfer of luggage, leaders and members from the train to the platform went amazingly smoothly with no hiccups. The members piled onto the coach whilst their luggage was carefully packed into minibuses (the modern sherpas of Cornwall!) by leaders who were practicing their juggling skills!

 

Shortly before 1845 the 58 from the train joined the 13 already here and we all met in the barn for a grand welcome. Just like clockwork dinner was served at 1900hrs by our creative cooks (just after grace of course!). And at 2030 (give or take a few minutes!) the worship team kicked off the worship meeting and introduced the theme for this week: Creation.

 

Pete spoke about the enormity of God; not just His size but his omnipresence and how significant everything is to Him. Yet despite His and His view of everything's size relative to all the other things He is concerned about. And if you don't get the size bit, all Pete wanted you to know is how much God loves you regardless.

 

With all but the odd leader in bed, everyone over the age of 19 is looking forward to a good night's sleep before the activity programme starts in earnest tomorrow! Meanwhile the under 19's are trying hard to conceal their excitement!

Foothills on a Monday

Today we woke up and struggled to get out of our sleeping bags. Finally we got up and had breakfast. We then went to help Ali do some jobs in the hut like making posters and pictures about creation, God & Porthpean to cover the walls, it was really fun. We helped to decorate our timetable. We played on the playstation which was fun too. After lunch we went to the beach, played in the sea, made sandcastles and ate ice lollies. Ali got us all to collect 2 pebbles and 3 shells but we don't know what for yet. We had chicken or sausages with chips and beans for tea which was great. In the evening Megan arrived, we had a short meeting and then we went to the meeting in the Barn until it was bed time. Cocoa at bedtime was great!

Holly: I wondered if my Dad had found Fuburt and if he had did he post it? I really missed Daddy and Fuburt.

Megan: I started the day by going on a train to ten stations! I also brought a snow globe and went shopping to lots of shops and then the bus until we arrived!

Matthea: I kept losing on the Playstation but it was still fun.

Less than 4 more Days

Almost there...

 

Only 4 days to go until Porthpean 3 starts. We have started to pack and make last minute preparations. We're all looking forward to welcoming you on site and kicking off the journey through the weeks events and activities.

 

Don't forget to bring your sleeping bag and your toothbrush! You can find a complete Kit List here!

 

Have a safe trip down to Porthpean and we'll see you there!

Less than a week

Wow, less than 7 and a bit days to go before Porthpean 3 kicks off.

 

We have heard from a number of Leaders, Members and Parents of Members and all appear to be getting really excited about camp. We are particularly excited about what great plans God has for everyone who is coming along.

 

The Worship and Teaching team are putting the final touches to their talks and thinking about how you can all get involved. The Cooks team are thinking about the great food that they will be preparing for us all. The Village and Tent Leaders are thinking about the quiet times and the fun they are going to have on all the activities. The Foothills Leaders (junior camp) are getting things ready for a fantastic week of fun with the children of some of our Leaders. Meanwhile the Underall and Overall Leaders are just double checking some of the arrangements to ensure that things go smoothly.

 

We know that all of the Leaders are praying for the camp and the Members who are coming, lifting all of the plans to God. Please join with us as we pray that He will reign over all the plans we are making.

 

See you soon!! ;-)