By Duncan Annett, Lambton County 4-H Member
Saturday, March 9, 2013 was the date of my first train ride. My brother and I and two others from Chatham-Kent met the train in London and arrived in Toronto where we then met the bus that took us to the Provincial Leadership Camp in Port Sydney. When we arrived we each stayed in lodges with four other people and slept in bunks with our own sleeping bags. One of my roommates, I knew as I’d met him before at Career Sen$e.
There was a lot of snow there and I was glad that I had my winter boots. Every morning we got up and usually didn’t have a shower as there was limited hot water. After breakfast we had leadership training. One day we worked on teamwork and how to work together as a team. We were split into different teams each named after space ship: Mercury, Apollo, Columbia, Discovery and Starship (the leaders were in Starship). After supper we would gather with our ship and talk about some things we could do the next day. We were in charge of different parts of day and that rotated every day. We ate together as well at meal time and talked about activities.
Each night at camp there were themes. My favourite was MixMatch. It was pretty funny. I wore a Viking helmet with blonde braids, green St Patrick Day glasses and regular clothes with my boxers over top. Some kids put their clothes on backwards. It was really funny. Another theme was Hawaiian night, where I wore a really cool red shirt from Value Village. Every night, we had an evening program that was put on by the ship in charge that night. The Fleet Log was a skit put on by the ship in charge that day. These were really funny. After, the leaders would talk about the actual space ships each night and give you a bit of history through a skit or activity. Then we would give feedback on our leadership training and then had reflections about the day.
On Thursday we headed back home. There were about 30 of us in Union Station waiting for our train. If I had to say one thing that was the absolute very best, I would say that there was not one single thing that was the absolute very best, but I would say that it was all amazing. I woul go again tomorrow if I could!
By Clancy Annett, Lambton County 4-H Member
Saturday, March 9, 2013 was a special day. First, it was the beginning of March Break and normally I would be sleeping in. But no. At 5 a.m. my mom woke me so I could catch the train to Toronto and meet a bus that would take me to the Provincial Leadership Camp. We arrived at four in the afternoon after a long train ride and bus ride. It the best week ever! I met kids from all over Ontario. The food was great and we even had bacon twice in one week – some sort of record. Every day we got up and had breakfast. Then we had leadership training until lunch.
One day we wrote speeches about Martin Luther King’s dream speech and we wrote a speech about a dream that we had. After lunch we played sports and activities outside like snowshoeing (which I have never done before) and we made giant snow forts. The forts were a giant pile of snow, that we dug into like an igloo. They were called “quincies”. We played dodgeball and just had fun outside. We had theme nights and one was a pajama theme where I wore my teenage ninja mutant turtle pj’s which were a big hit.
Every night we also had a challenge event. One night it was about the strangest foreign object in your body. A girl on my team had braces, a boy on another team put a dime in his belly button, the runner-up team had a girl with a shunt in her head but the winner was the team with the boy who had balloon in his brain. I now know more than I want to about foreign objects in your body.
My absolute favourite thing was meeting all the new people. I now have friends all over Ontario. I would never have met them before. We will keep in touch through Facebook and remember how much fun we had during March Break at the Provincial Leadership Camp.