Venture Wellington - Open your eyes

If you have been looking for extra reasons to sign up and come to Venture Wellington the Programme team is pleased to announce that we now have another really good one. Thanks to the Radio Network New Zealand and ZM (www.zmonline.com), one of the country’s best DJ’s – General Lee - will be playing at the fluro party set down for the 6th of January 2010 in the main events marquee. General Lee is the man behind ZM’s Ministry of Sound Sessions which can be heard on air both Friday and Saturday nights from 10pm.

He's been a DJ for 10 years, played everywhere from Groove in the Park to Ministry of Sound, played alongside Groove Amada, Shapeshifters, and Roger Sanchez to name a few, and made over half a million New Zealanders dance.

The Venture Wellington programme team thanks the Radio Network and ZM for bringing you all this awesome event. Make sure you wave your glowsticks in thanks.

Dave McCarthy
Programme Director and Fluro Fan.

Applications have been flooding in for Venture Wellington. Over 470 Venturers and Rangers from New Zealand and Australia (and even one from the USA!) have now registered. If the current rate of applications continues there will be over 600 Venturers coming to Venture Wellington. That’s equivalent to around two-thirds of all Venturers in the country and will make it the largest gathering of Venturers in New Zealand for quite a few years. What an awesome Venture it’s going to be.

In case you're wondering who you all are, here are the vital statistics (as of 21 June):

• Number of Venturer applications: New Zealanders: 256; Australians: 214; Other: 1 (plus 5 NZ Rangers);
• Venturer Gender ratio: Males: 2/3rds; Females 1/3rd
• NZ Venturer applications by Region: Northern Region: 30; Central North Island Region: 42; Lower North Island Region: 109; Upper South Island Region: 31; Lower South Island Region: 44
• Number of NZ Units Represented: 63
• NZ Units with the most applications (in this order): Roslyn (Coastal Otago), Valley (Lower Hutt), St Josephs (Rimutaka).

Due the awesome number of registrations, expeditions are filling quickly and four are now completely full: Amazing Race; Digging Deep; Dive, Dive, Dive; and Sounds Explorer. Sorry but we can’t accept any more choices for those four expeditions so please don’t include them as an expedition choice with your application from now on. There are still places available on the other nine expeditions and all of those expeditions are going to be full of outrageous fun and adventure. Check out the Activities page for details.

Phase two onsite is all free (with the exception of paintball) and venturers will have 30 different activities to pick and choose from. We have abseiling and rock climbing, through to Graffitti Walls and Archery lessons to keep everyone entertained. During the evening we have some of the biggest parties Venturing in New Zealand has ever seen, with Wellingtons best DJ’s, bands, and street performers coming along for the ride.

But of course during phase two there are also offsite activities. Everyone is going to be given a free trip to Wellington to see the sights the capital has to offer. However, for those wanting more we will also have high rope adventures, mountain biking, go karting, horse riding and a whole lot more. These activities will cost you more and this is how much to expect:

Half day offsite - $20 - $50 approx

Full day offsite $40 - $100 approx

And adrenaline junkies (trial flights, skydiving etc) from $50 up to around $400.

These additional prices are INDICATIVE ONLY, and ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Just with everyone fundraising it is important to figure out just how much spending money to bring. Of course these additional phase two activities are all OPTIONAL and you can spend your entire phase two onsite enjoying the numerous free stuff. Or you can splurge your hard earned cash on some more “out there” activities that your mum or dad would otherwise not approve of.

The choice is entirely yours.

Dave McCarthy
Programme Director

Congratulations to John Barkess from Wainui Venturers on winning his expedition for free. John was one of over 300 Venturers who got their applications in before the end of May so automatically went into the draw to win his expedition for free.

Thank you to Chris Hooper (CEO, SCOUTS NZ) for making the draw.
It is so exciting to see so many Venturers keen to come to Wellington to what looks like it is going to be one of the biggest Ventures held in recent times in New Zealand.

So thanks to everyone who has got their applications in already. I look forward to informing you all in early August with what your expedition will be.

Jenny Rodgers
Director - Admin and Promotion