With the second Phoenix Days camp, 3 months away, we had our first meeting to get to know who we would be working with and what activities we would be doing in the summer.

Phoenix days is a holiday (We were explicitly told not to call it a retreat) for young people who wouldn’t normally get the chance to go on holiday or for people that could benefit from having a holiday with other young people.

After arriving on Friday Evening for social time, the main body of the weekend began on Saturday morning with Icebreakers and team building. This initially began with having to create a game that was based around an object such as hands and a pear. We then moved onto a game where we were given a letter and we had to create the longest word that began with the provided letter. Afterwards we had lunch and then our next activity, which was a survival game. In the survival game each of us were given a specific role and had a specific item. There was a defender of the group who had to carry a bat, 2 medics, 1 of which had to carry a chair, a keeper of wealth who carried money, a giver of light who carried a candle, a spiritual member, a giver of life who carried two boxes of wine, an injured person who had their legs tied together and a blind person who was blindfolded. We were then told to get from one place to the other, where along the way there would be several problems. After encountering many pedestrians and pretending that they could attack us at any second causing us to hide behind twigs and leaves, we made it to our destination. We then had dinner together and the rest of the evening was spent socialising and deciding what we would do over the Phoenix weeks.

On Sunday we discussed ideas of fundraising and what activities people would be able to do. We then had mass with the Savio House community which involved the reading of the passion, a little procession around the grounds and some flag-waving.