Everyone is taught to swim these days? Aren't they..

Back on the CHICKS camp out of 16 kids between 8 and 11, a handful could swim, not that they were just not that good, but they just hadn't been given the chance.  Really!

So another hurdle these kids had, another mission we had.  Now CHICKS has a pool, a little one but a pool nonetheless, with toys and all.  A continuous plastic ball fight began, no not the kids, the volunteers of course, a day in and we already had pent up rage to take out!  Somehow it's always the adults that start these things.  In between onslaughts however we spent time trying to get several of them in the pool let alone teach them.  They'd been suited up with arm bands and we eventually got each kid to take a turn, helping them back and forth across the pool.  Definitely hard work and it was early on, they weren't really at the point of trusting us yet.  Water is scary to an 8 year old!

A trip out, this time to a swimming pool half way through the week.  A big pool this time, fitted out with a sort of high speed whirlpool bit which you swim in and it powers you round.  Pretty darn cool.  Once again we fitted the kids up, some headed to the paddling pool others approached the main pool fearfully.  A few went straight in and powered off into the distance.  I remember not being that good at swimming at their age that's for sure, i hated water not that i couldn't swim i just didn't like it, still not that confident.  But i went in and turned around to a group of children standing by the ladder considering their options.  With some time and some pleas from the kids to make sure i was there to catch them if they sank like a rock they began to delve in.  Most of them now, after only a few days trusted us as though they'd known us through their lives, I still find that incredible with any kid let alone these ones.

I followed a few kids round the edge.  They certainly don't trust arm bands and they don't really work that well if you go into a fit of fear upon letting go of the edge.  It takes time.  However one child decided he was too good for arm bands, threw them off and swam well enough, it was when he stopped the problems began.  You'd ask him if he was alright or wanted help and he'd bob up and down in the water saying "I'm, gurgle gurgle, okay, bubble bubble" as he went underwater and then back up.  We worried for a while but he wasn't drowning, we decided eventually that he'd be alright.  Meanwhile back at the others, it was like fishing as i jumped from kid to kid, I've never done so much swimming in my life.  It turned out that get one into the whirlpool and the speed keeps them above the surface, what a brilliant idea.  You got a kid into it and they had a head start at swimming.  Once you followed them through a couple times they got used to the idea and went through on their own, awesome.  Of course i was then basically a taxi service to help them swim back to the start.  Their confidence grew tenfold.  The swimming improved just as much, from no ability to confidently swimming off.  It went from me being yelled at for help at the start to cries for me to watch them as they swam off into the beyond.  Now that means something to me, even the immense aches and pains from all the swimming were easily dwarfed by that satisfaction.

Learning to try...

So we made it.  We arrived at the CHICKS site and got our first glimpses of the massive building with its football field, basketball and, the piece de la resistance, the built in trampolines.  The kids swarmed off the bus, then swarmed all the way back to pick up their bags and ran along into the building.

The next week was then spent without a break with so many great things to do.  From softball, to rock climbing and archery as well as gorge scrambling and horse riding.  The fun never stopped, even in between activities they get to go off and play football, trampolining and a whole bunch of indoor games.  They never got bored, not that i did either.

Mealtimes were just as fun with little quizzes and some great food that seemed never ending, being a student i indulged myself.  However one of the teachers put a young boy into my care for mealtimes, he wasn't so fond of them.  Simply he didn't enjoy eating, something i could relate to from my early years.  Not that they told me that, he was just sent to see me when he was complaining at feeling ill.  They'd spent many school lunches coaxing this wiry little lad into eating and had respectfully failed.  I somehow befriended him and spent my first lunch explaining the need to eat, turns out that's not the way forward.  However he did eat, not a great deal but nonetheless I'd gotten to know him.  The rest of my week he'd hunt me out at mealtimes and make sure he could sit next to me despite constantly trying to get him to eat.  He'd realised i wasn't so different, he may have had a hilarious accent, i didn't but we clicked in some way and by the end of the week of sitting by my side he was trying all sorts, from only eating bread, butter and cheese to everything i could find.  When you've conquered something like that you get a great feeling, you've succeeded.

A short History

I thought I'd share some of my history with you just to fill you in.  Here goes:

Once upon a time i was taken along to the Boys' Brigade at the age of 6.  Since then I've been to the BB as its affectionately known every week i was available.  That's quite a long time.  So when I reached the grand old age of 18 i decided i couldn't bare to leave and so found myself as a leader in my local company to try and pay them back for the good times I'd had.  It had always been a place of friends no matter who you were and i could always count on a night to cheer me up.

If you don't know it, the Boys' Brigade is a Christian Youth group for 5-18 year olds.  A night teaches you anything from sports to Bible study, learning all sorts.  Not to mention the parents love getting a bit of piece and quiet.  Now i wasn't particularly christian and rarely went to church but it even gave me that consistent link to God as loose as it was he kept me in sight.

