Bemerton Soul – Day 1

Day 1 of Bemerton Soul was a truly great start to the ‘week’ with practically all of our prayers being answered from the night before. We had beautiful bright sunshine all afternoon (cf – Tuesday afternoon), loads of kids coming along (23 on day 1, the most last year was 25) and everything went smoothly and safely.

The day began, as most Bemerton Soul days do, with a game of Octopus on the green space. Now a firmly established favourite for arrival games that has the added bonus of being able to adapt as more and more kids join the game mid-way through.

Then came the bit we were all waiting for, well the leaders anyway – the teams were announced. The competitive spirit came to the fore as chants and cheering got underway in earnest before the first team game of the day. The green team (Rev. Green of course) went with a presumptuous chant of ‘Green, Green, the winning team’ but it was the Yellow (Col. Mustard) who were fastest out of the traps and into an early lead after winning the first two games. Must be because, as their team chant says, they were keen as custard. Alas the Yellow / Mustard team couldn’t make it three out of three wins but they are the team with the yellow jersey (literally and metaphorically) after day 1.

And while the team games raged on those who prefered a more relaxed approach to the afternoon took to the Arts & Crafts tent. There Bee managed to do what Tony Blair or Gordon Brown never could and issued the kids with their own Detective ID cards. With name, important details, fingerprints and photo / picture holder It did look rather snazzy.

But my highlight was the detective duo of Holmes & Watsup. That’s Herlock Holmes, Sherlock’s great, great, great grand-daughter (the most famous detective in all of Islington, you must have heard of her?) and her ‘keen-but-not-bright’ assistant Dr. Watsup. Fantastically played by Kate and Corin and sure to feature later in the week. Herlock trained Watsup on how to be a detective, day 1′s lesson being Looking for Clues.

And we put those skills into practise with Tricia who gave us some clues about her life – her passport, her rock-climbing stuff and a photo of her family. From them we could find out a lot about her. And Tricia then told us the story of Jesus’ birth and from that we saw some clues as to why this Jesus was so special. Something we looked at in more detail in our teams.

But there was one problem yesterday that we need to improve on for Day two. The gazebo. While we’ve inherited a marvellous super-gazebo (three times the size of any normal gazebo) it seem to create three-times the headaches in putting it up. But with perseverance and a little help from some parents it was finally up after just 45 minutes of effort. Must do better for Day 2.

I’ll sign off by saying what a great group of leaders we have at Bemerton Soul and the picture above show you who they are. A team even Wenger would be envious off – a team of Fabregases and not a Bendtner amongst them.

Onwards to Day 2!