These range from secular sports camps, study camps for higher school certificate students and it's equivalents from other states and territories, and a wealth of camps offered by Christian organisations such as Crusaders and Scripture Union among others.
These have been running for decades. My fiance's father as a school boy from Canberra went to a Scripture Union Sports Camp in the '60s when he was 13 years of age. He tells me the hockey coach was Dr Bob Wheway a Professor of Engineering from Wollongong University.
He kept in touch with Dr Wheway, and that when he moved to Wollongong to work many years later, he caught up with Bob Wheway and joined his hockey club, St Matthews, from which many other connections came that have lasted all these years.
Now, while I know of a few camps that are desperately in need of cooks and other support roles (which you'd be more than welcome to volunteer for I'm sure) my main reason for writing about them is that, more than anything they need your prayer.
When running these camps for 30, 50 or even up to 100 kids there are all manner of things that could go wrong not to mention the leaders waking up at 5:45am every morning and if they're lucky being in bed by 11:00pm.
At least this has been my experience so needless to say that when you add a day of non-stop excitement it can be rather draining at times.
Of more importance though (in my opinion) is the number of children who come to camps who don't have faith in Christ, pray that their eyes might be opened.
Also pray for the campers who do have a faith that they can be strengthened and encouraged in their walk.
If you'd like to find out prayer points for specific camps, head over to web sites such as Scripture union (there's a site for each state) where you can subscribe to a prayer letter or Crusaders where you can subscribe to prayer letters and find quarterly prayer diaries.
I know when I was growing up these sorts of camps really encouraged me in my faith so I'm sure it can do the same for many others. Please get support us by praying for us these school holidays.
Sam Gillespie is an Undergraduate Composition student and a computer programmer based in Sydney
Sam Gillespie's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/sam-gillespie.html