Stanthorpe
Stanthorpe lies in the Granite Belt on the ranges just north of the New South Wales border.
The Stanthorpe Emergency Services Cadet Group was established in 1998 in conjunction with Education Queensland as part of the Youth Action Program (YAP) however currently the unit operates under Emergency Management Queensland.
They currently have 6 Cadets and 9 Adult Members. They are also well supported by the local State Emergency Service who enthusiastically supports training activities.
Stanthorpe Emergency Services Cadet Group meets on Thursday afternoons on a fortnightly basis from 3:30pm to 5:00 pm during school semesters.
STANTHORPE CADET GROUP CAMP
Storm King Dam 2004
We‘re excited! It is Friday the 19 th of March and we’re going on Camp. Our bags are packed and we’re under the big tree at Stanthorpe State High School. Finally after a long wait we are able to board the bus. On the bus everyone is talking, laughing and receiving their name tags (aghhhh what a mug shot). When we got to Storm king Dam we got to choose our cabins and then our beds. Then Mr. Mitchell talked about the activities we were going to get to do on camp, safety, rules and responsibilities. We also got sorted into activity groups. This was well organized, as we were allowed to choose a friend to be in the same group with.
Our first activity for the day was “Communications”, this was awesome! We learnt how to use the radios, (copy that, over), and why good communication and radios are important in search and rescue activities. Later we also got to play some games through the radio’s, calling each other up, and sending people to look for stuff.
In our next activity we went to “General Rescue”. At this activity we learnt how to tie knots and do square lashings, after that we did canoeing and boat safety. Canoeing was great. All of us really enjoyed it! We also went for a ride in a flood boat and learnt new boat safety skills. This was definitely great fun! For the remainder of the day we undertook aquatic challenges and at night we did some recreational activities. The games we played were excellent and Mr. Mitchell handed out chocolates and prizes to the winners.
Saturday morning we started with “First Aid”. To make it more fun we were put into scenarios and talked about how we needed to treat different injuries. After lunch we got to do “Communications” and then we had a demonstration by the Queensland fire and rescue service. This was so much fun as the QFRS came and let us try out the fire hoses. Some of us almost got blown away by the pressure of the fire hoses, but it was heaps of fun. Next we went abseiling, which was really great fun but a bit scary too and finally we did an activity called “Raft Rats”. We had to get into groups of 4 and design and build our own raft, using 8 logs, ropes and bottles. After we built the rafts we then had to race them. We had to paddle with our team all the way up the dam to 3 poles about 200m away. Some rafts sank & fell to pieces, where others were so good they didn’t sink at all.
That night we had an activity where some of the leaders had to pretend that they were involved in a major accident. Mr. Skilton and David Carnell were chosen to hide and give clues for the teams to find them. The team had to use radio communication to get the clues as to where the casualties were. When the team finally found them we could see broken bones and deep cuts everywhere. Luckily all these injuries were fake. When we started helping them they began yelling and screaming in pain and there was blood all around the place. Phil, one of the leaders, even had an injury that squirted out blood. It looked so real, we almost fainted. Lucky for them we had learnt some first aid skills before hand and were able to patch them up OK.
On Sunday we did orienteering, catapults and archery, this was so much fun as some of us had never tried archery or the catapults before. After this we had lunch and cleaned up the camp site then our parents arrived to pick us up. All of us were so tired, but we had had a fantastic time at camp.
In all our favourite activities over the weekend were abseiling, canoeing, rafting, boat safety, archery, catapults, first aid, communications, and free time. So basically we liked every thing about camp (except clean up duty), and we all can’t wait until the next camp.
Special thanks must go out to Mr. Mitchell and Mrs. Carnell for organizing such a wonderful camp. Other leaders such as Mr. Skilton, Mr. Elms, Mr. Carnell and Miss Brown also helped look after us and helped make our camp enjoyable. Thank you also to all the instructors and emergency service people such as the SES, Ambulance and Fire Brigade. We had a great time finding out about new stuff and all learnt so much in just one weekend. Finally, we would like to thank Mrs. Palmer and the other parents / helpers for cooking our scrum-diddley-ump-sious meals. With out your help we would have starved.
We hope everyone involved in the camp enjoyed the camp as much as we did. We have all had a great time and gained so much from the camp. We hope that we can all become awesome emergency service cadets so that some day we will be able to help others in our community.
Stanthorpe Cadets 2004
(Story compiled through the combined efforts of many of the Stanthorpe Cadets).
Last updated 21 July 2009