Articles

Posted on: 09 Oct 2014

SERVICE USER ACHIEVEMENTS: A Resident's account of his trip to the Cavan Centre

A Resident's account of his trip to the Cavan Centre

In September 2014, there was a trip planned to the Cavan Centre. On the day we were leaving, I got up at 7.30 am, had Weetabix and orange juice for my breakfast. One of my staff brought myself and another resident across to Chapel View. Shortly after we arrived, day service team leader, Dave and the other houses began to arrive. Staff member Ken, came to Chapel View with a big dark blue bus. 12 of us left Chapel View at 8.30am and reached the Cavan Centre at about 11.00am.

When we got to Cavan we went to our rooms and and relaxed for a while.  We then went into the forest for a walk and we made two houses out of sticks. There were two teams and it was a competition to see who could build the best house. It was a tough decision to decide who built the best house but we all agreed that a draw was the fairest result.  We all walked about 20 miles in total. After we went back to the Cavan Centre, we all had our dinner. Shortly after dinner, we went and did rock climbing and we all had to wear a helmet and a harness for protection. We all did the rock climbing and we took turns doing it. We had a lot of fun doing the rock climbing and enjoyed ourselves while doing it. After supper, we watched the Champions league final match with staff, it was very good. Then we went to bed. The next day we all got up at 7.30am and when we were all ready, we went over to the kitchen and got our breakfast.

After this, we went kayaking in the water and we played games and were jumping in the water, it was a lot of fun! We really enjoyed ourselves. When we were finished kayaking, we put them away in a shed and went back to the Cavan Centre for showers afterwards having a chat and a laugh with tea and a snack. Later in the evening, we went to have our dinner which was very nice, we also had dessert as well!

After dinner we played football for a while, taking shots on goal! After about 20-30minutes, we were very tired after playing football so we relaxed again until dinner. After this, we went on go-karts and had so much fun. We were doing go-kart races to see who was the fastest the room. Dave showed us all pictures of all the people doing the activities and enjoying ourselves on a video. After we all watched a DVD of Spiderman, we all went to bed. The next day we all got up again at 7.30am and got ready to go home.

The time we spent in Cavan was really good fun and I had a great time there. I made new friends with other residents like Patrick and Jason. I am very thankful to Dave for organising the trip and to Ken for driving the bus and all the staff that made it possible for all of us to go on the trip.  -  James