Charnwood 2019

9 Aug

I've been to camp again recently, with 5,500 campers from the worldwide family of Scouts and Guides. It's the ninth camp of this sort I've attended (only the eighth I've camped at.)

(You can find out about my long association with Charnwood International Scout and Guide camps here, and what I did in the 2016 camp, here. And if you want to see a more general history, check out the Charnwood website too.)

The site was HUGE - the biggest yet, as you can see from this aerial photo. Look closely - you might see the wind turbine. Not Bib Bob, I hasten to add - probably a distant relative though!

Main sub camps to the right and bottom, staff subcamp to the left,
main arena with the biggest marquees!

Those two marquees? Breathing Space.

I was part of the Breathing Space team, who were tasked with providing a quiet and faith space for campers, run along similar lines to the Channel Your Thoughts tent of 2016. The success of CYT meant that this time round, our presence was advertised and promoted well before the camp began. We also ended up with more space; in 2016, we were in one large marquee. This time, we were spread across two marquees, both individually about three to four times the size of the 2016 one. And again, we were in the central area, available to anyone.

Our Breathing Space logo...in 3D. Provided a great photo opportunity...

...and our distinctive team neckers, complete with
Breathing Space Challenge Badge

We had three zones across our marquees: Sshhh, Haven, and Reflection. Sshhh provided quiet, mostly self-run activities such as colouring, Lego, puzzles, games, a few crafts which changed daily, a small library of books and Beano comics, and a stitched banner. It also housed our friendship postbox and the Worry Monster!

Haven was an area of the second marquee which had some similar quiet activities for campers who either needed a smaller space and fewer people to feel comfortable, or who needed someone to talk to if things got too much for them. And Reflection was the rest of the same marquee, which housed our team 'office', a large area for specific faith services, thought for the day sessions, and on site trainings, as well as a private prayer space. It worked really well to separate the areas, not least because we didn't have to reorganise the tent at any point.

Well, not until Tuesday, but I'll get to that in a moment.

We opened on the Saturday afternoon as campers were arriving on site, and were pleased to see leaders bringing the young people who they thought might need us to the tent straightaway to orient them and introduce team members so there was a familiar face when they next popped in. Our 'triage' approach worked well too - we were able to identify campers who might need a little more TLC than others and direct them to Haven rather than Sshhh.

And then it started raining. Now, rain on camp isn't usually a problem, but it came down in buckets. The campsite quickly became extremely muddy or was under water in several places, and some sub camps were left fighting to keep liquid mud from running through their sites.

Standing water...

...which turned into slurry as thousands of folk
all walked the same way to their activities

It rained on Sunday, too, and camp conditions deteriorated so much, I sent Mr Squidge to a well known camping store to buy welly boots, as it turned out that my walking boots were not in the least bit waterproof.

Not very clear, but my very muddy and wet boots,
just before I got into my sleeping bag!

(He was ready and waiting when the shop opened on Monday morning - they only had large sizes left as there'd been something of a run on wellies because some international groups had arrived without suitable footwear. Fortunately the lovely shop assistant rummaged round the back and found a pair of size 4 pink wellies so Mr Squidge snapped them up and brought them over to me. Dry feet! A luxury!)

Monday, the sun shone. It began to dry out some areas of the site, but sub camps were still pretty bad. Friends who were camping with their units were cooking while standing ankle deep in water. I saw photos of others scraping the worst of the liquid mud up with baking trays to try to keep it from entering food prep areas.

I hadn't seen camp conditions like this since Charnwood 80, which started muddy and then dried out.

That wasn't to be the case this time. It began to rain again. And it kept on raining. We didn't realise at the time that Leicestershire was having a month's worth of rain in two days. Hay had already been put down on Sunday in the worst places to try to mop up water. Now it was bark chippings in the car parks to prevent vehicles getting stuck, and trenches being dug to try to re-route running water. Some groups went home with wet gear that night to dry off and come back the next day...

And then on Tuesday night, after relentless rain all day, we got the order to strip out our marquees to provide communal dry sleeping space for campers who were flooded out of their tents. And still the rain kept coming down...

We woke on Wednesday morning to the news that camp was going to have to close early. The conditions were simply too bad. To my knowledge, it's the first time an international camp in this country has had to close in this way due to weather conditions. It was very, very sad - but the best decision under the circumstances.

The Breathing Space team were asked to stay on. We were working just in one marquee now - the other had people sleeping in it - and we couldn't provide all that we had planned to. But we kept the space open for those who needed us and what we were still able to offer under challenging circumstances. And we stayed until Friday lunchtime, one of the few tents continuing to offer activities for campers - particularly some of the international visitors - who couldn't leave on the Thursday.

In some respects, it was the hardest camp I have ever been on. Even without the weather, we were busy from the moment we opened our marquees at 8.30am to the moment we shut them up, around 10pm (later if someone still needed us.) We had a lunch hour so we could eat, and we protected our evening meal times as far as we could, but other than that we never stopped. And we waded - literally waded - through mud, in the dark, back to our sleeping tents (which stayed standing and mainly dry, despite the awful weather).

In other ways, it was the best camp I've ever been on. Everyone pulled together. The longest shift we heard about (Facilities and H&W were literally working non-stop) was 26 hours, as folk battled to keep the site working, and the spirit of Guiding and Scouting - the 'do your best, have courage in all difficulties' - was very much in evidence. The young folk still had a brilliant time. Breathing Space was enjoyed and appreciated by those who needed us. And I had the privilege of working in an amazing team who supported each other just as much as they supported anxious or tired campers.

I met some incredibly inspiring young people, and was blessed to witness several moments of deep spirituality within the services and inter faith sessions I helped to provide.

I was in the camp newspaper twice, (!) and met many international campers I probably wouldn't have met if I'd been a guider-in-charge looking after a unit.

The Taiwanese scouts were a lovely bunch

Very proud of our interfaith prayer space - it was used several times.

Yes, I was tired, and muddy, and sad when I got home, but on balance, it was a brilliant camp. Here are a few more photos - with thanks to fellow team members for letting me share their pics, because I took so few of my own.