The Junior Youth Task Force organises, at the request of the NI Bahá’í Council, four events each academic year. Our final event this year was to be a camping weekend in Castlewellan, however due to heavy rain the venue was changed to the Lynn family home on the Friday evening.
Part of the task force’s remit is to encourage public speaking skills, the session on Friday evening was intended primarily to action this. Each participant picked, at random, two words from a ‘hat’. They then had to speak on any subject for 60 seconds, incorporating the two words, the rest then had to guess what the words were. The result was lots of laughter and encouragement and everyone had a go at speaking in front of their peers.
The next morning we all piled into cars and headed for Castlewellan Forest where we met John from Highpoint, our instructor for the day’s events. After we had all be dressed in very fetching waterproof coats and trousers we headed on to Castlewellan quarry for rock climbing and abseiling. These events give the Junior Youth a chance to display virtues such as bravery, trust, encouragement, patience and reliability – and they all did, even those terrified of heights pushed themselves to climb as far up the rock face as they could manage.
After a picnic lunch back at the forest park, it was time for raft-building. Once the kids got over the urge to consult and listened to the directions given, two very presentable rafts were created from barrels, poles and rope. Then came the races on the lake! Initially it was everyone’s aim to stay dry, but the appeal of the water was too much and when the rafts refused to fall apart there was no option but to jump in.
The event was a great success thanks to the co-operation, consideration and excellent behaviour of the Junior Youth; the assistance of the parents who brought youth to and from the event; Soheil and Darrin who helped Wendy and me as leaders; and John and Keiran from Highpoint who provided an excellent programme.
Photos of the event will be on display at Summer School - see which of the adults were brave enough to try the activities!
Diana Lynn