by Maureen Forsythe, BCA Youth Director.
On Saturday February 11th four local youth braved the cold and deep snow to gather outside the Blackburn Community Hall for an hour of fun-filled outdoor activities.
The youth worked in pairs to create jokes by matching questions and answers and then presented the series of corny Valentine’s jokes to their audience. Participants then worked again in pairs and raced against the clock to reconstruct a couple of famous love poems – “How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116” – whose lines had been cut out and had to be physically reassembled in the correct order.
Next there was a race to the woods at the edge of the field to find five red hearts hanging from trees just within reach. Also hidden in the woods were bags of Valentine’s chocolates that the four young people collected as part of a scavenger hunt. Once the hearts had been retrieved there was a game of heart tag with each participant being “tagged” by the person with the red heart.
After the game of heart tag, participants once more formed pairs and competed in a balloon race where each team had to run with the balloon being kept off the ground without using any hands. Finally there was homemade hot chocolate and cupcakes for everyone before they collected their treat bags and headed home.