My Experience of NCS: Week 1 and Week 2

Published by Josh Banks, July 30th, 2019

Hi all! If you follow my Instagram then you'll be aware that I went on NCS (National Citizen Service) which is a voluntary personal and social development program in the United Kingdom.

It lasts for four weeks: the first week being residential which I spent at Dearne Valley, Yorkshire.

We stayed in these (see picture above), 'Eco Pods' which were extremely hot and small - especially with 8 of us per pod. This, and the food being unable to meet my friend’s dietary requirements is not solely NCS’s fault.

During this week, our team worked together to build our strength together and the strength of us both emotionally and physically. It gave us a chance to do activities some of us had never done before like ‘A Leap of Faith’ and fire lighting, as well as letting us relax with either a game of rounders or just hanging around the camp and getting to know each other.

Overall, I personally thoroughly enjoyed the week as a whole, despite the 30-degree weather which was not the NCS team’s fault, although they did their best to ensure we were happy and healthy.

For Week 2 we camped at Thurstaton, which was lovely as we got a view of Wales across the River Dee. This week however, was disrupted as we were evacuated due to an approaching thunderstorm, which then messed up the flow of the week. Despite this I had a good week. The activities we did were; path building, scavenger hunt, we also went on a hike to Red Rocks in West Kirby.

I would highly recommend NCS even though it can be trying at times, as you will enjoy yourself and meet many new friends. I will post more about My Experience of NCS soon.

As currently in week 3 we are doing charity work and it would be lovely if you would support me along the journey.

Will post soon - Josh :)