Venture Camp 2007

This year’s Venture Camp took place at Calvert Trust in Kielder Water, exactly six miles away from the Scottish boarder. This Centre offered us perhaps one of the best social spaces we’ve ever had, with numerous interlinking lounges, computers with internet access, plasma TVs and a large sports hall all in the one area. That, coupled with the on-site indoor pool and great outdoor facilities, made Venture every bit the challenge we wanted it to be.

This year’s theme was Super Heroes, with teams split into X-Men, the Incredibles and the Justice League. All the participants amply demonstrated their superpowers throughout the week – from sky rocketing off the seventy foot King Swing, to surviving the “Super Buggies of Death” and building Bivis in the back of beyond while being attacked by super midges!

The Group got along fantastically. Everyone got to know each other very quickly in a short space of time and demonstrated so well how PHAB brings together many people of different backgrounds, abilities and, above all, personalities. We saw some pretty incredible talents during the week that included: Richard’s wheelchair basketball expertise, Harpel’s gift for sailing (which was in no way hampered by his lack of sight), Anna’s ability to overcome her fear of rock climbing, and an amazing array of acting talents during the final night’s awards sessions.

Perhaps most unexpected was the effect of Wednesday night’s Super Hero quiz. What started as a test of everyone’s super strength, intelligence and general knowledge of our comic book heroes, turned into a full scale intergalactic battle between the “super teams”. The result was the biggest food fight PHAB has ever seen – with the volunteers definitely coming out of it the biggest victims!

The final night party was attended by every Super Hero (not to mention the odd villain and Rambo!?!) you can imagine. Everyone went to town on their costume, and after a night of dancing and super madness, the Camp Awards were handed out and the Camp summed up by a video of all “the best bits” projected onto the gym wall. Ravi exclaimed on the last night: “we have done so much – I want to come on Camp forever".