AAC Circus Weekend
A Big‑Top Adventure of Creativity, Chaos and Circus‑Sized Fun!
Circus-themed fun at the 2026 1Voice Residential Weekend
Our AAC Circus Weekend at Treloar College was bursting with creativity, colour and circus‑themed fun as teams spent the entire weekend exploring the grounds to uncover a series of Taskmaster‑style challenges. We split into two teams with each time finding hidden task encouraged imagination, teamwork and plenty of laughter.
Across the weekend, teams discovered and completed challenges including creating the tallest big top, dressing up as circus animals, crafting the best “worst” joke, revealing the most boring object in the most spectacular way, and attempting to balance the impossible, with results that were wonderfully chaotic and entertaining. The teams were The blue team, aka “The Terrific Trapezing Tigers” and the orange team aka “The Wicked Juggling Jaffas”
Task: Create the Biggest Big Top
Armed with fabric, tape, cardboard and sheer determination and even our very own Patron Beth Moulam being the big top herself to take the crown. What emerged were towering creations that looked wonderfully improbable but safely built (though we might check in with health and safety next time before aiming quite so high).
Task: Create the “Best Worst” Joke brought in groan‑worthy masterpieces of comedy. The jokes were terrible. Truly terrible. Which, of course, made them perfect!!! Several of jokes were so bad they achieved legendary status.
Task: Dress Up as a Circus Animal
The room erupted into a stampede of creativity as participants transformed into creatures that may or may not exist in nature. One highlight was Alanna, who fully committed to her role as a lion, prowling proudly through the circus challenges with mane, roar and unmistakable big cat-itude. Our very own Lana, in her first Residential Weekend as a role model, fully embraced the challenge by leading the charge as an elephant.
Task: Choose a light item and make everyone think it’s really heavy!!
Here we can see the ultra strong-man Quinn lifting 2000lbs of weight (honest!). Someone has had their Weetabix!!
Task: Create the most entertaining ring master introduction and invent the best new circus entertainer!
You may think this is a picture of Thomas, but actually it’s the world’s best lion tamer. He created his lion (you can see him hiding behind him!) and taught him to jump through a hoop!
Circus skills
The amazingly balanced Kevin from Circus Allstars provided a circus skills workshop for everyone. There was high wire balancing, spinning plates, juggling and competition to balance the most weighted juggling balls. It looks like Beth won, but being a Paralympian, it’s fair to say it was rigged to begin with!!
Stop motion animation
Each team created a circus themed stop motion to dazzle and delight. Directed by the amazing AAC users, they can challenge any Oscar winner!!
The blue team, “Terrific trapezing Tigers”, created a trapeze‑swinging lion soaring through their big top before magically transporting it into a giant igloo when they accidentally found themselves to the South Pole! Watch it at https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Gf4SWQwGMUs
Orange team aka “The Wicked Juggling Jaffas” produced a hilarious balancing act featuring a lion, crocodile, rhino, elephant and penguin that had all fallen out of the back of van, only to be swept up by a magical, although wobbly, unicycle… until they crashed straight into a very unimpressed tiger. Watch it at: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8iDM4rPPb5I
A 1Voice National Residential Weekend would not have been complete without the ubiquitous Green screen photos, Circus bingo by the wonderfully dressed Compère Frances and, you guessed it, the raffle!!Thank you to everyone that bought tickets and donated prizes!!
Presentation Round Off
Last, but by no means least, we want to put a huge thank you out to our role models and volunteers. Truthfully and honestly, these weekends can only go ahead thanks to you dedicating your own time, as well as your hard work and enthusiasm.
The feedback from one of our new AAC users who attended the residential weekend for the first time summarises what we all feel about these weekends: “Fun again want do it again.”