MERRIBEK TERM 1 2025 WEEK 1

Hi everyone, Welcome to the Operation Newstart week 1 blog!

We started off on Wednesday the 12th at Oxygen Youth Hub in Coburg. This was the first chance for most students to meet everyone else on the program and become familiar with a great local youth space they can utilise! Our first day was full of introductions and some ice breaker games, with the team working together to complete problem solving and trust exercises while also playing some games to get to know each other!

After this we headed off to MAYSAR, which is a boxing gym in Fitzroy. Here we met our instructor Sal, who is also a firefighter and is passionate about teaching kids home fire safety! Sal ran students through some hard circuit drills using a boxing bag, getting everyone’s blood pumping! We then moved into the ring and students were given the chance to do some safe sparring with Sal! Overall it was an awesome first day and everyone’s keen to get back into the ring!

We had a jam packed day on Thursday, starting off with a nature walk through the Sherbrooke Forest! Students were split into 2 teams and were asked to find natural objects that matched a colour pallet, with the team whose colour matches the best wins! This was a great way to explore the forest and get to know teammates. Next up with headed off to Belgrave Trees adventure where we participated in a high ropes course. After an introduction and practice run we headed off into the trees, with students tackling zip lines and tough upper body exercises. Some students competed a 15 metre free fall while others braved the long zip lines!

On Friday, we heading into Collingwood Alternative School were we played some team games of volleyball and tested out the music room before getting started on character strengths. Students took the VIA test answering questions about themselves to find out what their top character strengths were. After this we headed into Fairfield Melbourne Polytechnic where students participated in a Landscaping workshop, using bricks and sand to build a pavement. Instructor Ash was awesome with instructions and all the kids showed great participation!

Overall we had a great first week with lots of fun moments! Up next is our first camp, so look out for the next blog!