The Summer Camps Trust launches its Try Out Camps for August 2024
Charity the Summer Camps Trust has launched their Try Out Camps for August 2024 at Longtown Outdoor Education Centre, on the Herefordshire – Wales border, in wonderful countryside. The camps are subsidised to encourage parents who have never thought about sending their children aged between 9 and 15 away to a camp before to give it a try.
Summer Camps are residential children’s holidays, held in country houses, outdoor centres, schools, and occasionally under canvas. Each camp brings together children between 9 and 15 years old from many different schools and parts of the country for a week. They offer a wide range of holiday activities, from games of all kinds (indoor, outdoor, boisterous, sporty, or quiet and thoughtful), drama, singing, stories, handicrafts, etc., …exploring the countryside, tracking games or campfires in the woods and a happy experience of community living. Children have an unforgettable time while gaining confidence, social skills, enthusiasm, independence, creativity, and a positive attitude to life in general.
Co-ordinator for the Summer Camps Trust Christopher Green MBE explains
“Well-run residential summer camps give children back some “real childhood”. Playing together in green fields, exploring the countryside, singing and hearing stories round the fire at night, laughing and chatting with new friends from all over the UK, children discover the joy of life away from devices, screens, social media and commercial or peer-group pressures, just having a lot of fun together – a uniquely happy experience for many children.”
Other countries regard Summer Camps as a vital part of their national provision for children and our mission is to do the same in the UK.
Parent Guillietta Zardetto used to attend summer camps as a teen in Europe and her daughter Nelina attended a Summer Camp for the first time last year, she explains
“When Nelina was going to go to the summer camp she was extremely nervous. She didn't know whether she wanted to go and I said I think you're going to love it. When I picked her up, she was crying because it wasn't long enough. She would have liked it to be a bit longer than it was. She says she had the best time of her life.
“She came back as a completely different person as a more mature individual much more resilient, much more independent, and full of strength and I know for a fact that experiences like this, allow her to face situations in life, that she may have not been able to know what to do in the past. Especially with the fact that they're in nature and they're in the open space. I think it's vital for every single child anywhere to have the opportunity to go through an experience like this”
Nelina Zardetto plans to return in 2024 and said
“I learned a lot. I learned how to communicate with people from different places and not be awkward about it. I also learned how to do different outdoor things in the woods and also wild swimming. That was really fun as well.”
The Try out camps will both take place at Longtown Outdoor Education Centre, on the Herefordshire – Wales border, in wonderful countryside and the dates are:
- Camp 1 from Saturday 3rd August to Saturday 10th August
- Camp 2 from Sunday 11th August to Sunday 18th August.
You can find out more via the website here https://www.summercampstrust.org/our-tryout-camp
The price of a TryOut Camp (still at 2023 prices) will be £325, including accompanied travel from a variety of places around the country, if needed.
TryOut Camps are a new initiative by The Summer Camps Trust, aimed at persuading parents who have never yet considered a summer camp for their children to try one, and are therefore offered at a heavily discounted price.
Children are looked after 24 hours a day, there is a varied programme of imaginative screen-free activities which enable children to thrive in the happy community atmosphere. Chances for kids to run about in green fields just enjoying childhood are sadly hard to find in our current world, but almost all children find the Summer Camp experience to be uniquely happy and fulfilling.
Places are on sale now, and can be booked through The Summer Camps Trust website https://www.summercampstrust.org/our-tryout-camp
ENDS
Further information
The Summer Camps Trust, established in 2015, who are working hard to build up in Britain a national programme of residential summer camps, bringing together children from all different backgrounds and diverse cultures.
Each year the Summer Camps Trust also runs seven day residential training courses to prepare young adults, from age 17 to 25, to become the young adult leaders of the summer camps, responsible for smaller groups of children (8 or 10 divided by age), during the summer reporting into the adult leaders. As a result these young adults are given valuable leadership training to serve them well in the future with lots going onto achieve amazing things. Many parents comment afterwards on the warm and caring relationship their children have had with the young leaders. The leaders also act as “animators” generating enthusiasm for all the camp activities. Overseeing the young leaders will be two or three senior staff.
