Well, so what do you think, yet another year has been and gone, and we thought that you were all brilliant. Isle Of Wight Venture being now 6 years old, who would have thought it ! The Management have put in many of their hours planning, thinking, writing documents, designing, logos / posters / T Shirts, booking events, licking stamps, and then a few hours running the event.

So the weather forecasters did not give us much hope this year, with the predictions of heavy rain and storms all weekend. In all of the planning before the camp, this is one of the entities that is beyond the Management’s control, however I do believe now that the Management can control the weather. The Thursday started off very wet and windy. A few units arrived early am on the Thursday, putting their tents up in the bad weather. The weather continued to be bad all morning and so the Management put into practice their action plan from 1995. Up until this year there had not been a need for this plan to be put into practice and so a Shelter around the camp fire was erected so that everyone could sit in the dry and sing into the early hours of the morning.

Luckily the Management have always considered the weather when planning the activities and there was no concern about any of the daytime activities being called off.

As the shelter had been completed, and what a marvel it was, the rain eased, it even stopped. So maybe this shelter was the good luck omen that was needed. The units that were already there started playing Frisbee, and the units arriving had the opportunity to erect the tents in lovely Sunshine.

7:30pm saw everyone gather in the hall for the traditional Opening Ceremony. This was followed by a Leaders meeting, where all of the units were informed of the activities and provided with ID tags, and the much loved welcome pack with the superb Gloop Maker Joke.

It is the norm on the first evening for the Management to encourage people to dance, but to our delight after the ‘Management’ had their photo taken by the ‘Isle Of Wight County Press’ we entered the Main Hall and saw the dance floor full. It was 70’s night and there were some stunning 70’s outfits on show.

At midnight, the entertainment moved to the campfire and the marvellous Shelter, which to our amazement was used to sit under, but it was not needed to shelter from the rain. The scouting songs were started, and soon followed up by Venture Scouting songs which tend to have a 15+ certificate.

The Friday morning saw the units throwing each other over one another’s shoulders with Judo in the morning, followed by Water Activities, which included Canoeing, Dinghy Sailing and Yachting. This was also followed by a session of Self defence class.

The Friday evening was the first noticeably different structure to Isle Of Wight Venture, the Race / Games night was brought forward to the Friday. This was as ever a crazy crazy night, with the Management donning their red coats and marking the floors for some mad games. It started off with about 120 person game of musical chairs, and then progressing with a Horse race where bets were made and the winners received a bag of goodies, Following this was a round of questions which made up the evenings quiz, and randomly throughout the night bingo numbers were called.

Some of the games included, 100+ people twister, dunking the apples which ended up with the floor being swamped, and the beer and bun race. Yet again the fire was bright and loud and all of the solo songs form the first night were now sung by all. The night was clear and warm, unless like some of us you were still around at 4am when a heavy shower appeared, and everyone ran for the shelter, and you know what, it worked. This was such an improvement from the year before when there were about 18 of us huddled together under a 6ft by 4ft ground sheet.

The Saturday morning started off with a golf session. This saw our first causality and A&E incident, with Jenni tripping down a soggy bank and dis-locating her finger. Now our first aider (‘Cedric’) was in causality with Jenni, the 5-a-side football competition started. Predicting the weather and also thinking back to last year when it was hard to organise the football, we set a side 3 hours and hired out the local sports centre. The teams were mixed, the atmosphere was amazing, the sound of the crowd was unbelievable.

The biggest cheer of the tournament was not for the winners, and it was not even for the losers, it was for Mark from Birmingham who managed to turn and then his knee popped and we had our second A&E situation. Once the ambulance men had treated Mark with Gas they wheeled him away, at which point their was a rapturous applause. The fittest team award went to St Albans, made up of all women (and Paul). The winners this year were Pisces, and the strong contenders from previous years ‘The Management’ were completely useless.

This event was followed by an astronomical evening with full space outfits. Due to the previous years poor organisation of the Karaoke supplier, The Management team, teamed up with Steve the Disco DJ to start the evening with technicality problems, but like always the Management provided the goods and not before long there were some awful songs coming out of those speakers. The Management did their bit with YMCA fully dressed in the Village peoples outfits.

The night concluded with the usual campfire, but it was more relaxed with people chatting. The night did not pass without event as we clocked up our 3^rd A&E case. This time it was 4am in the morning and Ben from London who accompanied the causality had drunk a bit much to be diplomatic in A&E, and went on to tell everyone in their how his best mate was (I Quote) "Just about to pop his clog's". By 5:30am they were both back on site and all was well.

