The Renegades monkey around!

With the long summer holidays yawning for some parents, the Renegades youth club organised several day trips to keep the kids busy, entertained and off their screens…including some mad monkey business.

“Only the Renegades can take a minibus full of cheeky monkeys to Monkey World…and return unscathed and intact! It was a long trip to the wonderful ape rescue centre in Dorset, but it was well worth the effort as the kids just loved it,” says Group Leader Gareth Miller.

“There is everything there, from lemurs to some pretty sizeable orangutans…we all learned so much about the creatures. From discovering that a chimpanzee shares 98% of our DNA to the fact that a gorilla nose print is unique…the children were buzzing.

“And there was the added advantage of accidentally racing two Challenger tanks as we came parallel to Salisbury Plains shooting range,” he said.

“But what impressed me most was the children’s maturity, and their behaviour as responsible young people who I could trust to look out for each other and to keep me informed of their movements as we went round. So proud.”

Taking advantage of the fabulous weather, we took the children down to West Wittering for a day at the beach. “Again, we had just the most brilliant day. We net fished for crabs and shrimp, and then some of the boys got more adventurous and so we went line fishing on the far east headland, but mostly there was a lot of swimming and even more silliness. It is very special to watch kids being kids…needing nothing more than sea and sand to have an infectiously exciting day.

“We also took provisions and cooked a BBQ on the beach and ate chicken marinated in chilli, garlic, herbs and soy and the best sausages Murrays could provide. The minibus was noticeably quieter on the way back than it was on the way there as the kids were happily full and exhausted, ” laughed Gareth.

The Renegades is a charity for all children aged 7 – 18. If you would like a taster session, visit www.renegadesyc.org or ring Gareth on 07801 862550.