The superb 160 acres of parklands and gardens of Bilton Grange School at Rugby were again the venue for this summer's Oakley Holiday, from 28 July to 4 August.

After days of flooding only a few miles away, the warm, sunny and dry week was an unexpected pleasure for the 103 boys and girls who attended. Twelve were on their first Oakley Holiday and five were leaders for the first time.

The group was accommodated in fifteen dormitories and enjoyed top-class cooking from the school catering team. A small separate dining room for each dormitory to use in turn was an innovation and highlight, as was a picnic and marshmallows round a bonfire.

Team games of volleyball and podex, a football and hockey tournament, hectic and very wet water games were complemented by more relaxed croquet, boules and badminton and a social swim before breakfast, attended by many.

In the afternoons there was a very wide variety of activities to choose from including table cricket, jive, a choir, creating an Oakley collage, playground ground games and sardines, squash, pavement art and diabolo. A morning in Rugby looking for the leaders who were disguised as everything from Chickens, Puffins, Bananas and Smurfs to pirates, a headless man and a green wheely bin proved highly entertaining for our own members and locals alike.

By means of collection and a balloon race the holiday group donated £600 to two charities suggested by members - Diabetes UK and Find Your Feet. For full details about all Oakley-related Summer 2007 Charity Events, visit the Summer 2007 Charity Round-Up.

In discussions groups and through our evening services we thought about and debated a number of current personal, social, religious and environmental topics including adoption, the person of Jesus, risk-taking, our attitudes to the elderly and how we use our time.

Evenings were spent in the Ravenscroft Hall where members put on an excellent range of entertainment.

These included a reappearance of the Spice Girls, the saga of the Three Jellyfish, ballet, juggling and tap dancing , together with quizzes, orchestral, solo and choral musical items, story-telling and community singing.


New members were presented with certificates of achievement and a book to mark their first holiday and all members were given details of the two holidays planned for next Easter (April, 2008) and Summer (July, 2008).