The rifle shooting had been postponed until this morning, and it saw many a good aim, and bad aim. There was a lot at stake, as the Management had a tournament and bet on the best score. This was the practice shooting for the day, before Headhunters.

Additional to the camp this year, was a Pleasure Flight around Sandown / Shanklin Bay. On the welcoming there was this foreign women who did not know how to write her own name, for example Carol and Cedric had their name crossed off the list to fly next, they were then told that they couldn’t fly as a two, and so Mark, Michael and Ian said that they would go infront of Carol and Cedric, only to be told that this was not possible because the women had crossed their names. Now call me stupid, but this is not that hard to organise (or is it ?). There were no comforts, the pilot was scary, I am currently writing this report sitting in Upper Class on Virgin, drinking red wine and Champagne, and given a choice I would do that pleasure flight again. The landing was spectacular, the plane was rolling side to side, the runway was running out, but the mad pilot had no fear. I needed Birmingham’s ‘Pants on Parade’ as mine just didn’t seem big enough.

This was the topped off with Head Hunters, a game with 40 on either side, all armed with Rifles, and the aim is to protect the base, or attack the enemies base. Personally I started off pretty pathetic, and I am glad it was not real bullets, then our team started storming their barracks. Even though no one managed to grab the flag Kyles team abolished Cartman. This is the third year of the activity, and it has to be pointed out that Michael and James have never won and myself and Ian have never lost. Remember this for next year, you might be able to predict the results.

Everyone now after, beating each other up in Judo, kicking each others shins in football, eating the same Mars Bar in Games Night, Singing the same songs, killing each other, a unique bond was being formed between everyone. 18 units attended, 148 Ventures from all parts of the country. Every year people bond really well, but I must admit that this for us was the ultimate. Everyone from the first disco bonded superbly. This makes the camp so easy to organise when everyone is friends and we felt that this year was the biggest bond ever. It was good to see Kevin and Lucy return, they meet 5 years ago on the first night on the first Isle Of Wight Venture in 1995, and are still going strong. Just remember the kids have to be named after the Management and not Cilla.

The last evening (Sunday) was a 90’s Disco, with many favourite tunes getting everyone dancing. It was hot, and therefore the appropriate Hawaiian fancy dress went down at boiling temperature. The Management had been in collaboration for a while, deciding on the Characters of the camp, who would receive special awards for being special people throughout the weekend.

This year was special, not only did we present Cedric who is now retiring after being in Venture Leadership for 15 years, and was awarded 15 years of Service. The Management also showed their appreciation of his support over the Isle Of Wight Venture Years as First Aider as he has` been a big support and now friend, we designed him a picture of Isle Of Wight Venture over the years in a photo frame. This was not only a time of saying goodbye and thankyou to Cedric, this was also a time for the Management to say Thankyou and goodbye to you all. As you should know the founding members of Isle Of Wight Venture have now hung up their neckerchiefs and passed it on to a new Management team, which are a group of Ventures. (A Venture Camp for Ventures run by Ventures).

There are no words that can express my gratitude for all the Ventures that have attended Isle Of Wight Venture over the Six years that we have been in charge. No it has not been easy, Yes it has been a lot of hard work, but I would not change a second of it. I have made so many friendships, I have met so many Characters, I wish that everyone that has attended our camp would have stayed within scouting, but so many have departed with so many skills and years of Scouting Knowledge. Maybe this is something that the Scouting Movement should work on improving.

In the words of all the Management would like to say to you all, thank you for all of your support over the many years. I hope that we the Management team will all stay within Scouting, but I must admit I will be surprised if in 5 years time that we will all be.

So what from now, no the story is not over, in any manner or means. We have had three approaches of new Management teams. We have had to think back to your comments, we have had to think why Isle Of Wight Venture year after year has been the success it has, and then match this with the criteria of a new Management team.

We have made our decision, we have chosen a team of Ventures that we believe will provide you with the camp that you want. This New Management team, will be going under a different name, and not The Management, they are now completely in control of the future of Isle Of Wight Venture and will need your support to return next year. We the old Management team will be available to the new Management to give advice and help out if so required, but all of the planning and bookings is in the new capable hands.

The Management (ex) once again thank you all, and hope to see you all in the future at Scouting events, such as SKINT in September or at the Norfolk Challenge the week after. If not then we shall see you next Easter on the Isle Of Wight, where we (EX MANAGEMENT) can join in the partying and Venture activities with you.

Look forward to seeing you all again at Isle Of Wight Venture 2001