GREEN TEAM Schoolies 09!

This weekend was the annual Schoolies festival for the year 12s to celebrate the end of their exams. It's held in Victor Harbor and kids from all over Australia turn up. There were thousands of kids there this year. About ten years ago, there was a move to stop the festival, due to the excess of drinking, violence and mishaps. However, the churches of Adelaide came together to create the Green Team.

Nowadays, the Green Team runs the schoolies festival. Approximately 400 volunteers were there this year, doing all manner of jobs. There are team members at all of the campsites to watch over the kids and organise activities or sausage sizzles, people running roadblocks to stop traffic from getting into the centre of town, tents for dancing, gaming, food, resting, buildng sandcastles, activities, toilet duty, manning games... there were an abundance of St John's First Aid-ers, firemen, and policemen (i swear, half of the state's force must have been there!!) and security guards. Different church teams were assigned to different jobs. Schoolies wouldn't run without the Green Team, literally.

Our job (like last year) was to ride on the buses. The bus system ran between the campsites in Encounter Bay, and then our to Port Elliot, Middleton, Goolwa and occasionally Hindmarsh Island. People on 'bus duty' ride the buses and are often the first contact that kids have with a Greenie. We keep the kids calm (or try to!) and stop them running riot, deal with kids who've had too much to drink, and try to chat to kids and tell them what we're about.

Bus duty starts at around 7.30pm and runs until around 3.30am. This means that we really don't get an awful lot of sleep! So, during the day, things are pretty chilled. This year we had a team of about ten (some coming and going) and we spent most of the day hanging out and chatting. On saturday afternoon we had 'community time', which was spent hanging out with other Greenies and checking out the festival. We also went shopping for fluro shoelaces, an abundance of glow sticks and stickers - so that we could be the most awesome Greenies!

On Friday night, i was in a team with Hel and LittleM. We were off to a somewhat rocky start, because we had a little argument with LittleM. Oopsie. So everyone was a tad prickly to start with. But once we got over that, all was well. Most of our runs had pretty subdued kids, or kids who were already in their own groups do didn't want to talk. I had an armful of glowsticks to keep me company, but sometimes it got a little boring. We went back and forth between encounter bay and goolwa all night, swapping buses after every run. Thankfully, i didn't have to deal wtih any vomiters - but poor Hel did (luckily she got to them in time). I didn't see boyfriend though, which sucked. Thinking back, i can hardly remember anything that happened, which i'm assuming is a product of the sleep loss. But i do remember having a few good chats with some kids, helping some girls find their house when they were lost, and generally helping out. We got a break at one point too, which was a highlight - we got warm donuts and free coffee from the Greenies rest tent, yum!! It was totally invigorating and gave us all a second wind. By 3.30am we were pretty knackered. The bus runs were slowing down, so our team patrolled the festival for awhile and kept an eye on the kids who were still hanging around (the festival closes at 3am) while we waited for the rest of our teams to get back. While waiting for the SouthAfrican, we played like four year olds on the playground across from the bus depot. We didn't get home until 4am, and ended up staying up mucking round until 5am, seeing as we all got about our fourth wind... Then we all crashed.

On saturday we were up early because Zaz was first up and was bored alone, so she made lots of noise until other people got up to play with her. Unfortunately, that meant that we were already even more tired that evening when we got to the bus stops. I was on a team with Zaz and another guy from church and we dubbed ourselves 'Team Awesome' after three excellent runs. On the first, Zaz and i made friends with a guy called Jig, who thought that our names were 'hot', which made our night. Woo, we have hot names!! The next two runs were longer ones, from Middleton, that were absolutely packed. The kids were wild (excited, not evil) and the entire journey was spent with Zaz and i trying to keep our balance in the aisles while the kids shouted chants, flashed each other when we couldn't get close enough to stop them, surreptitiously drank and had an absolute ball. We didn't mind the chaos, because they were having fun and weren't up to too much mischief. After our initial awesome runs, we had an empty run too and from Goolwa, so we got sleepy... which is always tricky, because we lose our energy!! We stuck stickers on our face to cheer up, hehe. Shiny things!

Then we met up with boyfriend, so my night got a whole lot better. I'd been feeling pretty down, and sick, but he cheered me up as he always does. He rode the buses with us for the rest of the night, and together we chatted to kids and kept each other awake. Zaz and i got an attack of the giggles at some point, which kept us amused for awhile! By the time we got off our last Goolwa run and had dropped boyfriend off at his stop, it was about 3.30am. The rain had set in and it was cold and we were exhausted. When i got home, i was exhausted and went straight to bed without staying up to chat. I felt like crap. Boyfriend called though, and that was nice - i love talking to him on the phone, he always cheers me up and wants to look after me.

Today we got up early to go to church at Yilki, which was lovely. The small church had a lovely congregation who were thrilled to see us and were grateful for all that we did for schoolies weekend. We had coffee at the Yilki store and lunch at home. When the others went off to clean the buses, i packed up to go home - i still have an exam to study for!! I was sad to leave before the weekend was finished, but really had no other option. It was a fun weekend - i really like Zaz and Bubbles is fun too (another girl from church). Plus, i got to have a good d&m with LittleM, which reminded me that we don't actually hate each other but actually probably care about each other quite a lot. And the SouthAfrican is always a hoot. But by the time i left i was sick and exhausted - i nearly fell asleep at the wheel a dozen times on the way home, and almost crashed at least once, which was kind of scary!! But i made it home in once piece.

This weekend was exhausting, but worth it. Without Greenies, there would be no celebratory Schoolies weekend for the kids and with us being there there's another chance for us to tell kids about the church and why we're not just a bunch of crazies. It's nice being a part of something like that and giving something back to the community. I'm already looking forward to next year - and also am looking forward to wearing my lovely schoolies hoodie!!