Campfire's Burning

Tis' the base of our "The Return of the NPCC Flying Fireball"...

The first time I saw a flying fireball lighting up a campfire in Simpleville was the first year I joined the NPCC as teacher-officer... It was still the old Simpleville building... A few resourceful and creative ex-cadets taking the lead to tie up the guide-wire... That was 6 years ago...

This method of lighting up a campfire was never attempted again since we started shifting into the new building... no suitable location was found... or so we thought...

This could be the last year in which I'm running the NPCC Annual Camp... My CIs were gungho and resourceful enough... All I needed to do was to give them the necessary encouragement and guidelines to work within... And the seed was sown...

We just tried out the guideline for the fireball... Worked smoothly... Tomorrow night's campfire will be something very special...

I've always enjoyed working with these young people... I was told that there'll be close to 50 ex-cadets returning for the annual camp's campfire... This is something that I'm very proud of... The connection with their alma mater... Just like the kind of connections that I feel for my own alma maters and Hall 4...

It's inexplicable and hard to put a finger on, how this feeling is... Tomorrow's campfire gathering for these ex-cadets is a home-coming and gathering to a place where they once grew and mature and learnt useful lifeskills... A safe santuary for them, after leaving the school, out to the more hectic world...

I can tell it means a lot to them... Exactly like how I feel everytime I return to Hall 4... Many of them continue to return to school to help set up the campfire, cos' they too, want to keep the NPCC tradition burning... I always feel very proud when I see how much they've grown and becoming more sensible... Many of them have become very fine youths... They are all excellent role-models for all my current cadets...

The nicest thing about it all is that I'm stil able to connect with the very first batch of graduates (graduated some 8 years ago)from Simpleville... I've not taught some of them before... But thanks to the very fine introduction and first connection that a very respected predecessor of mine made for me, I've been very priviledged to work with all these fine youths over the past 6 years...

Like I said, this could be the last year I'll run the annual camp as I need to take on other responsibilities... It's now time to pass on the same connection to my new colleagues... Really hope that they'll continue to involve and invite our fine youths back to Simpleville to spread their passion and commitment...

This'll be something that I'll miss... seeing young people grow, and most importantly, that they didn't forget the place that groomed and moulded them into the youths of today...