Rebel Summer Camp 2023
Last year, after multiple Rebels mentioned they would love to go camping but didn’t have others to go with, I decided to run Rebel Badge Club’s first ever Camp! It will take place next August and planning is already underway …
Rebel Summer Camp will take place at Blackwell Court near Bromsgrove, Birmingham, an activity centre which I used to volunteer at over twenty years ago! The event will take place over the August Bank Holiday weekend (August 25th to 28th 2023) , with activities running on all three days (Saturday, Sunday and Monday). You can arrive any time after 1pm on the Friday, camp will officially begin at 6pm on the Friday, and run until 6pm on Monday 28th August (though you can leave earlier than that if you need to).
Included in your ticket are 18 different activities across the weekend, plus evening entertainment.
Sample activities include Archery, Rock Climbing, Zip Wire, Life Saving, Pool Parties, Orienteering, Foraging, CSI Forensic Skills, Dance Classes and much more! If you’ve been to one of our Meet Ups, they are a taste of Camp, just on a far smaller scale, and without the added outdoor and adventurous activities we can do at Blackwell Court!
You can choose to bring your own tent, in which case you only need a ticket for camp (and a parking permit if you are bringing a car) or if you’d prefer to sleep indoors there are two different options - glamping pods, or dorm beds in the Manor house, for which there is an additional cost. There are wheelchair accessible glamping pods available and the site is wheelchair friendly with a designated disabled and gender neutral toilet and shower block in the centre of camp.
There will be two fields for campers - a ‘quiet’ field and a general camping field, so we can accommodate both early birds and night owls!
Activities will be carried out in Patrols, and when you sign up, you’ll complete a form telling me about your preferred levels of activity and how high adrenaline you’d like to go. The form will ask for your weight (as some of the harnessed activities have weight limits) and allow you to tell me about any physical disabilities or conditions which might affect which activities you can take part in. I will read through all the forms and assign patrols accordingly, so for the three days at camp you’ll be with up to 11 other Rebels, who have all asked for a similar level of activity. You can request to be in a Patrol with friends or family, however lots of Rebels are attending alone so don’t let that put you off! You’ll then get a schedule for the weekend, which will include a mix of activities run by the camp staff, and additional crafts, classes and activities.
At present we have 140 Rebels attending. We have capacity to accommodate just over 500 Rebels. The closer we get to this number, the more external activities I can bring in. So if we have 350 Rebels, for example, we can have different choices of evening entertainment each night, and more crafts and talks running throughout the day. Ideally I plan to offer outdoor cinema, silent discos, bingo, pub quizzes and talks in the evenings provided enough tickets are sold.
The camp is self-catered, however the more Rebels we have attending, the more easily I can get food vans and other catering options on site for those of you who would prefer to buy things like coffees or pizzas, or to even have a sit down meal indoors in the evenings.
Let me know if you have any questions, and I hope to see lots of you in Bromsgrove this summer!
Charly xx