Remote Emergency Care - REC 2 / part 2

Sunday 8:30 in the morning we are on our way to day 2 of training, it should be the one step up from module10 and REC1. It was clear and cold, a fantastic day for outdoor activities, we expected a lot of training scenarios and we got them.

There were people with embedded glass in their hands, cuts, burns, sprained ankles, broken legs, fell climbers on top of each other, epileptic seizures, chocking, hypothermic and a lot of shouting for help.

"I tried to pick the pot up to move it..."

It was all enhanced with the make-up of realistic wounds, blood flowing and things sticking out... Oh we did enjoy today's training!

Each one of us would alternate between casualty and first aid crew. We all played our roles without trying to laugh it off as "not real" and the weird thing is that in my mind I can only describe what we did based on what the scenarios were staged and developed as and not as a bunch of role playing acting exercises. I felt that we were making first aid efforts and decisions. Now that builds confidence!

Time to put together a simple first aid kit, something that will easily be expanded for a group of 10 and it will have scope for a 1h or more emergency care. This must be coupled with prepared and trained scouts, if one scout needs care the whole group will need to adapt their roles to assist evacuation, on that we can be trained to a high standard. In fact this might even make first aid programmes fun to run, I bet young members love bloody and gory details in their first aid training. Add to that bevy bag casualty lift and move, you got a load of fun first aid achieved!

If you are an adult or young leader in scouts, guides or any other youth based organisation, do seek and get trained in REC2, you'll love it!

Our training course was organised by Berkshire Scouts and run by the very competent and herself an explorers scout leader, Julia Pich. If you scout anywhere near Hertfordshire Do contact her!

Her services can be reached at www.juliapichtraining.co.uk

Now, where do they order that badge from...

Remote Emergency Care - REC 2 / part 1

Live from the REC2 training weekend, this is part one of the two 8h training course in First Aid, where Aid comes First!

This is as close to a log diary as it gets, I do not want to forget some thing so i make notes of some stuff that were discussed in today's session.

REC is a first aid course that trains you to be prepared and equipped for when the emergency situation occurs in a remote location, where the ambulance is not likely to be there on time, a considerable longer time from an urban environment.

It also seems that the position of the body will be in a more random or awkward place. Getting there, assessing and caring for the casualty is a challenge. I guess in an urban setting, most casualties tend to be flat, on their backs one swing away from the recovery position, just about enough time for the ambulance to arrive.

Oh wait, we dont call it the recovery position any more, that assumes too much, that the casualty will recover for starts... We call it assisted airways position, basically we make sure that if there is a breath in their body, there's more chance for another one...

I won't go into the technicalities of "how" and "what" you do or "why"; do the course to get them from the horse's mouth. I will write a couple of ideas, especially the scouting aspect of it.

When we hike, we tend to use dirt tracks, the ones that go bit off the back of farms and through little copses, some woods, over another farm or field, we still hear the car noise from the nearby A or M road, right? We are in the nature but not off the grid, safe in the knowledge that if the ambulance won't come on time, the helicopters will! Can you tell I was a cubs leader?

The 7 to 15 minutes that it would take for an ambulance to go where the postman can deliver post, becomes... 45 minutes? Maybe less provided you can move the casualty closer to the main road but do you move casualties? Not in the emergency first response context. Thats a long way around of saying; REC2 is much more basic that you think, much more common and close to familiar scouting grounds.

With a group of scouts, ramblers, walkers, tourists, call it how you want, it's not only the casualty you will need to care of but everybody else, you don't want more casualties under your care because while you are tending the wounded scout the others may get wet, cold, scared, even suffer from hypothermia feeling horrible and helpless! So you might need to know how to set them safe and ready for a long night till help arrives.

Get your patrols to practice a first aid program or activity that one or two "casualties" are cared for by the first aider but everybody knows how to react, e.g. where the first aid kit is, how to call for help, how to prepare a shelter and a brew and how to evacuate. This will help moral and keep spirits high as everybody has a job, while the patrol or troop is stranded waiting for help to arrive.

Got ICE number and name on your mobile phone? I let you google this to find out what it is.

And finally, do you know where you are going to be and how it's called or how to reference it on the grid or post code address if you have to call for an ambulance or mountain rescue or coast guard?

When you prepare a hike get those things in with your first aider, they will love you when you tell them exactly where they can find you. 

Oh there's more than this but I won't script the whole course here now, am I? For starts, I got one more day to go through tomorrow...

The IKEA Scout

We moved! We unpacked (65% of the boxes!) and I have become IKEA's Chief Assembler!

As I was assembling I realised that there is no need for any language to pass on the message of what to do or what not to do. IKEA manuals have mastered the ancient art of hieroglyphic reference...

For example, take the IKEA Law:

The first cartoon definitely says Be Prepared!

With the Scouts Law in mind:

1. A Scout is to be trusted.
2. A Scout is loyal.
3. A Scout is friendly and considerate.
4. A Scout belongs to the worldwide family of Scouts.
5. A Scout has courage in all difficulties.
6. A Scout makes good use of time and is careful of possessions and property.
7. A Scout has self-respect and respect for others.

