Opening Ceremonies

The moment that we were all waiting for: Camp 101 to be offically open. Groups arrived earlier in the day to set up camp and meet new camping friends. Staff worked together to prepare for the ceremonies and set up the rest of camp, along with a couple of trainings. My first job at camp was sanitizing the water hose for water bottles. Yuck! But, I got to see the entire campsite.

After dinner, there was lots of press and photographers getting ready for the big event. Our Ranger group got our picture taken with two Irish girls. Guess what! The last day of camp, there was a souvenir portion in the newspaper, and our photo was in it.

Everybody filed it, and got ready for the big event. While getting everybody seated, a group of girls sang: I want to camp with you. This was the moment where it actually hit me. "OMG, its true, and not a dream. I'm in Ireland." When the ceremony began, each country brought down their flag. 12 countries attended Camp 101. Various speeches were presented by Chief Commisioners,the Roscommon Mayor, and of course the Camp Chief Maria Kindlay.

You can not forget the Irish dance! Dancers danced around the cauldron with 8 different coloured ribbons to represent each Global Action Theme. Afterwards, the crowd stood up to sing "together we can the world" our camp song for the week. It was amazing seeing everybody do the same actions at the same time.

Next up, a band named Cadence came on stage to play a few songs for us. We were all so excited, we ran up to the stage (even though we were told not to, we did anyway. While playing some amazing songs, everybody was jumping and cheering. Some of weren't even jumping, and we were bouncing up and down. I walked out in the middle of a song for only a minute. The next thing I know it, everybody is coming out of the marquis. The amount of pressure and bouncing on the floor, caused it to cave in and break in several spots. No one let it damper there night. Instead, we sat outside and listened to a few more songs while enjoying the beautiful sunset over the lake. The floor guys arrived to fix the floor, around the time everybody headed to bed. Hammering was heard across the camp til about 3am in the morning, but I think most of us slept through it.

The nights events were a great way to kick off, the great week that was ahead of us