Camas 2017

We seem to be racing through our summer programme this year, and it didn’t seem like long before we found ourselves at the second last week of the holidays and on our way to the island of Mull for our annual summer residential at the Camas Centre, a simple outdoor centre cum croft located on the coast of the Ross of Mull, just east of Fionnphort. The centre is part of the work of the Iona Community, who offer it as a resource to groups such as SiMY, using a small core team of paid staff and a team of seasonal volunteers who give their time over the summer.

Our trip involved an additional level of complexity this year, as the previous week we’d had a group of five young adults on Mull, taking part in an joint residential with a group of French students, as part of a project run by Stevenson Adventure. The SiMY young people were heading off in different directions at the conclusion of that week; three of them coming with us to Camas as young leaders, and the others going to Iona to participate in the Community’s annual ‘Youth Festival‘. To save them all a tiring round trip to Glasgow, Neil headed over to Mull to meet them with fresh clothes and bacon sandwiches.

Catriona arrived with the main group on Saturday, and we launched into a busy programme that saw the young people taking part in a variety of activities such as kayaking, climbing, coasteering, wide games and raft building, along with a mini-expedition to camp out on a secluded beach and eat baked potatoes and beans cooked over an open fire. The young people also helped out with the life of the centre; gardening, cooking, washing up and even doing a bit of cleaning! There were also plenty of opportunities to chill out and relax, reflect on what we were learning about ourselves and each other, and exercise our creative abilities with some arts and crafts, story telling and candlelit chats over hot chocolate in the evenings.

Friday came round all too soon, and we headed off back up the footpath to the main road; tired, grubby and happy, with bags full of dirty washing and minds full of stories to tell and ideas to try out when we got back to Glasgow. A big thanks to Abbi and her team for all their hard work to make the week such a success, and a special mention goes to Barry and Declan; two SiMY old-timers who are both helping to make Camas such a special place for the current crop of young people.

If you fancy getting involved in next year’s trip, or any other SiMY activities, get in touch and we’ll give you all the info you need.