In this section we hope to provide an account of Harrow Woody camps from the view point of Venturers so as to portray all the fun we have to fellow Woodie's who missed out and to show those who aren't members what a good time you could be having if you joined. The following is account of this years International camp in Nottingham and will hopefully prompt a few of the others who went to mail me their accounts.

International Camp 2001 was my first international camp and it certainly lived up to all its hype. This was allegedly the biggest of its kind to date with a whacking 3500 people attending the two-week camp in Walesby, Nottingham. 

I was fortunate enough to be allowed down the weekend prior to the arrival of the majority in order to help set up our village (village 2). We kicked off from Harrow at 6:30 AM with a seriously over packed lorry and a group of sprightly and perky group of chaps considering the birds had yet to rise. We stopped at numerous points to pick up more gear from other districts in our village (Watford, Luton and Hemel) and arrived at the site at about 3:00 PM with a lorry whose suspension was completely mashed.  

We began this two day comedy of errors well by putting up the main Marquee, however, due to the pulley at the top of the pole being caught I naively volunteered to be winched up to fix it. I was shortly back down though singing several octaves above my usually low voice after the metal pole on which I was seated caught rather unpleasantly! That is the last time I ever volunteer in a winching operation! After the kitchen tent was up and a lovely portion of fish and chips consumed we all hobbled half destroyed after our 18-hour day to bunk down in the marquee. Another step in my learning that occurred during this camp was never sleep in a tent where nearly 50% of the occupants snore like trains as the result is getting no sleep yourself and waking at 5:30am the following day. 

As you would expect I was by this stage merely a zombie and felt the most effective way to wake up was with a shower. And it was. The only problem was that there was no shower and consequently I took the initiative of hanging the hose over a branch and wallowing in ice cold water until I had reached the early stages of hypothermia and the other guys had laughed themselves to exhaustion.  

The rest of the camp was set up very efficiently as was Ken’s shower that met the theme of ‘sustainability’ by being solar heated (if having cold water in a black tub constitutes solar heating).  When the other 90 or so people in our village turned up late in the afternoon on Monday the camp really took shape with all the tents being put up.  

The opening Ceremony saw all of the three and a half thousand participants from all around the world gathered round a main stage up in the central area. It is really hard to describe how fantastic the atmosphere as if one could literally feel the electricity in the air. Folk music was ringing out as people of all ages and races clapped and sung as one and if people from other worlds had seen this snapshot you truly could be proud of your species.  

The camp followed a simple yet effective structure when it worked with free time and activities on site in the morning and central activities in the afternoon. As a DF I helped with some aspects of the camp and allegedly looking after the Venturers which was a joke because we all just mucked about. The dedicated folk marshal team headed by Paul ensured that we got all the central activities we wanted in addition to having sufficient places on the climbing wall, canoeing, rafting, swimming and far to many places on the traversing wall.

The Venturers and myself built a top assault course, which went down a storm with all the camp apart from Jane who refused to have a go despite even Clowy showing her up!  

Rotas were tough to say the least as you were given a 24hr shift cooking for 100 people and despite some really interesting recipes created by the KP John and divine vegan options created by Lyn they didn't make the task any more pleasent.

I stayed true to form going to bed before 12 every night but I must assure you this was not the norm with every other leader and DF in the village up till the early hours. Consequently the morning which began the camp at the soul destroying time of 7:45am soon fell to a more reasonable 8:30am. 

Weather wise the first week was superb with 12 hours of sun a day and temperatures in the 30’s, however, the second week was slightly different to say the least. At one point we were evacuating leaking tents and Trevor and myself dug storm trenches round 40 0dd tents to the great annoyance of the scouts… Oh well!!!! 

Yet we survived and as with all things the camp drew to an all to hurried closed. The closing ceremony on the penultimate day had none of the razzmatazz or under current of expectation or excitement that the opening ceremony had. Instead we cheered the international delegations as they paraded for the final time and I must admit I left early as the feeling of melancholy made it rather boring. 

After every one had left the working party returned and we began the somewhat demoralising task of breaking camp. That evening the working party went to the pub and as a sign of defiance to the vegetarianism that had spanned some of the camp I ordered a lovely 16Oz. Steak and chips. We arrived back at Harrow the following afternoon and after unpacking the lorry I went home and reflected on a top camp and top people! 

Rory

A Birds Eye View of the Camp Site!