This year Ventact took place in Killcully campsite in Cork, the usual place for ventact! Ventact is a weekend orientated for ventures around Ireland! The whole weekend is a great laugh and you meet loads of new people! There are activities that we get to do that some of us never tried before and there is also a themed disco on the Saturday night. Here is the log of the Waterford City Ventures experience at Ventact 2011.

Ventact 2011

26th August – 28th August

Written By: Dean Purcell

Friday Night

At 6 o’clock we all met at the bus station on the quay to get the 6:30 bus to cork! There was a good few of us there, Bill Power, Ross Phelan, Eoin Falconer, Mark Duffy (Daniel Radcliff), Robert Jacob, Stephen Thul, Sara Flavin, Emily Costello, Kayleigh McGavock, Hazel Murray and myself Dean Purcell. The bus was a grand aul laugh while some of us attempted to make scoobies! And the man sitting in front of us lighting his jacket on fire cause he was bored! It was around 8o’clock when we reached Cork Bus station and I called Tony the man who was going to drop us to the campsite! He couldn’t take us all so he went in two trips while the people who waited for the second trip ran over and got a subway! It was half eight when we were all on the site and the second lot who reached the site were hoping that the others had our tents up and all for us but then we remembered that we were ventures and realised that none of the tents would have been put up till we all got there! By about 9:30 we had our tents up, gear away and everything that was needed to be done was done! It was now time to go off and mingle! I knew a lot of people there from the Jamboree and we also ran into a few groups that remembered us from last year! We already new that it was going to be a great weekend! Around 10ish we went into the hall and we learned how to do the bollywood dance! That was a great laugh and we messed around in there dancing to the music. At midnight we all got our card of what our activities were going to be for the next day, I got power boating and firefighting! For the next 30 minutes every single person on sight went around trying to swap their activities so that they could be with their friends! Around 1ish we all went off to bed!

 

Saturday

Two very responsible leaders, David O Neill and Eric Whelan

On the Saturday morning we awoke and got breakfast and headed toward the buses that were taking us to all the activities! Before we got on the buses we said goodbye to Neilers and Eric who were leaving that morning! We then got on the buses and off I was to power boating for the morning! Power boating was a great laugh spending 45 mins going around the sea in Cork! But the fellow driving the boat wasn’t too keen of me asking him could I drive so I had to stay in the seat and watch the water but all in all it was a grand buzz! We even got to see a few dolphins in the water; your man said they were common this time of the year!

Power boating on the Lee Estuary

A group of ventures enjoy the sights

After power boating we had to wait for an hour outside of a restaurant for the bus, typical Cork buses never around when you need them! Unfortunately for us the restaurant wasn’t open so we couldn’t even sit inside! When the bus arrived off we were to Fire Fighting! That was an OK craic I thought! We got to use the water and foam yolky! The smell from it was horrible! We even got to watch a soccer match at the fire fighting but this was a match where the stadium caught fire and everyone died! Kind of boring – no surprise there!!

Eoin Falconer tries his hand at fire fighting

Gearing up for fire fighting

Saturday Evening:

When we got back on the campsite we were all starving so off we went to the chip van that was on site and got ourselves a free meal (two of my favourite words, free and meal!!). After the meal we all met up together again and talked about what everyone done for their activities that day! It seemed to me that everyone enjoyed themselves!! We all then went off and mingled with others and then ran into chief (Riordan) who came along that night! Chief had a majestic look about him when we saw him, standing in the middle of the field with his hair blowing in the winds!! At around 8.30, Falconer and I went to the mass that was in the hall on the campsite! No one else was really bothered going to it! The mass was a grand aul laugh until I got a leg cramp, Jesus don’t them things hurt!! After the mass it was time to head down and get into costume for the disco! The theme for the disco was “Bollywood” and it was sure to be a great aul laugh!! Every one was there and dressed up, Bill even dressed as Santa, and when people asked him why did he dress at Santa he replied that Santa goes to everyone including the bollywood people and then called them selfish! He was the talk of the night, everyone recognised him haha!

Santa made a visit to Ventact

The disco was a great laugh and they even played all the “teenybopper” dance songs! It was like I was 12 again! The disco ended at around 12.30 and I was knackered after it with sweat coming from every part of my body! After the disco we stayed up having a laugh with a few random lads from around the country! They were odd, but of course we liked them! It was around 1.30ish when we finally went to bed!

Sunday

On Sunday morning we awoke to loud music playing in the tent beside us – “Good morning Vietnam” was the song playing and it was the alarm to get us all awake! Boy do I hate that song now! We got up out of the tents and thank god it was a dry morning, so we took down our tents and packed our bags! Then we went off and got ourselves some breakfast in the chip van! At around 10 o’clock our bus back to the bus station in Cork was there so we went off and said our good byes to our new friends! And off we were on our journey home! The bus from Cork to Waterford was possibly the quietest journey ever with everybody fast asleep! Ventact was a great weekend and I can’t wait to go back again next year!