My First Annual

Annual camps are a great experience for cadets and they are some of my very best memories. Not going to lie they can be scary especially for a newbie. When I first started cadets in January '09 I was terribly shy, didn't have many friends outside or school. However joining up was a great idea for me as it allowed me to meet new people, and make new friends (who I'm still friends with today all those years later). Now those of you who are good with numbers will work out that by the time my first annual had rolled around I had only been in cadets around 5 months. This wasn't a very long time and I was still finding my feet. So when I said I would go I really don't think I had properly realised what I'd signed up for. 2 weeks away from home (the longest I'd even been away from home) with a group of people I didn't know that well and there would be a good 200 maybe 300 people I wouldn't know at all. Terrifying right? Wrong it really wasn't as awful as I had thought it would be. When I first walked into the room with the girls from my detachment I felt sick and didn't want them to leave me on my own with the other girls. However after talking to them it turns out they weren't as horrid as I had convinced myself. I really hit it off with some of the girls (I won't say there names because that's not fair to them). We are even still friends to this day. After that first horrible 15 minutes everything settled down and we all talked and talked, I remember we talked long into the night and I remember being scared the adults would catch us but I was having too much fun to go to bed. One of my friends actually left camp early which really worried me (she was ok if you're wondering) as I didn't want anything to happen to me when she and some other girls weren't there but I was fine. I was scared but I powered though something you should all try! Even went it's hard because it might just turn out to be the best thing you ever do. Now I can't remember everything activity and task that we did in detail so I just summarise. We did shooting, classroom lessons, went out on fieldcraft, had a day at a theme park and tons of other stuff. When I think back it is all a bit of a blur but I really enjoyable blur I so happy that I went. When I got home it was so late but I stayed up for hours telling my Mum everything, what we did, who I meet, how much I loved. This is a tradition that has been long standing every time I come home.