Of course when i moved to Uni some might have thought I'd leave it behind, but something made me keep at it and i soon found another Boys Brigade Company nearby and despite communication problems i turned up at the door and was welcomed in.  I'd at that point met a whole new family, and this one was big.  The people i could depend on from then till now.  I took leadership training and became a warrant officer in the Boys' Brigade being taught a basic understanding of working with kids, learning new games and analysing how to run activities well.

This led me into getting a lot more involved and hopefully I have helped in bettering some of the boys' lives.  I took to working with kids quickly and it became more enjoyable to me perhaps then engineering.  Thus the first crack appears in my plans.

The bus apppeared over the horizon

So i was sitting there, outside Exeter St. Davids eating lunch and playing several genres of song on my Guitar when i saw the bus turn the corner.  Bright white with the CHICKS logo written boldly down the side.  I hastened to pack my guitar in its carry bag as though the bus would be gone within minutes with or without me.  I slung it on my back and heaved up my massive sports bag and stumbled under the weight across the road before composing myself on the other side and striding up to the waiting passengers.  Introducing myself i was then told these were the wrong people, my bus would be allong soon.  Oh, all the effort of crossing the road for nothing, nevermind.  I did meet one other person from my camp, a girl my age, we talked, both slightly nervous of the impending week.  Our bus then appeared and drove allongside, the driver jumping brightly from it and welcoming us.  Our things were loaded and i just wanted to get going, but we were missing something, something quite important.  The Kids.  Yep, no sign, they tried the mobile, no answer.  They're supposed to be here by now, but no.  We waited almost an hour before a group bundled out of the doors of the station.  8 kids between 8-11 years of age and 2 adults, more volunteers.
And so it Began.

Diving in at the deep end, i knew nothing.  I met the kids on the bus as the atmosphere filled with excitement.  It was a little bit daunting to be honest, i'd worked with kids before, but this was a week with kids from totally different backgrounds.  CHICKS takes children from all sorts of places across the UK, but they all have one thing in common, they don't get any other holiday in the year.  Some have had terrible things done to them, abused emotionally and physically, or they're young carers for other family members with ailments, maybe they are stuck in the system in foster or care homes and children who are living in Poverty.  Things some people don't even believe can exist in our world, as simple as the fact that families are still forced to live in poverty, which i can assure you of.

Anyway, these kids were the same as any other.  The volunteers were their teachers, 2 women who happened to have a sense of humour, thank goodness.  They were certainly going to need it.  The week had yet to unfold and i could already see it was going to be good.

hmm no job...

So i didn't have a job for the summer, a problem for any person let alone a student delving into the overdraft!  However at that point i knew exactly what i wanted out of life and how i was going to get it, my plan was set for years ahead.  I would be a Mechanical Engineer.

You see i've always been that type of person, i like to know how things work.  Most average people ignore the contruction of the simple objects they use, not saying i'm better then average although eccentric could possibly be the right description for me just in a different mindset.  I spent years working for a garage fixing allsorts of problems with cars of every make which kept the mind going but lacked interest when every car is pretty much the same, there's a limit to what you can learn.  Of course outside of that i would pull things appart if they broke (or i just couldn't resist it anymore).  This still and probably always will be a habit of mine so why not make it a proper job.  With mechanical engineering you can design or build anything you like, for someone like me, the world is your oyster.  So i went to university and it was easy as pie the first year and finished with an average grade easily enough to get into 2nd year.  But i still needed something to do in the summer.

My garage job had gone so i had to start looking, i tried several places i knew of course and then online for anything of interest.  As the summer drew closer i decided i just needed anything that would keep me busy for a while.  So i started looking at unpaid jobs, volunteering anywhere i could.  That i think, is when the problems i have now really started.  I found a place that asks for volunteers to help out for 6 days at a time.  I liked the look of it and signed up there and then, yet more CRB checks of course.  Meanwhile my sister was still looking for jobs for me and she'd found one, manufacturing something i'd never heard of, sounds cool but that'll come in later.

This summer had gone from being quiet to being the busiest summer in my entire life.

So i headed for CHICKS.  A charity for disadvantaged kids, nothing engineering about it, but it looked like they were helping people, it just stood out to me.  Country Holidays for Inner City Kids as it's known was more then i ever expected.  I'd been worried about turning up, whether it was ever going to live up to the marketing on their website, if a holiday could possibly make such a difference to a child.  Anyway i turned up at Exeter St. Davids railway station after something like a 5 hour journey having had to head in and out of london at rush hour to find myself there early.  Luckily the weather was great and i sat down under a tree in view of the station and cracked out my slightly battle scarred guitar.  I was and am still learning so no i wasn't exactly great, i play for my own enjoyment not others, any and all stress just leaves upon playing a few well timed chords.  I'd bought a meager lunch from a nearby shop and satisfied that appetite of mine for a while.  That of course is when the bus turned up.