Behind every brand and business, there is a "WHY". Why do we do what we do and why do we do it in a particular way? My story behind Superstar Campz played a huge part in my childhood! One filled with excitement, mischief, and two cousins. I know what you are thinking - "who are the two cuties above, and why the heck is his hat so big for his head?".
Well, that would be me (the one with the hat too big for his head. Why I was bought an adult size I don't know) and my cousin Jamie. Our relationship as cousins is more like brothers. We are aged just 18 months apart (although he is older, you wouldn't know it the way he behaves), so every school holiday and half term we tried to spend as much time together as possible.
Summer Holidays and half terms mainly included going to each others houses to play football in the garden, trips to Brighton with Nan and our Mums, or winding them both up so much that they wanted to get rid of us for a few days by sending us to local summer holiday and school holiday activity camps.
You are probably looking at the photo above and thinking "ahh cute, I bet butter wouldn't melt", but this is us aged just 2 and 3....
THE EXCITEMENT...
I can still feel the excitement now of knowing that we would be spending the day together at an activity camp away from our parents, doing something we both loved. There was a sense of escape and freedom we both felt every time we attended one! The days would always start with a car journey to our camps - our top pick was a camp at Trinity School, Shirley - where we would have our chosen music playing and discuss what we would be most looking forward to doing throughout the day.
When we arrived at camp, we would be thrown into the deep end and have no choice but to socialise with children we did not know and attempt to become the "leaders" of our new social group. We thought we were cool dudes, the coolest at camp in fact.....that's until it was swimming time, and I usually cried when I couldn't pass the swimming test to go in the deep end I as was not a confident swimmer (Jamie looking on laughing his head off). Can't be good at everything I suppose 😉
Whether it was playing football tournaments and always picking each other to be on the same team, going to the tuck shop at lunch time to pick our favourite sweets, or bouncing around on the trampolines, the days were always awesome and we couldn't wait to go back, attending camps all across town and the country. You name the camp, we did it!
THE MISCHIEF...
If you asked our camp leaders and even our parents, they would describe us as "characters, cheeky, and a little mischievous". NOT NAUGHTY!
We would always get sent to the camp managers office because we were trying to make the other children laugh, usually whilst the lunch time register was being completed...
There was one time where the entire group were getting a telling off from the camp manager and Jamie and I decided to make a joke so the whole group burst into laughter. Safe to say we missed out on football and swimming that afternoon, which for me was a good thing, but for Jamie not so much, as he didn't have anyone to laugh at in the pool.
I look at some kids at Superstar Campz who may be testing the waters & being cheeky with our camp leaders and think "ahhh cute that's just like what Jamie and I were like". But I then abruptly snap out of the day dream and realise that its only 9.30am and they aren't getting collected until 5.30pm, so I quickly remind them of their behaviour (I can't help but to smirk to myself though)! 🤣
THE MEMORIES...
Both Jamie and I still talk today (at age 30 and 31) about our Summer Holiday Activity Camp experiences, and they played a huge part in shaping us into the people we are today.
Superstar Campz has been born out of the positive effect camps had on our relationship and on our personalities.
Every camp I deliver with our team is delivered with the passion, love, fun and excitement that we wanted to experience as kids.
So to conclude - Why do we do what we do and in the way we do it? Well, if Superstar Campz children can take just a fraction away from their experience with us of what we took away from our camps experience as kids, we know we will have had an impact in shaping their futures in some way 🙂
📸 And finally, whilst our first picture at the top of this page shows us as the little cuties we were on first sight, you will see from the subsequent photos that we never did master the art of photography even when Nan was present 😬 📸
THE "WE NEVER LEARNT HOW TO TAKE PHOTOS WITHOUT BEING MISCHIEVOUS"...
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