Camp Journal
Green Group Move Mountains while the Yellow Group visit the Chocolate Factory and Gruyères
11th July 2021
This morning the Green group worked on their team building skills, as they headed into the Torgon forest for ‘Moving Mountains’. A brand new activity for this year, campers have to work together to overcome games and challenges, all whilst using their orienteering skills to find their way across the forest. All teams worked hard to avoid the penalty for not completing a task – a blindfold! At the end of the morning, the campers met on the football pitch for a race on the Giant Skis to conclude a great morning of challenges. In the afternoon they designed some sculptures before working on their calligraphy skills in Art Jamming.
Meanwhile, the Yellow Group enjoyed one of the most popular Camp Suisse excursions – the Cailler Chocolate Factory! As part of their language tuition course, they took part in a language quiz about the history of the Cailler brand, before getting to taste the goods in the sample room. The afternoon activity took them to the ancient town of Gruyères, with its imposing stone walls and medieval castle. A great afternoon of exploring and cheese tasting was had by all.
– Louis Brown, Group Leader
Red & Blue Groups: A Languages Buzz and Bushcraft!
Whoosh! And just like that our first week at Camp has whizzed by and we are so proud of our campers’ resilience, progression and interaction in the past week. After welcoming some new Blue and Red legends on Saturday, we had a spectacular Sunday doing language classes and an unreal ultimate survival in the forest, which would make even Bear Grills very jealous!
Language classes this morning saw our fabulous French learners and epic English learners smash some language team building challenges on the football pitch. Lena and Mia took language animal bulldog by storm as they sped across the terrific terrain as fast a bolt of lighting. Equally, Cesar asked his fellow campers some incredible and insightful questions, which both challenged their marvellous minds and channeled their inner Mo Farah running talents!
As the clock turned 11:30, it was time to practise the singing spectacle that is Mr Sun. Camille, Lena, Anatole, Charles and Paul sang like angels as they belted out Mr Sun more impressively than Mariah Carey singing ‘All I want for Christmas’ on Christmas Eve. At the same time, over in the French class, Jimena and Julieta made Old McDonald proud as they sang e aye e aye o more enthusiastically than Mary Berry making a victoria sponge.
The afternoon saw Julien, David, Mircea and Aiden embody the heart of Grand Designs as they designed and built a jaw dropping den in the fantastic forest. Cali, Penélope, Louise and Valeria proved to be true naturals at fire lighting as they surprised us all with their incredible skills.
All in all another fabulous day with the reds and blues as they made us all proud once again! What icons!
– Beatrice Palmer, Group Leader
Red & Blue Groups: Camp Suisse Olympics
10th July 2021
This morning was a busy one with some of us departing early in the morning and more arriving throughout the day. After breakfast we had a masterclass in bed making and after, we put our new skills to use and cleaned our rooms! Next Olympics Day kicked off and it was once again a fantastic day! We picked teams from an eclectic bunch of countries and we spent the morning painting our faces, making flags and brainstorming chants that would best represent our country.
After an athlete’s picnic on the decking, we felt fit to compete. There were five events, all testing different skills from aim to speed to agility. Julien proved to be quite the team leader, directing his group through the water obstacle course with passion and gusto. Cali was on the organising committee and proved to be very effective. Lola represented her country of Greece with singing chants and even lead them to win bronze place. In silver came Mexico and in gold came Morocco. Paul was delighted with his first prize of a lanyard, the exact same as the ones the staff wear.
A relaxing evening was much needed and so a ping pong tournament and some card games and free time were just what the doctor ordered, maybe even an early night for some!
– Katy Rea, Group Leader
Green & Yellow Groups: Camp Suisse Olympics
Today the campers got to experience the epic challenges and triumphs of the Camp Suisse Olympics! Each team were assigned a country and each embraced their nationality for the games with creativity. They made chants, a painted poster and wore the flags of their respective teams.
The Games included a water obstacle course in which Claire and Marie really shined. Mexico and Greece took places on the podium. Celia, Pastora and Matteo were some of the many campers who were rewarded for their efforts with prizes.
The ceremony ended like it started with the lighting of the torch and the chanting of the songs the teams created. Ghana sung their song beautifully with Zora and Jasmine taking the lead.
– Megan Carey, Group Leader
Red & Blue Groups: Lake Day!
9th July 2021
The rising of the golden sun brought the rising of the legendary reds and blues. Breakfast was a welcome sight as an extra special Camp Suisse assortment of fruit, toast, Nutella and pain au chocolat was devoured as well as an array of yogurts, cereals and as many condiments as one could imagine. Nutella being a firm favourite for the campers as they fuelled ready for a dreamy day of paddle boarding, banana boating and swimming out on Lake Geneva!!
Jimena , Carla and Cali showed us how to paddle board like pros as they glided across Lake Geneva as cool and chill as can be, whilst Oliver and Julien put Tom Daley to shame as they jumped off the highest diving board like absolute iconic legends – I think we might have two future olympians!!! Equally, Claire, Ivi and Elena taught us the true Oxford English Dictionary definition of “water baby” as they strutted their stuff in the lake with such ease!!!
Over by the swimming pool, Anatole, who was initially feeling slightly apprehensive about swimming, made us all proud as he jumped in like a seasoned professional and even created a new pool game, involving ping pong, which we all had lots of fun playing!!! Watch out Paris 2024, water ping pong bat gliding is going to be on the cards !!!
