With an increasing amount of knowledge about running this complicated event and the need to convey this to regions running BWO for the first time, the CCT around this time wrote a manual detailing everything they knew about
As BWO had spread wider and was requiring more work to organise, it was agreed that once a year was enough. What time of the year was best? Weather and other events on the Christian youth calendar were the main considerations.
Summer can be very hot in Adelaide, sometimes enough that outdoor events must be cancelled. Summer holidays are about six weeks (the others are usually two), so five days are not a large chunk of it. Christmas and CE camps fall in the first half of the holidays, and the last week of holidays had worked well, although it didn’t suit teachers and chaplains who needed to be back at school.
Autumn has the best weather. Easter (and therefore Easter camps) falls before or during the holidays.
We’d done BWO the last five winters, but not as many days long as the summer ones. Sometimes events would get rained out.
Spring has good weather. SAYCO is an annual fixture and other churches may also have had things on the long weekend.
We went for the last week of the summer holidays.
Most of the work of RTFs has happened from November to January, a season that includes exams, schoolies, Christmas, CE camps, beach missions and peak season for weddings & travel.
BWO 2006 was on 22-27 January
Speaker: Shirley Osborn from St Martin’s Community Church in Melbourne
Sat night combined celebration service at AACC City
With about 240 people in total, the division into two bases had finally been worth it and prepared the way for what followed.
We borrowed seven car wash mats from five councils.