Tonight was our district camp fire.
I, however, thought it was a leaders only affair so didn’t invite any of our Scouts…
Enjoyed two hours of singing and skits. Our camp fire leader was an older Explorer Scout.
I was invited to do some songs - I picked Down In The Jungle and BP Spirit - and I learnt a bunch more songs.
Had a shower and still have a faint whiff of smoke!
The most amusing element for me though was that it’s another of my regular walking areas.
So I knew where I was throughout, but the youngsters, from the Scouts to the Young Leaders made comments which made clear they had lost their bearings.
Unlike at Cubs this week, this was a Scavenger Hunt, and no maps or compasses were used.
They had to find something beginning with all the letters of the Alphabet.
Last night of Term at #Scouts and another Night Hike…of sorts.
It was pitched as wandering around the village doing challenges last week (a chippy hike without the chips was my impression)…but was actually a walk AROUND (part of) the village.
…So it was woodland and country path walks in the dark rather than suburbia.
It was a very different experience to Cubs this week. There are a lot more Young People, they have Young Leaders (lots of them), and I wasn’t in charge!
Last night was the end of Spring Term at Cubs.
We went for a Night Hike. It was our first in a long time, and only my second.
Many of them completed Stage 2 of the Navigator Badge. They used compasses with my hand drawn map of the local forest paths.
I led them in a Repeat After Me campfire song at one point as we walked through the dark woodland paths.
And we ended with (somehow) my first ever Scouts’ Own.
🧵 1/2
Spent this afternoon down the Scout hut doing some research and planning for my upcoming greenfield permit assessment camp.
I’ve not done “proper” lateines before, when I was a Scout doing a greenfield camp it was very much a case either “if you need to go, grab a shovel and do it somewhere over there” or “if you don’t fancy that, take this Jerry can and walk two miles that way to the toilets, bring water back with you!”
Was good to be in a different environment, and to get rope out and floor plan how big things might be.
More planing to do, but feeling more confident.
Oh dear…I just received a “reminder email” from the head of an event.
Thing is, I haven’t heard anything from them since January, so I can’t be reminded about something I didn’t know how to sign up to!
Apparently they have had low responses, so maybe there’s been a wider communications issue.
The problem now is that the deadline is a week from now for applications!
We were looking forward to hearing more but figured the PVG Disclosure changes had delayed things.
Tonight at Scouts our Young Leader ran a Taskmaster evening.
Aside from overhearing the compliments battle I didn’t get to experience much of the evening as I was stuck in the office sorting out badges.
I needed to get about 30 badges to give out.
Our GLV had put a badge order in recently and got a few for Scouts, however all of the badges (around 100) had just been dumped onto the desk in the office. So I took the time to put all the Scouts and shared badges away and update our stock in OSM.
Scouts enjoyed the evening. At the end I handed out badges and Easter eggs.
I also gave a pretty nice compass to a Scout as a thank you - reason to follow when I post about the camp last weekend.
Ben Lavery-Griffiths
CheekyMcB
Keith
