Easter Cup..... the results are in!
Its Easter again which of course means time for the one and only EBGC Easter Challenge Cup! It was held at the infamous High Row where the four teams from five different clubs, Out There Club, RYLA, Colchester Senior Members Club, Carousel After School Club and St Stephens Youth Club came together to form 4 teams to contend furiously to win the cup!
Starting on the Tuesday the four teams had to injured an eventful journey to the Lake District in a minibus. Once finally arriving at High Row the teams underwent an introduction to the staff and each other while the traditional first night meal, spaghetti bolognaise, was cooked. After dinner and team building the teams took part in the first of 11 challenges, the Stretcher Race. Teams had to use maps to find different pieces of equipment to build a stretcher for carrying one of their team mates from a first aid scenario; this was all done in the dark. The second challenge of the week was also started with teams being tied together and taken in a dark boggy field and told to get back to the High Row Youth Centre with being caught by the other three teams this was known as the escape and evade challenge. Two teams completed the challenge with the other two teams not being stealthy enough. With one of the teams, OGC, thinking they’d won the challenge by getting back in a record time of eight minutes there time was then smashed by the West German Sheep Farmers who unbelievably ran behind all of the searching teams and back to High Row in a blink of an eye arriving back in just three minutes 20 seconds.
The teams were scored between one and four with the team with the highest score at the end of the week being the winning team. After each activity and challenge the teams were judges on their team work, ability, skill and motivation. All of the teams worked well together and had a healthy amount of competition towards the other groups. Each team also had their own personal skills such as the Out There Club members very efficient with the climbing and ropework activities while the RYLA team were better at the navigation challenges were as Colchester Senior Members team was better at the physical challenges such as mountain biking.
Over the week the Challenges the teams completed were; Stretcher Challenge, Escape and Evade Challenge, Hill of Man (Mountain Biking), Mountain Biking Relay, Thompson Challenge (Climbing Prep/ Knots), The Big Quiz, Canoe Race, The Canoe Trial, Abseiling, Rocking Climbing, Night Navigation, Hiking , Cooking.
Under Supervision of staff and taking it in turns each day the teams prepared and cooked their own meals. This built on team work and gave them self achievement as everyone ate the meals and enjoyed them. Of course where there’s meals there’s washing up this was also done by the teams with help from staff.
At the end of the week the young people all helped to clean and keep High Row in a spick and span condition for others to use. It was all done quickly without any fuss which made the teams even more impressive than they already were. Once it was all completed the Presentation of the Easter Challenge Cup was unveiled the scores and places are as follows;
1st With 42 points - West German Sheep Farmers (OUT THERE)
2nd with 31 points - OGC (Colchester Senior Members/ Carousel/ St Stephens)
Joint 3rd with 22 points TLC (OUT THERE) &
Undecided (RYLA)
All the teams worked hard during the week and made it enjoyable for everyone involved including the staff.
