After a few months of planning, Youth group, barnsley sea cadets, enjoyed an adventure weekend at PGL, a UK activities camp 30 September to 2 October 2023.
PGL caythorpe Court is based in the heart of Lincolnshire countryside is the perfect for youth group weekends. It had 64 acres of countryside and has plenty of accommodation to meet our needs.
At the weekend 35 cadets and 5 staff members took part in a number of activities such as rock climbing, team building, cooking and field craft.
The cadets went on a Friday evening, and had a pizza party on arrival, followed by a jam packed day of fun. Cadets did archery, leap of faith, Jacob ladders and then had a campfire with sing along. On Sunday, the cadets took part in team building games and came back in the afternoon. The weekend was full of laughter and fun for both cadets and adults along with learning something new about themselves
The aim of the weekend was to get our cadets doing physical activity, learning something new and get some of their childhood back due to to Covid. This was achieved although there were many challenges to get to the weekend.
The main challenge of the weekend would have been the cost however, due to the donation we were able to ensure every cadet could come.
In Barnsley, we live in one of the most deprived areas in the UK making it difficult for young people to have new experiences and take part in these activities.
One of our main aims is to ensure every young person has a chance to achieve. The second challenge was to ensure that the weekend would be something that tje cadets would truly benefit from even though they requested it. To make sure of this we mapped the weekends activities with their cadet courses so that they could work towards their qualifications in areas such as field craft, communication and physical training.
It was also a challenge to find a weekend which was good value for money. Some camps wanted to charge nearly double what pgl was offering us. As the current climate is making everyone’s pockets very tight it was great to feel that everyone had a great experience was a much less cost than doing the weekend through a school or cadets having to pay individually.
Able cadet Elsworth said ” the weekend was great, I had such a good time being a kid again and laughing with my friends. My favourite part was competing with staff in a rock climbing challenge. Since the weekend I have felt more confident in myself and felt like I have got some of my childhood back. I have memories for life and I have made some new friends and recovered friendship from pre covid which fell apart during the pandemic.
As our cadets are aged 10 to 18 years old the Covid pandemic has had a huge impact on their teenage years and the kids have missed out on a lot. Nearly two years of lost friendships, life changing moments and memories which would shape them. Cadets have increased stress levels and anxiety due to the pandemic and also the GCSE exams and pressure from school. A weekend in the countryside was very much needed.
Since the return of our weekend, there’s a new sense of happiness and confidence with the cadets. More of our cadets want to take part in other activities and we have increased our numbers by 15% in just a few weeks. Now that our cadets are more engaged and focused, they feel that they have more of a voice in their training and want to continue doing things like this. The unit has had an increase of 30% of cadet course bookings which means the cadets can continue their learning and get qualifications. We are already planning our next trip for 2023! On behalf of the cadets and staff members of Barnsley Sea Cadets, I would like to give our heartfelt thanks to the Aviation Focus Group for supporting our Adventure Weekend.
We are already planning our next trip for 2023 due to the success of the weekend.
Report written by: Chair person, Maddison Brown
