I just came back from Camp STAR (Sportsmanship, Teamwork and Respect). It was organised mostly by the Sports Secretariat of the YEC. Lasted from 24-26 November 2006. I was aching all over and slightly under the weather. It seemed like one long day as we didn't really sleep during the whole duration. Overall, the camp was not bad and quite fun but unlike Andrew, Alex, Chee Meng and Michael who were facilitators, I was a coordinator so we had different experiences. I was basically the basketball and camp coordinator and Cassandra, Desmond and I are in the 'Breakfast Department' Haha. We have to prepare the bread and spread jam and kaya for the 20-odd campers. In the end, Cassandra and I didn't even feel like having breakfast.

I reached the camp which is held in Ping Yi Secondary School in the early evening. They were playing tchoukball then. Desmond and I hang around until Alex and Andrew came at night. We then had some food before we went to join them in the AVA. We didn't really sleep and Cassandra, Michael, Desmond, Andrew and I went to the 7-11 nearby and bought some alcoholic drinks and a deck of cards. (That deck of cards was the beginning of some mental torture) We then went back to the school canteen and played 'Big 2'. One of the camper then complained of chest pain and I asked Andrew and Cassandra to attend to her as beside me, Andrew was the only one with a First Aid cert. It seemed nothing major, probably due to the tchoukball exercise earlier in the day. We told her to rest and monitored her situation.

Later some (no no ...... MOST) of the campers complained of hunger as they whined that the dinner's portion was too little and too spicy. I told them to rest first while we tried to get some food. I called Rezal, the camp's main coordinator and he said they will be fine. However he got some biscuits back when I mentioned it to him the second time. Alas, after getting scolded by Rezal, they went to sleep and only a couple of them wanted the biscuits. Well no choice, if they really got gastrics problems because of this, we would have been in deep trouble.

The next day was learning sessions for football, floorball and basketball. They started the morning session for football. Steven Tan, from Tampines Rovers FC was their guest coach. He was a former National Team player and was known as the 'Super Sub'. They seemed to enjoy the session, with Michael and Chee Meng taking part too. After lunch was learning sessions for floorball and basketball. They split into two groups of two teams. First session of basketball was for White and Green teams.

I got Eugene, Xiao Bai, Jianhui, Gordon and Leon to come and help out. Eugene was supposed to be the coach but he told me he can't teach them the basics as he was not sure of the proper way to go about it. In the end I have to take over. I taught them the basics such as dribbling, passing, lay up and shooting. Later I let them play 5-on-5 on half court. The sun was really strong that afternoon and I felt it was rather hard to teach them all the basics all at one time.

When we learned basketball and trained, we had different time slots for various trainings and we often took a long time to learn the basics properly. All I can do then is to teach them some fundamentals and hopefully they will take an interest in the sports. Of course, the training sessions will appear dull and boring compared to the rest but I rather they learn proper fundamentals rather than not learning anything at all and enjoy playing a wild game.

Something unrelated to the camp ; We actually had planned to go to Ministry of Sound (MOS) for the People Association Youth Movement (PAYM) 35th Anniversary event but after entering the camp, we realised our schedules are rather tight so we dropped the idea. BUT Kelvin (YEC's Membership Secretary) wanted to go as he just finished his GCE 'O' Level (YES, he's only 16) and he was quite eager to go. In the end he called us and wanted to meet up with us. He then reached Ping Yi Secondary. Michael, Andrew and I then arranged to go ahead. Chee Meng and Alex wanted to stay as they wanted to assist their teams. So Andrew came over to my place and showered and we caught a cab. The driver didn't know about MOS and we have to call and check with Michael. When we reached, we were disappointed. It's just a Music Mix Night, with a competiton. Complimentary Drinks only for the first 150 people. I don't think everyone took just one. So we stayed a while and left. We then went to Bedok Interchange to get some supper and went back to the camp. Kelvin went home.

Back to the camp ; By now we were rather tired and Cassandra didn't want to sleep ...... (Remember the mental torture of the deck of cards?) So we kept playing 'Big 2' ...... By then Desmond was back from his sister's wedding and after a while we went to sleep.

The last part of the camp was the tchoukball competition. It was an inter-team competition and they set their own rules and play soon went underway. In the end Blue team won all their 3 matches and emerged Champion. We then had a Team Facilitators VS Team All-Star. Having played Tchoukball the first time, I was very clumsy and played the game like a basketball match with all the fakes and passes. LoL I left early to prepare the buffet lunch with Desmond and Team All-Star won. LoL. After that it was lunch, cleaning up and evaluation of camp. When we were done, it's about 5 p.m. and we left the camp. Initially Andrew, Alex, Chee Meng and I wanted to get a drink but two campers came along. I was so tired that I fell asleep there. Following which, I went home to bath and sleep. I took Monday and Tuesday to recover from the fatigue of the camp.