The success of the camp is down to 2 things – the superb attitude of this years kids and to our wonderful staff. This year was really Dickie’s year – I took the backseat and he ran the whole program perfectly blending together Kyle’s excellent work as leader of Surf camp and Nicky & Tommy’s excellent English lessons. Ciara & Trish organised all the logistics – as usual because a lot of the work they do is unseen , sometimes they think it goes unnoticed but believe me with out the girls sterling work, there is no summercamp period. 
I would also like to thank Ken for organising all the staff rotas and activities, sometimes at very short notice and all the outdoor and nightduty staff, Fiddy, Neil, Rachel, Paddy, Johnny, Paul, Siobhan, Jessica, Cillian, Ryan, Sarah and Eoin.
Finally I would like to make a special mention of Niamh my big sister. While she will still be involved in our Adventure Ireland camps, Niamh is leaving to go pursue her studies in the USA and I can say without hyperbole that literally none of us would be here without her. The ethos and direction of the camp all come directly from her and we will all have very big shoes to fill come September. However we will be able to follow her simple recipe for summer success. ” Take kids from all over the world, mix well and then add to water.”
Slán
Collie
 

Cliff Jumping

to join up with Surf camp who were having an all day surf session.
it was EPIC – best surf conditions of the whole three weeks , big powerful but the kids were able to use all the skills they’ve learned in the last 3 weeks to really carve across those big Atlantic breakers.
Straight after dinner, it was back into the wetsuits to go Cliff Jumping. It is exactly as it sounds , a series of ever-increasing jumps into the blue ocean. It’s the perfect activity a bit scary but really really safe and everyone had a blast. Sebstian, who is a real character, funny and polite said it was the best day but an even better day was to come for him.
On Saturday the bad weather finally came so we brought our gang to our local waterpark, waterworld, instead. It was a lovely day out – Ignasi said he had forgotten what warm water was like
We topped of with our legendary Surfchick contests. This is where the girls get to dress up the boys as ladies – it’s all really good fun, all voluntary (some of them couldn’t wait) and we are there to make sure everything is appropriate.
We had great entries this year – Juan (Seville ) Guaco and Aleksei were all very fun but our top two were Eloi our old pal from Barcelona and ….drum roll… the winner and Miss SurfChick 2011 was Sebastian – hilarious and what’s more he stayed in character all night. He’s priceless !

Collie, Ken Dickie & Paul...kind of

our best ever show. Not just for talent but sheer joy that they brought to their performance – all this and no auto-tuner too, Glee eat your heart out.

First up were Ignasi, Joan , Xavi & Carles who were “the instructors” This was a side-splitting show – now the boys were good as Dickie & Paul but Joan as Collie and especially Carles as Ken were a scream. It was like looking into a very embarrassing mirror, but it was all done in great spirit.
The were followed by “Show me the Money” Mary-Willis, Mackenzie and Greta performing “I need a dollar” with gusto.
The Chipmunks had a hard act to follow but follow it they did with Eloi, Manuel, Toni, Guillem, Juan, Alec. Miguel-Angel, Lucas, Adrian, Borja& t’other Juan

The Chipmunks

who sang a song and then decided to form a conga line around the whole room .
Another song followed, this time Jonathan and Pablo singing about their mobile phone – the girls loved this one
Guacamole or Giacomo as he is known in Italy performed a lovely piece of acoustic guitar music. We make a lot of jokes here about our Guacy but for once I’ll be serious not only was he great on the guitar , he is also one of the nicest kids we’ve ever had on this programme in almost 15 years of running it. I’m really not sure I’m willing to let him go home. Guacy also performed  “time of your life ” with Miguel as well as forming part of basshunter with Mary-Willis

Basshunters first gig

and Iluc. Iluc also did a solo spot performing “Beat it & Seven Nation army too. The boy is very good!
We had 3 solo spot by our youngest campers next. Zoel performed a great magic trick , Ivan got up and sung a fantastic spanish song all by himself & Alexi was a hilarious mischievous mime .
Dani showed off his brilliant juggling skills that he said he learned in school when he was supposed to be studying and Gemma &

Le Jackson 5

Robert sang a very funny version of I’m a little teapot.
Our 2 french guys Marc and Pierre were joined by Sebastian, Jose and Carles to re-invent the Jackson 5 before Dickie got everyone up on the floor to do his now legendary Pirate song. The evening finished with a performance of Saturday Night by 12 -Ana, Marina, Marta, Lluisa, Bet, Isabel, Nuria, Carme, Miriam, Alix, Maria & Esther but like all the best finales everyone joined in for a dance off at the end.

