From Friday 2^nd till Tuesday 6^th April Junior, Company & Senior members of the 1^st Lye company joined members from 1^st Kidderminster company for our annual Easter camp. This year however saw the end of our tradition of holding the camp at Coopers Mill in the Wyre Forest due to a frozen water pipe having exploded, flooding the centre and closing it indefinitely, until large amounts of funding can be found.

Luckily we didn't have to relocate away from the Wyre Forest, as we stayed in the Far Forest Centre, which is more on the edge rather than in the centre of the forest. On the brighter side, we slept in bunk beds rather than tents, and the building had central heating (so no collecting firewood), working showers, a fitted kitchen, a main room in addition to another room with table tennis and pool tables; plus there's a real shop around the corner, yet the Forest is a mere two minutes walk away. Below is a satellite map showing the location of the Far Forest Centre (the blue marker) in relation to Coopers Mill (the red marker).

View Coopers Mill & Far Forest Centre in a larger map

The events of the camp

On the Friday the Seniors arrived earlier to see the centre for the first time and help with some preparations for the rest of the camp; the Juniors arrived later and the rest of the day was spent mostly investigating the centre and the surrounding woodland; later in the afternoon, Graham Knight took the Juniors on a walk around the local woodland.

On the Saturday we had originally planned to walk to Bewdley, but as Graham had been unable to locate a way to access the former train track path we normally use to reach the town, on his walk the previous day, most of the group instead went on a walk to the Wyre Forest Visitors Centre; again much of the rest of the day was spent exploring the centre and local woodland.

On the Sunday morning we upheld a tradition from our Easter camps at Coopers Mill by heading to Vernon Hall Free Church to hold an Easter service, after which the Church provided each member with a free Cadbury Cream Egg. The afternoon saw a number of competitive football matches on the Orchard opposite the centre, including the important annual Easter match between the two companies - where Lye continued their series of success over the past several years, beating Kidderminster X:X; the remainder of the afternoon and evening was spent playing further football matches as well as other games such as Capture the Flag (the flags being represented by glow-sticks in the dark).

By the Monday, Graham had managed to work out a route to Bewdley, so on the day we would originally have walk to the Visitors Centre, we instead walked to Bewdley; the outward journey took several hours with nearly all of the group participating - when we reached Bewdley there were visits to local newsagents, sweetshops, gift shops and (as had become tradition) the fish and chip shop. Afterwards around half returned on the minbus while the rest took the option to walk back.

On the Tuesday morning we had to be quick in order to pack away to get everyone home for 11:00 at Lye and a tad later for Kidderminster.

Photos

Rob's photos

Click the play button below to see a slideshow of photos taken by myself.

You can also manually view the set, by clicking here.

Graham's photos

Click the play button below to see a slideshow of photos taken by Graham Knight.

You can also manually view the set, by clicking here.

Video

Click the play button below to see a video of the Camp produced by Graham Knight.