In the real world Bayley lives the dream working at Kmart, running kids birthday parties & can even be found busking on the Mornington Peninsula when he’s not studying to be a Teacher. He first came to the organisation in 2014 when his year 10 teacher told him to go to the emPOWERme program. He thought “Yeah cool, I can have a day off school!” and went but ended up getting a lot out of the day.
Fast forward 4 years and Bayley has come through Big Camp, attended countless community camps, experienced MAX last year and now is on the empowerme team as one of the Bendigo Participant Coordinators.
Did you know?? Bayley is actually the main character of a children’s book “Go Away Mr Worrythoughts.” It was written and illustrated by his mum to show his battle with Generalised Anxiety Disorder as a child.
Bayley tell us that Lord Somers Camp and Power House has allowed him to build his confidence significantly and change from an introvert to an extrovert. Bayley also tells us… “Lord Somers Camp is the reason I am a musician. After my grouper year at Big Camp, I saw that a lot of my closest green group friends played instruments and I was inspired to try and learn, so a month after Big Camp I bought a guitar and started to learn. It was then at my first Sailaway a few months after I started learning, I was asked to play in the talent show, I felt so nervous before hand and while I was playing Riptide I forgot the words three times! But everyone was so supportive and nice, it really inspired me to keep going. Now I am musician who busks on the street and plays payed gigs in bars and it’s all because of Lord Somers.
We are so blessed to have Bayley as part of our membership, thank you for taking a day off school back in year 10!