Burns camps involve staying away from home for up to 5 days at an activity centre, where the children meet up with each other to talk and share experiences.
They also make new friends with children in a similar situation, but above all everyone has
FUN!
Activities may include:
- Canoeing
- Cycling
- High ropes
- Climbing
- Abseiling
- Archery
- Arts and crafts
- Raft building
The camps are for children aged 8 - 18 years old who have suffered burn injuries.
National Jamboree - Grafham Water Activity Centre
29th October – 1st November 2009
This year’s National Jamboree took place at Grafham Water Centre in Cambridgeshire with the age group being 8-13 year olds. Two FAB volunteers took 3 boys and 5 girls. The Welsh Dragons Club met them at Frenchay to travel to Cambridge together.
29 children and 12 volunteers arrived in time for rooms to be allocated before they all went into the dining room for dinner. After dinner everyone went to the sports hall for fun and games, they were all ready for their hot chocolate before bedtime.
The next 2 days were packed full with activities such as sailing, kayaking, Grafham Challenge – which is an obstacle course with a difference! – blindfolded, everyone has to guide either other around, which makes for a great team building activity.
Friday night everyone piled onto a coach to the local swimming pool where a giant inflatable took up most of the pool and lots of fun was had by all. Then back to watch a film before hot chocolate and bedtime. Saturday night was party night with fancy dress, all the children entered into the spirit of the evening. All 29 children were very tired that night.
They awoke to wind and rain on Sunday morning, 2 teams were lucky enough to have wall climbing and archery – which were indoors! Unfortunately for the other 2 teams their activities were Grafham Challenge and low ropes – both outside activities, so a few got a little wet!
The children all said that they had a great time; some even said it was great to be the eldest for a change – as the older children didn’t attend this time.
It was now time to go home; we had a few long faces as some of the children had made friends with children from other Clubs so they exchanged contact details. The coach was very subdued on the way home, as all the children were tired and didn’t want the weekend to end. The only person who slept on the way home was a volunteer, who couldn’t possibly be named – could you Matt!
It was another very successful camp – here’s to next year’s.
Barton Camp Sleepover
Feb 2009
This year we took 6 children to Barton camp with us for the weekend. It was the first time all 6 children had been away with the FAB Club.
We left Frenchay on Saturday morning and travelled to Barton camp. After finding our rooms and unpacking our sleeping bags we prepared for our lunch. Sandwiches, crisps and of course chocolate biscuits were all eaten rather quickly.After lunch we spent some time using our creative skills and created many masterpieces, which included mothers’ day, easter cards & door hangers. Then we set off for our afternoon activity - swimming. All the children and volunteers went swimming at Backwell swimming pool and even though the water was rather cold, the children had a great time splashing around on the inflatables. Then it was back to camp to eat dinner! Our evening activity was dry skiing, which everyone enjoyed. After learning how to put on the skis and stand up, they slowly progressed to skiing down the slope and even putting in a few jumps! After an hours skiing we headed to the cafe for a well earned hot chocolate. Then it was back to camp for bed as we had another busy day ahead of us tomorrow.
We were up bright and early on Sunday ready for another action packed day. After packing up our bags and sleeping bags we all sat down to eat breakfast together. Then it was a quick tidy around our rooms, making sure we hadn’t left anything, then off to Temple Back Fire Station in Bristol for our mornings activity. The firefighters showed us around the fire station and in the fire engines. We looked at all the equipment they use when they have to rescue people and the children were even lucky enough to have a ride in a fire engine. The firefighters had kindly prepared us a lovely lunch of chicken nuggets and chips followed by choc ices which everyone was ready for. We then left the fire station and went to the cinema where we watched ’Bolt’, a film about a dog who thought he had super powers. A relaxing end to a busy weekend.
We arrived back at Frenchay at 4pm with 6 very tierd children and a few tired adults as well.
We all had a wonderful time and it was a fantastic introduction to camp for the younger children who haven’t been away with us before.