For you local boys:

Next two Saturdays (May 10th and 17th) will be preparation days for the Encampment here at the Griswold Friary. There are still a few things to finish with the challenge course. Any locals who can spare some time please come. Times are 9:30am to 5:00pm. Bring work clothes and potluck meals. God Bless.

Great preparation for the Encampment. See if you can keep up with Father Bonaventure

The following video was cut together from footage captured last October for the Fall Encampment. Doug Barry runs his Radix Boot Camp for kids of all ages.

The weekend was challenging, but as you will see everyone had a great time. Don’t be put off by the challenges. Doug is great with kids and had everyone encouraging each other. I didn’t matter how athletic or advanced the kids were in their catechism everyone was treated with respect and support.

This Spring Encampment the Knights of Lepanto will be running the Boot Camp, but we hope to have Doug back for the Fall Encampment.

The Spring Encampment page is up. The even will take place on the weekend of May 23-25. The Advertising Flyer and Registration and Release Forms are available, plus all the details can be found there as well.

Please print out the Advertising Flyer and post it where you can. Let’s get the word out!

The linked thumbnail below will remain in the side bar, so it will always be visible on the site.

Click on the thumbnail:

Doug Barry is up and running with a new redesigned website. He will have regular vlog posts there under the heading “Take the Hill.” Perhaps we can get some of his work up here and on AirMaria!

The following is a riveting account of the escapades of the Fall Encampment night watchmen. I hoped they learned their lesson. Most likely not. We should have lots of fun with them next time.

Actually the boys, Marc included, who conveniently left his name out of the account, did learn something. I think they will be more vigilant next time.

The Night Watch’s purpose in this encampment was to protect the camp from enemy invasions, not just one but several. Mr. Barry would attempt to catch us off our guard and get within “striking range” of us, if he succeeded in this we would be subjected to twenty to thirty minutes of work outs in the morning after a night of partial sleep. We took the challenge (as if we had a choice) with a smile and thought it would be fun.

There were a lot of us probably ten or more, and we got roughly set up and had a rough plan. Ten minutes into the night Father Bonaventure had successfully infiltrated our base, he hid behind Adam (which isn’t hard to do) and we paid no attention to him because he said he would go get some flash lights for us. Father then explained to us that it was only a test but, we failed none the less and this made some kids very jumpy.

Charley, Richie, and I whipped out the poker game and started to play. The people around us were going out on patrols and telling us that we would be sorry and that we were going to get caught because we weren’t paying any attention. We figured that no one would think of trying to infiltrate within the first two hours. We then heard a bird coming from the road, the only area that no one was watching. After a few minutes and a couple more bird sounds everyone got antsy. Charley, Richie and I kept playing our game. I had a flush and I wasn’t going to give it up. We dismissed it on the probability that the Moores could be bringing out their dogs, because there were dog sounds in the background. The birds sounds then stopped and then five to ten minutes later we heard them again but now further up the road, almost parallel to where I was sitting. With out hesitating we got up from our poker game, this time I had a bad hand, and about four or five of us went toward the street.

Then what happened is a little fuzzy in my memory, but what basically happened is after I and three other guys came back from a patrol around the friary to cover our flank we saw a big commotion around the camp. Adam caught Father Michael, he was doing the bird calls and Charley, thinking he was smart, went away from the commotion (toward the outdoor altar) to make sure it wasn’t a distraction and BAM! Brice, a.k.a. Skeet, grabed him by his ankles from underneath one of the pine trees. At the time we didn’t know, Charley came out looking distressed his head looking down toward the ground. “What happened?” one of the boys asked him. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He answered. Seconds later Brice popped out of the trees like Tarzan and tagged four of us. The rest of us ran toward the fire to guard it. Brice was then tagged by one of the watchmen and than began to told us what he “knew” about what was going on. We didn’t really pay any attention to what he said other than the fact that there were more than just Father Michael, Brice, and Mr. Barry and his kids.

Update: Part II

During the night there was another attempt by Brice to catch us off guard but it didn’t work. The night was long and now there was only four of us; Adam was kind of there but, he was asleep on the ground.

I fell asleep for about half an hour and so did Richie. I then heard a big commotion, I then saw that the others had caught Mr. Barry’s oldest son. A while had passed, we almost caught his younger son, but he got away. Now we were really on our guard. His son was making us nervous by looking toward the trees every so often and he wouldn’t answer our questions but say “I don’t know” with this cynical look on his face. We made him go get some fire wood with us, we were too scared to do it on our own, we stayed close to the fire. We eventually stopped communicating with him

We were then fooling around and talking but still very jumpy and alert. I, being “slap happy,” said that my spider sense was tingling. I turned on the flash light and blindly pointed it behind me, there was his other son, his youngest son, every one was amazed that my spider sense worked. Adam who woke up because of all the noise, saw him frozen in his tracks and started to chase after him and so did one of the others. Charley said that we all can’t chase after him; some one had to watch the fire.

Everyone was watching him like it was the final deceive play in a basket ball game with seconds left. Richie, who was the one closest to the fire still sitting in his seat, saw a shooting star and decided to look for another one rather than watching the rear of the fire, BAM! Doug got within striking range and everyone was mortified. We spent the next half hour talking about how we messed up and saying how it was unfair and he twisted the rules.

I said “you guys we were owned, we had no chance they got us fair and square,” and then BAM! a second time. While we were talking Father Ignatius was hiding in our shadows waiting for the opportune time to strike. We were beat not once but twice. There was no complaining after Father caught us because we figured that he was trained to do this kind of stuff (him being a West Pointer and all) and there was no way that we were going to catch him.

The next morning Mr. Barry said that we did very well and that we had him doubt himself, and he didn’t think that he would be able to catch us, so he gave us no workouts in reprisal. We were pretty satisfied with the quality of our watch but, swear that next time no one is going to get through.

Success!

Ahem, ladies, just as I said. The boys had a blast. Doug worked them till they were dead tired. He was firm and encouraging, and they loved it.

You have no idea how inspiring it was to see boys of all ages and abilities with looks of determination, struggling but not giving up. Doug had them doing push ups when they missed a catechism question and they all had smiles on their faces.

I am firmly convinced that this is exactly the right approach for boys. Be prepared for the little men to be fired up for more.

One father made a comment before everyone at the very end, saying that he left the encampment and better man. This was a challenge to the mind, body and spirit. We are forming Catholic warriors. Awsome!

Fra Augustine will have some video up in the next day or so. Stay tuned.