Twenty two years of Stav Camps
Published: Wed, 01/14/15
I was remembering today the first Stav camp that was held in the UK. I think it was in the Summer of 1993 and Ivar had organised it and booked accommodation at Beverley Race Course. As I recall Ivar held the event over five or six days and a it was the first time I met Shaun Brassfield-Thorpe (who now lives in the Orkneys). There were a few other people present but I don’t think any of them attended any further training. At the time David Watkinson and I were training with Ivar on a regular basis in Driffield. We both attended a couple of days of the camp but we both had to fit it in around work commitments.
We subsequently held several Stav camps at Beverley Race Course over the next decade. It was an amazing venue, situated on top of a hill overlooking Beverley and providing a spectacular view of Beverley Minster.
We had people come from all over to join in the Stav Camps we held there and I have a lot of happy memories of training and socialising there. Over the years since we have held the camps in various locations including Bedfordshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Norfolk and Somerset. There have been larger camps and smaller ones. Sometimes in quite civilised conditions, sometimes about as primitive as it gets. Usually we have been pretty fortunate for weather but there has been the odd one which was pretty tough on that score (please don’t mention Dragonwood in 2012). Last year we settled on a rather lovely venue in rural Somerset. There is a big field for camping and training and a hall for cooking, dining and indoor training if necessary. The site is surrounded by woods and fields and yet is only a few miles from the M5 and Taunton.
I have updated the Stav Camp Website and added details of two three day training events for this year. One is at Easter and the other is at the beginning of the Stav Camp week, so if you are considering travelling a long way for Stav Camp and you want to get the most out of your trip then come for the full week.
Each of the three day events will only train six students on each occasion. So these are not going to be the kind of courses where there are dozens of people training and you barely see the instructor let alone get any individual attention from him or her. There will be space to train and plenty of individual attention so that you will get the most out of training at one of these events.
Details here http://stavcamp.org/addtrain.html
regards
Graham