Issue 9 – Tuesday 8 August
Committee takes control in Village 7
Joshua Cooper
It was just an ordinary village circle on a sunny morning, when Village 7 were given the challenge to change how the Village would run for a day.
After randomly picking a numbered envelope, the people of the Village 7 were going to have to be under the rule of a Committee for 24 hours.
The Committee, made up of 12 young people aged 6-16, quickly rushed into the nearby teepee to decide the changes they were going to make for the day to come. The first and last Committee meeting was an interesting one with older ones taking over and younger children not being listened to.
After quarter of an hour, the Commitee had come up with the changes and were ready to tell their people what they were going to have to do. The changes included: bowing to Committee members and calling them Sir/Madam, falling to the floor and shouting “ooo” everytime “Golden Monkey” was shouted by the Commitee and giving the KPs a day off.
However, the changes weren’t very well recieved, with rebellion and Elfins carrying banners reading ‘the Committee sucks.’ To counter this, the Committee abolished the silly rules and just stuck to the main rules: KPs would have a day off, the on-call clan would wash up the pots and pans after meals and the Committee would have unlimited access to the Food Tent.
This last rule was soon forgotten through guilt and an understanding of the consequences.
Despite the very minor changes to the rule structure, there was a massive change in mindset to the rest of the Villagers. People didn’t turn up to do their clan duties, were cold towards the Committee members and adults were generally apathetic. At the end of the day, people don’t like change, and whether it’s good or bad, change has to be implemented properly.
Within ten minutes, the Committee were making decisions that would effect everyone, but were only considering the opinions of the twelve Committee members.
By the end of the day, the Committee were having to fill in for the missing clan members, even though one of the original rules was for members of the Committee to be exempt from clan duties for the whole day. Effectively, the Committee had become the adult leaders, and this made the Committee realise how hard the adults work on camp to make sure the day runs smoothly.
As a result of the ‘experiment,’ permanent rule changes have been made for the rest of the camp and, hopefully, future camps. The cooks no longer wash up the cooking equipment after meals and a Committee has been set up as a feedback system for the way camps are run. Members from all age groups are in this commitee and are the voice for their peers and friends to make the camp more enjoyable and more effectivly run.