Autumn Camping Moved to Spring

With the cubs camping trip canceled it's a good opportunity to reflect and see why we had to do this but more to the point, see how we can prevent it from happening again.

Wokefield Common - Pond

Canceling the camping trip was unfortunate.

The 1st Burghfield scout group site and the nearby woods of Wokefield Common  are ideal for a Camping trip and hike.

We had most of the trip planned and a lot of leaders worked hard to see it happen. 

But no matter how inviting the site was or how exciting the activities planned were, it is shown that a couple of months of notice is not enough for us or the parents to cope with the logistics of the exercise.

(to see more of this part of West Berkshire please visit the Wokefield Common Wildlife Heritage web site)

So what went wrong?

For the parents it is a very simple problem. They need time to put money aside for the costs of camping and buy the equipment. With schools just starting in this term and just after coming back from holidays plus looking ahead towards the expensive Christmas period, the September to December period is always hard to budget for.

Looking at the equipment list many of the items must be purchased whilst camping in the autumn requires some of the warmest and better quality gear such as sleeping bags, mats, boots and clothes.
So a big cost for first timers as for most of our cubs this would be the first time camping away from parents.

For us the Leaders it was also a tricky one.

Wokefield Common - Woods

The site proved to be not quite as exclusive as we liked it to be and I'm not talking about the facilities which are good or the surrounding area which is excellent!

Indeed 1st Burghfield is a very good site with nice woodland surroundings and we always found that our fellow scouters and site managers are always there to help us. It also very close to our HQ, only a skip and jump away from Reading.

What we found is that it is also very popular with a lot of users accessing it most of the weekend. Booking on such a short notice meant that we had to share Friday evening with other site users, this would make it a bit difficult to manage and we were not sure how parents would take it as we only found out about it on the Friday before. Again, planning something in such a short notice gives you much fewer options.

Keeping positive even when you have to cancel an activity like this is essential. What this did was to plant the seed for the next camping experience. Our team is in a better position now.

We have already penciled in a site for next May and we are discussing this on our next scouters meeting. Camping in May doesn't require as much equipment as camping in October and with 7 months planning in advance parents can start putting money towards it early and with enough time to buy the equipment needed.

We also have more time to plan bigger and better.

HOBO HOB (or Stove if you must)

One of the things you must try with your group is the Hobo Stove, cooking on a tin can!

There are a lot of instructions on how to make one, available on the internet, if you search for hobo stove but whatever you do, make sure you use a large enough tin can (a no.10 tin can as they say) and take some time to cut / punch or experiment with the design you think will work for you...

You should take your time to make as it is not something you can do during an evening session.

I went to our Monday meeting with a collection of what I thought were large cans but the "old scouters" had even bigger ones! So I was happy to use theirs!

It's also worth mentioning that our tins were cleaned, the business end is the bottom of the tin and that was cleaned properly. Also remember it's best to look the part too, it should look like they actually cook with a tin can, something others would just throw away! Hobo style!

We had a stove per pair of scouts, that worked out very well for us.

For fuel/heat we used three tea-lights, next to each-other, under the tin elevated near the top by smaller cans.

That produced a very gentle hot surface, it will not fry but it will cook given enough time. We were indoors and all the stoves where on our normal tables for crafts etc.

We used pieces of toast cut in circles (pint glass cutter) a couple of eggs beaten in a bowl per pair of cubs, a small cup of vegetable oil and a fork.

Put a tiny amount of the oil directly on the bottom of the can, if you have cleaned the tin can. Then stick some bread in the egg bowl, make sure it soaks up the egg mix and when the oil is hot enough just put the eggy-bread on it!  Turn it occasionally.

Simple!