1. MAKE SLEEP A PRIORITY
We all know that sleep can be in short supply during any time away with young people; they keep each other awake while you spend the whole night telling them to sleep. Rather than tackling it during the weekend, get yourself ready by sleeping for a solid week beforehand. This might sound extreme, but it’s either that or drugging the young people (which is probably illegal - political correctness gone mad!).
2. MISTAKE-FREE FOOD
One highlight of time with young people is getting them involved in food production. And by highlight, we mean utter, utter lowlight / calamity. Prevent any culinary disasters by planning a menu that even the least-experienced chef couldn’t mess up, such as sandwiches, Pot Noodles, dry cereal and oxygen.
3. REALLY WIDE GAMES
Obviously, you should seek to return all young people home by the end of the weekend, so losing any is a no-no. However, getting rid of a few annoying ones for a couple of hours? That must be ok, right? Organise some wide games that may result in them getting lost for a bit – and if their orienteering skills are too advanced for that (thanks a lot, Duke of Edinburgh), just hide under your bed for a while. (N.B. this idea may fail your risk assessment.)
4. GO TECH-FREE
As we all know, teenagers are annoyingly resourceful. No matter what activities you have planned for the weekend, they’ll find a way to spend the whole time on Face-a-gram, or whatever the kids call it. Counter this by finding a location in the middle of nowhere without phone signal or wifi. That way they might actually say more to you than, ‘What’s the wifi code?’ (Obviously don’t find somewhere with NO wifi, just with secret, leader-only wifi. You wouldn’t want to miss all the latest Instabook updates!)
5. HAVE YOU TOLD YOUR PARENTS?
We’ve all been there. A full minibus on the journey home, a shout of, ‘we’re an hour away, tell your parents,’ and yet there you are, two hours later, outside the church waiting for a straggling member of the group to leave who ran out of credit / forgot to ring / left a voicemail / Snapchatted the message to their mum, while you’re desperate to get home and sleep. Appoint one of your leaders as a ‘Have-you-told-your-parents-monitor’ to ensure that everyone gets picked up promptly, and then if someone slips through the cracks you can at least make that leader wait behind as penance for not doing their job properly.