12

Marina & Lluisa play blindfolded musical chairs

Wow. What a couple of days we’ve had . The weather and surf have been awesome and the craic (Irish for fun) has been mighty. The weather is a little gloomier today but I think that’s just to reflect that while everyone is in really good form, we are a little sad because our friends Greta, Mackenzie & Robert have left the camp. Thanks so much guys and we miss you loads.

Their last night was certainly the best so far. After a great days surf , we all gathered together in the Yellow room for our annual talent show. We usually call this the talent -less show, mainly because we want the kids to take part and have fun, not to worry about what they can and can’t do but boy they blew us out of the water this year. From impression to singing, dancing to magic tricks the guys put on one of the best shows we have ever seen here all mc’d by the very impressive Dickie. It was so good that everyone deserves a mention so i’m going to a special post tomorrow just on the talent show while all the gang are in the waterpark. More on that tomorrow but now it’s time to go cliff jumping ! For now you can catch up with some of our latest photos by clicking  here to our facebook page

Iluc, Mary Willis & Giacomo (Guacamole) jamming

Yesterday was superstars day – Superstars is where the kids are divided into teams and they are given 18 different games – they can only do a maximum of 2 but they must decide who is the best one on each team to compete. It’s really good fun and has stuff for both the really competitive kids like the iron man surf competition and for the creative ones like a sandcastle building competition as well as some silly events like cracker eating and blindfolded musical chairs. I’ll post up lots of photos later and describe a little more about it later – Have to rush now because tonight is the night of the great Irish Talent show !

Jumping for joy

Early this morning we were very sorry to see the 3 of our new friends , Victor, Raimon & Alvaro depart – 3 really great guys & one bad haircut The good news is that we were joined by a new friend Pierre, all the way from France who is joining us for our last week.  I was talking to Esther, our wonderful leader of all the Barca kids, who is also writing a blog http://www.landedblog.com/blog/category/jovenes/2011/camp-ireland-2011/ that days like today can be hard to write about – Don’t get me wrong , we had a fantastic day today, I said yesterday that it had been the warmest day. Well today knocked that sucker out of the park – and whats more all the

Tullan Strand

predictions said there would be no surf but out of nowhere the waves appeared.

So whats the problem? you might say. “Kids are having a fantastic time , sun is shining , surf is pumping, everyone is getting along and all the kids are really good when it is their turn to clean the kitchen. It’s all true but I don’t want to rub it in too much to all of you at home. Because I know you wish you were here

Collie

worth a thousand words

On the Bus

Saturday was our big day trip for Surf & English camp. A blog on Culture camp’s adventures will be posted Tuesday but see bottom of the page for an update.  
Anyway the rest of the kids were feeling starved of opportunities to spend your money so we all piled onto the big bus with Paul our genial driver & headed off to Galway. Galway is a lovely city , in many ways Ireland’s cultural capital and a perfect place to bring the gang to see all the artists & buskers - not to mention all the shops. I kept some of the younger gang with us & Dickie & Siobhan (Shiv-vaughn) showed the others around shop street and allowed them to go and explore albeit in groups and with regular check in times. It was a really succesful trip , the kids were all on time (seriously I’ve been doing this for

Siobhan teaches Alexi to make a dinosaur & a frog out of paper

15 years, that has never happened before) and everyone had a really lovely day. Even if I am pretty sure that Pennys has had to shut down after Marina bought the whole lot of it !

We stopped for food on the way home – Miguel Angel & Manuel of course went for seconds and it was after 9 when we arrived home, happy but tired.
In fact everyone has been so helpful & keen to help us we decided to give them a  bit of a treat and let them have their first lie-in of the trip this morning. As you know , teenagers usually sleep like vampires do so this made me very popular indeed.
After a late brunch today – we headed off for a surf – the waves were small but it was such a lovely day nobody minded too much. Sunday is usually cinema night but there was officially nothing on that the kids were interested in / hadn’t seen before / that was appropriate:) so instead of buying the tickets , we bought the popcorn , converted the red room into a home cinema (it has a fantastic projector ) and brought over my , rather excellent dvd collection instead. So once there finished a few team games , we’re all going to retreat to our new Collieplex and watch some movies. What’s Spanish for shhhhh?

The girls in Cobh