Summer Expedition

2012-03-07T17:04:38Z

Davesmo: York Dungeons

The YSTV Summer Expedition was the brainchild of [[Jen Ayerst]] when she became [[Production Director]] in May 2004. The idea was to make a programme that showed freshers how much of a fun time we had socially as a station, whilst also giving us a holiday at the end of the academic year. The idea was in many ways a [[rip-off]] of the annual Blue Peter event of the same name. A group of (mostly graduating) YSTV members had gone on a canal boat holiday in summer 2003, however this was not filmed and was not a YSTV event.

The event has been continually panned by judges when entered for [[NaSTA]] awards, as apparently it is of no interest to anyone but ourselves. This may be true, but it's great fun for us...

===2004===
The first summer expedition was to Dublin. The travellers were [[Jen Ayerst]], [[Rowan de Pomerai]], [[Giles Burdett]], [[Drew Perry]], [[Kate Rushworth]], [[Cally Nixon]], [[Dave Baker]], [[Jonathan Bufton]] and [[Anthony Laverty]]. YSTV members spent five nights in a hostel in the city centre, visiting a variety of places including the Guinness factory, a zoo (which many felt was a bit crap due to it having very few animals), and an old prison. They also saw a memorial to Oscar Wilde known as "the fag on the crag", another memorial to Dermot Morgan and an amazing pub that served pints of Smirnoff Ice (which seemed a better idea before drinking than after). Jonathan commented on a stature commemorating the potato famine, "Where are all the potatoes?!". Ahem.

The programme was edited by [[Jen Ayerst]] and featured a [[Steve Walker]] computer generated title sequence. The distinctive closing sequence where the travellers all ran over a Teletubbies-style hill doesn't record what happened off-camera on the other side, with a number of people skidding all over the place on the unexpectedly muddy grass...

===2005===
The second summer expedition was organised rather later than the first. With a short deadline, a few UK options were floated, before we decided on [[Rowan de Pomerai]]'s suggestion of going to... Yorkshire! Rowan was joined by [[Jonathan Bufton]], [[Kate Rushworth]], [[Kev Larkin]], [[Sarah Leese]], [[Tom Hughes]], [[Dave Baker]] and on the trip to The Deep [[Richard Ash]], [[Rob Humphrey]] and [[Cally Nixon]]. The locality was actually a very good idea as we saved money by being able to sleep in our own beds every night, and saw bits of the region we'd never got around to - such as a day in Scarborough, visits to the ''[http://www.the-dungeons.co.uk/york/en/index.htm York Dungeon]'', Bradford's ''National Museum of Photography Film and Television'', ''The Deep'' in Hull, York Minster, a boat trip down the Ouse and the York Brewery. The trip to Bradford began in confusion about whether we could actually travel due to the 7/7 terrorist attacks on the London transport system.

Highlights included Kev making a sandcastle out of a Tony Blair rubber mask, Sarah's monologue to camera slightly worse-for-wear at the end of the first night's drinking games and Rowan's spoof Parkinson-style chat show at the end of the week.

This programme was edited by [[Rowan de Pomerai]] and featured a popular title sequence which introduced the people by using unflattering video clips of them and a swanky black and white posterised sort of effect.

===2006===
The third annual summer expedition was a canal boat holiday - a week's cruise on the Four Counties Ring.

The crew consisted of [[Dave Baker]], [[Rob Humphrey]], [[Rick Selby]] and [[Matthew Tole]] who were experienced canal cruisers; and [[Sarah Cheyne]], [[Rowan de Pomerai]], [[Kev Larkin]], [[Sarah Leese]], [[Richard Ash]] and [[Ian Martindale]] who were more fresh-faced.

Starting and ending at Norbury, the crew took the ring on clockwise.

Notable moments included:
* Pirates on the first day
* Washing and styling Rob's hair
* Writing messages on an unsuspecting (and asleep) Ian's back in lipstick
* Matthew finding the 50% Vodka a little strong and revealing his PIN for his switch card
* Running out of water on more than one occasion..., and having to empty the waste tank at the other end.
* Nuts magazine, and the walrus

A standalone programme wasn't made from this holiday - instead short segments were included in [[Limited Edition]], bringing the style even closer to that of Blue Peter! It was edited by [[Sarah Cheyne]].

===2007===
No summer expedition was organised this year due to the YSTV 40 [[Birthday Party]] organisation, which along with [[Woodstock]] made the summer term more pushed for time than usual. A number of current and former YSTV members did however visit the Center Parcs resort in Sherwood Forest in September that year for a long weekend of wholesome Blue Peter-style activities, although no-one filmed it!

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Summer Expedition