Throughout the week campers won gold coins for games, answering questions in talks and tent inspections. Coins were also won for pirate jokes, here are a couple of the, erm, best:

Q: Why does it take pirates so long to learn the alphabet?
A: Because they can spend years at C

Q: What does a kraken eat for dinner?
A: Fish and ships

The task for the tents on the Friday evening was to perform a short pirate sketch on the Hebrews 11 stories and characters we studied in tent prayers. The coins they collected were used to buy pirate props in an auction on Friday afternoon. Everything from cutlasses to pistols, eye patches to face paint, the kraken to inflatable parrots was up for sale. Once they had all the props they needed the tents prepared for the sketches whilst the cooks prepared a barbecue with the help of Jeff.

All fed and watered we retired to the hall for the evening activities. First up was the premier of pirate video short from Wednesday night, filmed and produced by ex-camper Jamie Ventress. You can watch the video here: https://vimeo.com/230022371. It was a lot of fun putting the film together and we all thoroughly enjoyed the end product.

Then on to the main event, the Pirate bible stories. We had pirate versions of Cain and Abel, Samson, the parting of the Red Sea, Abraham and Issac, Jericho and Noah. All gave an imaginative and amusing take on the stories whilst expressing the faith of the characters in God.

The evening closed with some reflections on the week. There was a clean sweap for the Loftus family with Jonny and Rebekah in the campers of the year whilst the Really Terrible Pirates pipped The Bermuda Triangle to the tent prize – though we quickly regretted the harmonicas that the lads won! And to finish off the evening Jeff summed up the teaching in a brief epilogue.

And so Compass Camp 2017 drew to a close. Looking back at the week of camp despite the challenges of adapting to the new site and some indifferent weather we had an enjoyable and profitable time. The activities were fun, the theme captured the imagination of campers and leaders alike and the teaching was challenging and instructive. We thank God for his provision and for the great group of campers and pray that he will continue to work in the campers lives.

At this point we would normally announce the dates for next years camp but before we do that we have a decision to make whether to return to the school or continue to use the sports centre. In the next few days we’ll be sending out a survey to get feedback on the site as well as other aspects of camp. Please pray for wisdom as we make plans for next year.

In the mean time check out the photos from this years camp which have now been uploaded to our Flickr page: 2017 Album Collection