Ferienhort Special-Camp — one focus week on Lake Wolfgangsee

The Special-Camp is a one-week intensive format for participants aged nine to eighteen. Each participant chooses a single focus course when booking and follows it in small groups for two compulsory units of two hours every day; the remaining three of the five daily programme units are chosen freely from the wider camp programme. Three focus courses are offered. Adventure@nature is built around outdoor adventure, with climbing at the Lieslstein, rope-secured climbing exercises for older participants, playful nature activities for younger children, rowing, swimming, cliff jumping and campfire cooking. Ferienhort on Stage builds a full show over the week with acting, dance and singing, together with props and stage design, performed in front of the whole camp at the end. Ferienhort Pur is the all-round course and can be taken in three strands: the classic mix of sport, creativity and movement, an intensive daily football strand, or a mindfulness, wellbeing and happiness strand with yoga and meditation in nature and by the lake, positive psychology and personal development, including elements of the Bhutanese Gross National Happiness approach.

The camp price covers accommodation on the camp site, four meals a day and supervision by the camp team, together with the chosen focus course, the wider activity and creative programme, the evening highlights and the short outing to St. Wolfgang that forms part of the week. The maximum ratio on this camp is eight children per group leader. A supervised group coach transfer from and to Vienna is offered separately and is not part of the camp price. Reductions of between a quarter and the full camp price are available through the association's social fund where there is social need.

Participants live on the camp site in the main building. Each group has its own living area with bedrooms and washrooms, and groups are allocated by age and gender. Younger groups sleep in dormitories of sixteen to eighteen beds with their own washrooms, showers and toilets. Older participants stay in rooms of two to eight beds with more privacy, sharing a shower and toilet with the neighbouring room. On this camp there are six groups of up to fifty-four children each.

The camp has its own kitchen team and prepares four fresh meals on site every day: a breakfast buffet, a hot lunch, an afternoon snack and dinner, with a soup of the day and a salad bar that changes daily. A vegetarian selection is available. Baking cookies and grilling bread on a stick over the campfire are part of everyday camp life, and meals are taken together on the camp site.

Outside the two daily focus units, participants choose from the full camp programme: swimming, cliff jumping and stand-up paddling on Lake Wolfgangsee, rowing, volleyball, basketball, football, baseball, tennis, a fun court, disc golf and archery, indoor halls for wet weather, mini golf and table tennis, climbing, bouldering and high-ropes elements, and camp classics such as 360-degree football, Quickball and Russian skittles. Creative and quiet options include crafts, painting, body painting, jewellery, friendship bracelets and tie-dye in the creative workshop, music on piano, drums and guitar with singing and karaoke, photography, film, radio and event technology, and time to relax by the lake. Evenings bring campfires, group games, movie nights, the talent show, a beach rave or a disco, and there is a short outing to St. Wolfgang during the week.

The camp stands on the association's own site of 400,000 square metres on the shore of Lake Wolfgangsee, in a quiet location outside the village and surrounded by lake, forest and mountains. There is private lake access and the association's own boat harbour. Sports provision includes outdoor pitches for volleyball, basketball, football, baseball and tennis, a fun court, a disc golf route and archery, indoor halls for wet weather, mini golf and table tennis, and a climbing wall with bouldering and high-ropes elements. The creative workshop, known as the Villa Kunterbunt, is used for crafts, painting, jewellery and textile work, and there is a music room, a large stage, a multi-purpose hall used for group meetings and indoor games, and campfire areas. Accommodation and catering are in the main building on the site, which can host up to 420 children and young people.

The week is built around depth rather than breadth: the focus units run in small groups, which leaves more room for personal development and for learning a new skill properly. Around them the ordinary camp rhythm continues, with five programme units a day, group meetings after breakfast, at midday and in the afternoon, and enough free time to relax by the lake. Because the format is short, it suits both newcomers and participants who already know the camp and want to concentrate on one thing. Children may keep a mobile phone with them and have time each day to call home, usually during the midday break, within a frame agreed by the group leaders and the educational leadership.