Wight Crystals, Wight Sparkles and Wight Sequins had a very busy, very productive time at our Synchro Camp last week.

Monday was the start of our camp at Wootton Community Centre where we studied the rules of synchro with our coach Terri, and dance and stretching with Sarah our dance teacher.

We also had a session with Gemma Marsh from Team Surprise, who won silver at the 2018 Synchronized Skating World Championships. She told us of her experience at the championships and taught us new arm positions and holds. Gemma skated as part of the Isle of Wight squad for many years before going to Sweden to skate as part of Team Surprise.

Tuesday was a 3am alarm to catch the 4am Wightlink ferry to get to Planet Ice Gosport to start our on ice session from  5 to 10am. We also did team building and drama games off ice. In the afternoon we watched and analysed videos of our programmes and worked on counts, team rules, the roles of captains, dress design, team captain badges.

On Wednesday it was back to Wootton Community Centre. Where We studied judges’ criteria and roles, then had dance with Sarah.
In the afternoon we had a great time swimming and enjoyed a bbq in the sun.

Thursday involved another 3am alarm to get to Gosport for 5am. Training on ice went on to until 10am, with off-ice until 2pm.

On Saturday all teams headed to Planet Ice Basingstoke for on-ice training from 4 to 7pm.  And finally on Sunday there was another 5am start to get to Planet Ice Gosport for an all-team training session .

A great week was had by all – we may have no home rink but we can and we will skate.

A huge thank you to Wightlink Ferries and Wightlink in the Community – without their valued sponsorship we would not be able to get to and from the mainland as often as we need to get onto the ice and train; to Jeff at Planet Ice Gosport for finding us the ice time; and to our coach Terri Smith, team manager Janet Marsh and everyone else who gave their time this week to help make our camp a successful week.

Wightlink in the Community: https://www.facebook.com/WightlinkCommunity/