Section of the Month September - ESN STUBA with R-Camp
As the first leaves fell down from the trees our section came up with an extraordinary event. An event that has a potential to become one of our biggest, most famous and amazing. It all started with a small idea to show our Erasmus students as much as we can right at the beginning of the semester and to make them know each other better, to create stronger bonds that will last longer than ever before. The planning started months before the „D“ day. After a long waiting, the Welcome Week started and we were so excited about the first weekend with our Erasmus students. We decided to call the weekend R-Camp. We did not tell anyone what the „R“ stands for – the plan was to ask the campers what describes the weekend the best and it was their task to give the name for the whole Camp.
Each camper got a welcome pack with our custom made bags full of little surprises. The bus ride was full of useless fun facts, that no one cared about, but it made the travel easier. The first impression was great. Everybody loved the place in the woods. It was so calm and silent. Five teams were created and the game began. The teams were competing against each other the whole weekend and everyone tried to do their best for the win. It was amazing to see how the teams built their spirits steps by step, game by game, how they were cheering and helping each other. Even not just in their own teams. The sun went slowly down, Alea iacta est, the official program for the day was over, homemade pizza was successfully eaten and the party could start. Our IT team created an amazing app, that was screening the photos from the Instagram with the hashtag #rcamp2018. Thanks to this everyone could share the memories from the Camp with the others. They loved it. We taught them our new energizer dance and to our surprise, they learned it so fast, that when the DJ lost himself and the song came on everybody started to dance. Carpe diem. I would say that we became the new modern Lords and the Ladies of the dance.
The next day the weather was not as perfect as we would like to have it. However, we stuck to the plan and the competition was live again! After the results of the first day, everyone wanted to win and we were feeling the heat. During the afternoon’s hike, the teams cleaned the forest and filmed a spectacular mannequin challenge. Before the dinner, we played a little quiz about our beautiful Slovakia. The dinner was the old school style – fire, sticks, and sausages. The party lasted till the sunrise... We wanted to show them also a place that they would never visit by their owns, and I would say that not a single Erasmus student has visited the place before. As an unexpected trip, we stopped at Bradlo and they could witness the beauty of the Small Carpathians.
To conclude: after 3 days, 6 hours of sleep, 50 students divided into 5 teams spent 2 nights in the lovely woods of the Slovak nature, tightened the bonds, maybe created new ones, and made a legendary first step to their Erasmus.
P.S. R will from now stand for “R is like Remember the best week in your life”.
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