TERE TULEMAST
Welcome to the 60th Celebration of Sydney Estonian Summer Camps.
Sõrve is excited to invite you to our celebration weekend. Since 1962, Sõrve Summer Camps have been held during the summer holidays each year, at Point Wolstoncroft Sport and Recreational facility on the Central Coast of New South Wales.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
We will update our website at and social media pages as more information becomes available.
Registrations for overnight accomodation are essential and close on 30 November 2022.
Sõrve is excited to invite you to our celebration weekend. Since 1962, Sõrve Summer Camps have been held during the summer holidays each year, at Point Wolstoncroft Sport and Recreational facility on the Central Coast of New South Wales.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
We will update our website at and social media pages as more information becomes available.
Registrations for overnight accomodation are essential and close on 30 November 2022.
Visitor's Weekend: January 6 - 7, 2023
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Event Program
FRIDAY NIGHT - REEDE - JANUARY 6
Party - Pidupäev 7:30pm (7:15pm for C group)
Theme - Jaaniõhtu
Dress - Festival
Location - Söögisaal
Midsummer or St. John's Day - jaanipäev in Estonian - is one of the oldest and most important celebrations in Estonia. The celebration starts on Midsummer Eve on 23 June, jaaniõhtu (also jaanilaupäev), as an evening of food, dancing, traditions, magic and romance.
On jaaniõhtu, Estonians all around the country will gather with their families, or at larger events to celebrate this important day with singing and dancing, as Estonians have done for centuries.
You are invited to join with Sõrve friends and family to enjoy a fun evening of games, laughter, music, dancing, food and the best company.
Estonians love good healthy competition - be it volleyball, boot tossing, or the traditional wife carrying. Join your friends and reignite old rivalries in a potato sack race or team-up with new found friends in a tug-of-war. Or simply watch the fun. For our youngest competitors we have family-friendly games.
We’ll also join our hands to twirl through well-loved social dances. We will dance old group dances and spice it up with a few waltzes, polkas, rheinländers and labajalg, which is the predecessor of waltz in Estonia and is recognised for its flat-foot step.
Our jaaniõhtu menu will offer pirukad (traditional meat pastries), hapukurgid (fermented cucumbers), and party food.
FRIDAY NIGHT - REEDE - JANUARY 6
Party - Pidupäev 7:30pm (7:15pm for C group)
Theme - Jaaniõhtu
Dress - Festival
Location - Söögisaal
Midsummer or St. John's Day - jaanipäev in Estonian - is one of the oldest and most important celebrations in Estonia. The celebration starts on Midsummer Eve on 23 June, jaaniõhtu (also jaanilaupäev), as an evening of food, dancing, traditions, magic and romance.
On jaaniõhtu, Estonians all around the country will gather with their families, or at larger events to celebrate this important day with singing and dancing, as Estonians have done for centuries.
You are invited to join with Sõrve friends and family to enjoy a fun evening of games, laughter, music, dancing, food and the best company.
Estonians love good healthy competition - be it volleyball, boot tossing, or the traditional wife carrying. Join your friends and reignite old rivalries in a potato sack race or team-up with new found friends in a tug-of-war. Or simply watch the fun. For our youngest competitors we have family-friendly games.
We’ll also join our hands to twirl through well-loved social dances. We will dance old group dances and spice it up with a few waltzes, polkas, rheinländers and labajalg, which is the predecessor of waltz in Estonia and is recognised for its flat-foot step.
Our jaaniõhtu menu will offer pirukad (traditional meat pastries), hapukurgid (fermented cucumbers), and party food.
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SATURDAY - LAUPÄEV - JANUARY 7
Flag Raising - Lipu Heiskamine
9:15am
Our flag raising ceremony marks the beginning of the Sõrve 60 visitors day. The whole camp assembles each morning at the lipuväljak (flag assembly area). The Estonian and Australian flags are raised. During the ceremony we celebrate our heritage by singing the “Eesti lipp”. Results from the morning’s ülevaatus (inspection) are announced - who will win the coveted “Sõrve päeva parim tare” (The Best Hut of the Day) award?
Walking Tour of Sõrve
9:30am
Join our Camp Komandant and tour guide, Taimi, on a guided walking tour of Sõrve. The tour will take you around the camp grounds and include trivia, overlooked gems and stories about Sõrve.
Käsitöö exhibition
Open from:
Wed, Thurs, Fri 10:00 am- 12:00 pm and 2:30pm - 4:30pm
Sat 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
An exhibit “Estonian folk costumes in Australia” curated by the Sydney Eesti Seltsi Kunsti ~ Käsitöö ja Etnograafia Ring.
Handicrafts also for sale.
Kids Sports Day - Spordipäev
9:30am
Planned activities include volleyball, soccer, races for all ages and abilities and maybe a couple of surprises.
Handicraft Yard
10:30am - 12:30pm
The Handicraft / Käsitöö yard is a place where you can spend time doing things. Handicraft fans of all skill levels can take part. You can paint, make textile dolls or flower crowns and many other things.
Pop-Up Markets
1pm - 2:30pm
The market is a pop up place near the söögisaal, set up by Estonian businesses or people selling their handicrafts or products.
Cultural Performance “The Story of Estonia” - Kultuurietendus “Eesti lugu”
2:30pm
The theme this year is Estonian mythology, and the creators of Estonian written folklore thanks to whom we can trace back Estonian heritage through folktales and myths.
Did you know that Estonians too have myths for creation of the world, animals and significant places? Do you know why a fox has a white tale? Or that the national fish heeringas or herring used to be like a cat - a pet with legs and a tail - but for love of salt and wrecking a ship that caused the seas to be salty, he was doomed to remain in the sea.
It was during the Age of Enlightenment that Friedrich Robert Faehlmann and Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald helped to form the Estonian identity, which had existed way before the Hanseatic merchants and the Crusaders from the west or slavic tribes from the east crossed the banks of Ancient Estonia. By collating stories into printed books and creating the epic “Kalevipoeg”, they ensured the unique heritage of Estonians was there in black and white for everyone to see and pass on to generations to come.
We’ll enjoy watching performances of the myths about the creation of Emajõgi and origin of languages, along with dances our children have learned during the week and be thrilled by the intricate steps of folk dance group the Sydney Virmalised. We will learn about how these men of medicine and science - Faehlmann and Kreutzwald - still had a lot of time for telling stories.
Our choir will perform some of Estonia’s best loved choral pieces and newer songs that you may not have heard before.
Following the performance, the audience is invited to join our dancers for Tuljak - a traditional dance performed at weddings. Who will lift their partner higher than Suur Munamägi?