Cesar, Elena, Victoria, Juan, Paul, Paolo and Olivia swam better than baby sharks as they raced across the pool whilst playing ball at the same time !!
The day also saw our brave Blues and Reds conquer the banana boat, which is not for the faint hearted but every one of them took It like champions and glided across Lake Geneva faster than Neil Armstrong running to the rocket on his first exhibition to space !
All in all, a fabulous day was had and our Blue and Red legends made us proud once again with their manners, participation and all round fabulousness!!!
– Beatrice Palmer, Group Leader
Green & Yellow Groups: A day of Adventure, Art and Archery!
The senior campers started this morning with language classes. The Spanish and English classes enjoyed an educational walk, while the French class learnt all about different forms of transport and played an awesome drawing game based on ‘Among Us’, where they had to root out the imposter artist amongst them!! They also had their final rehearsal for the great karaoke performance, taking place next week: we have Lion King, Shakira and Stromae on the agenda, which they are really looking forward to performing to their peers!
After a delicious panini lunch, we set out for the afternoon activities. The Yellow group learnt all about shelter building in the forest, which was super fun! They also took part in Camp Suisse ‘Art Jamming’ where they recreated some local artwork.
The Greens, meanwhile, enjoyed an afternoon of archery. Our archers played an awesome ‘predict the future’ game where the arrows accounted for the different destinations and types of travel. For example 3 arrows in the bulls eye meant a 5* holiday in Australia while an arrow on the outer ring meant staying in a cardboard box in Antarctica!
– Hannah Parry, Group Leader
Green & Yellow Groups make a splash at the AquaParc!
8th July 2021
The Greens and Yellows had an amazing day out at the highly acclaimed Aqua Parc today! The Aqua Parc is an indoor waterpark, so despite the less than ideal weather outside, campers were lounging in lovely 30 degree heat inside. With 15 amazing slides was something for every level. The more adventurous campers timed themselves going down the Devil’s Run slide with the fastest time going to Nella, who managed to complete the 20m high slide in 4.3 seconds! We also had the intrepid Salvador and Hector brave the Booster Loop, an amazing experience that drops you four floors through a loop-de-loop and has a maximum speed of 80km/h! The Lazy River was also a camper favourite and Zorah particularly enjoyed navigating the rapid parts. All in all a great day was had by all and it was great to see all of the campers having such a fun time!
– Sam Kelly, Group Leader
Red & Blue Groups: Language Classes and Art Jamming!
Woken up by an enormously intense thunderstorm, the reds and blues made their way to another great breakfast. The conversations of the morning were all about the adventures of the amazing AquaParc yesterday. Both Mia and Cesar were super excited to tell us about their experiences on the orange slide and the Black Hole slide.
Excited about what the day would bring, the Reds and Blues went out to the playground with their language classes. Cali and Jullieta went on to do a mind boggling game of chess. Julian and Oliver both rode the zipline like absolute legends and Penelope, Louise and Jeanne explored the whole area while having their conversations in English.
The afternoon was filled with some Bob Ross like art-jamming activities. Ivi and Jimina really showed their talents for the fine arts! Right before dinner we landed down for a movie to get some well deserved rest after a couple of nonstop days of fun activities!
– Suzanne Wallet, Group Leader
Yellow Group: Moving Mountains!
7th July 2021
Today the yellow group did a series of thrilling team building exercises in an adventure into the forest, in a challenge called ‘Moving Mountains’.
The yellows were spilt into five teams and each embarked on a series of activities that tested their communication and motivational skills. They raced around the forest with flurry and excitement believing each would win, orienteering themselves with a map to each activity. They encouraged each other as the activities tested physical skills and trust, they lifted each other through the spider web. They persevered through the ‘Detonation Challenge’ where they had to be completely in sync to detonate the bomb.
To the final round of high tensions, with smiles on their faces each team had to move in unison on wooden planks to the finish line. Every team was successful at multiple events and the feeling of pride and camaraderie was palpable all day. Tonight will be Casino Night and anticipation can be felt throughout Camp!
– Megan Carey, Group Leader
Red & Blue Groups – a Splashtacular Day at the AquaParc!
The reds and blues set off this morning on a splashtacular day at AquaParc. We left promptly and arrived with loads of time to spend lounging in deck chairs… except we did no relaxing! Instead we went from slide to slide to slide to slide and tried out as much as we could! Many of us overcame fears today, from small spaces to heights to scary rides we did it all! A special congratulations to Jimena as she flew down The Jump slide as it was all of the above and she went and did it anyways! Anatole was seen helping other kids set up their floaties for the slides, and Mia had her whole group going down the Lazy River in style.
We dined on the terrace and once we felt thoroughly satisfied, we went back into the Parc for even more! This time we were given more responsibility with our timings and it definitely payed off, everyone stepped up to the plate and proved once again, to be extremely trustworthy. On one particular slide, Camille sang “I believe I can fly” at the top of his lungs much to the amusement of everyone nearby.
Once changed, we made a stop off in the shop for some souvenirs – expect presents home! We’ve made some guesses about what’s for dinner, we hope it’s burgers and chips, or maybe macaroni… After food we’ll be watching a replay of the Spain Vs Italy match, for some reason Juan isn’t so eager to watch it today, I wonder why…
Until tomorrow!
Katy Rea, Group Leader