Can you see it? It's all there!

Next to translate B.P's Scouting for Boys in IKEA manual hieroglyphics...

Scouting without Scouts

Although I am not yet attached to any group, having resigned from my old one, I can't say scouting is not in the agenda for the next few weeks. So in a good old blog fashion, were you don't just write about how to build a friction bridge or a review of a meeting night, i will attempt to lay out the agenda of whats ahead in my scouting life.

October. Second meeting with the County IT team, this is a social and work pub session with those who volunteer to help with the Berkshire Scouts IT issues and work. I only have met the team leader so I am curious to see how the rest of the team looks like, will it give us a kick start for something a bit more structured? let's hope so!

November. At some point in November I will meet with the cub scout leader of the 1st Jennett's Park scout group, this is my future group if all works out OK, with the move to the new house and all. Again, meeting new people, a new team, a new group!

End of November we (The Family) move to JP and that was a long time coming. I know loads of people have horror stories that span months when it comes to sell buy and move house, I can't say it went nasty with ours but it still took us about 5 months to be able to say when we might move... Hopefully.

December. I finally booked an Advanced First Aid Course, a 2 day (16h) training course that leads to a full first aid certificate, once the course has been evaluated. I was looking for one of these courses for a few years now, hopefully the one the Berkshire Scouts are running will go ahead in December. It'll be a weekend and it'll be great!

So scouting for old boys, I know without the young ones it's not much scouting as a leader role goes but it's a break, it will give me ideas and soon enough I will get back to "proper" scouting!

Before I start filling in my AA form I need to have a new proper home address first!

My farewell to the 47th

The time has come to announce my resignation from my role as an Assistant Cub Scout Leader.

After almost two and a half years scouting with the 47th Reading Scouting Group (St. Paul's) due to my family's relocation I decided that I can't commit to the commute to the meetings, on top of my day's work and commute.

I have taken so much from the amazing leadership of the other scouters, the enthusiasm and love of the young members and the scouting we all did together. We all became friends and we all had fun, exploring and doing things scouts do, without a doubt that we kept our promise. We did what we did under the scout law and we did make our founder proud. No doubt in my mind that the group will continue to do so.

As this is a review I will try to cram the most of the past few years.

In 2011 my daughter joined Beavers at the 47th, so I guess I started as a parent, it is a category of scout group membership if not official very real indeed! I shook the left hand of the GSL as an old scouter and I was recruited in my original role as a Sectional Assistant, knowing full well that I am joining a scout group but also feeling like I return to the scouting movement. The way my GSL approached and followed through my recruitment was text book!

Within weeks I realised that I have the chance to get so much more out of it if i commit a bit more and pick the role of Assistant Leader. These roles and the different paths seemed a bit complicated, the training looked attractive enough to commit but also wide and distant to complete.

So starting with the group for the year 2011-2012 my main priority was to learn the ropes, get trained and develop a sense of direction and comradeship with the team and the young ones. Sure enough as the months went by I figured out what the Training Modules are about  and how to tackle them. A big help in that was my then Training Assistant, Barry who is also the GSL of the group. Also the county, Berkshire scouts are running training courses, it made life so easy! It was almost a case of booking modules and then booking Validation Sessions.

What happens between the two, the Module training and the Validation Session is real scouting. Once you follow a module you can then imminently see the content appear in your program and planning. Your meeting nights and scouting activity now has all the elements you need for validation revealed to you to record and make examples of.

During training you also meet other leaders from various districts and sections from a wide array of ages and backgrounds. That makes you feel that you have nothing to worry about, we are all there to offer what we can, there is no scout type, we are all scouts unique as we are uniformed! weird eh? It was great to meet all these fellow scouts, it made us all feel instantly we belong to a batch! a generation!

But training apart, which for me is a comfortable place, scouting is about the young members, the games, the activities and the skills. I did not know I would enjoy songs and skits so much, taking games and adapting them to themes, preparing props and soon enough making that same preparation an activity for scouts, taking me out of the doing for them, to leading them to do.


My daughter joined the Cubs, so the period 2012 - 2013 we scouted together, father and daughter, scary but it turned out we work together just fine! she is a clever girl, she knows when we play the game and when we are back to family mode! I was half way finishing my wood badge and also making camping happen.

I made it my task to lead our camping expedition, originally planned for October 2012 but then cancelled to be rescheduled for May 2013. I wanted to consciously control all stages of the planning so that I learn and move closer to my Nights Away permit. In doing so I also wanted to help the other leaders to do the same! We must all train and help each other do their training in the scouting system, the same way we share experience we also must share the training effort.

Camp went awesome; cubs loved it they didn't want to go home! Our long lists of activities and timetable run through with many items working just fine while others just didn't need to happen. Some parts of the organisation had some mistakes and needed a bit more attention, it doesn't matter, just make a note, remember for next time! The important thing is that there is a next time!

Leaders had a lovely time too, I slept for most of the week when we returned; I was knackered but happy.

Summer 2013 came with the news that we would have to move. Sad to leave my group and as we expected to do so by the end of August there was no more scouting for me with the 47th, or so I thought...

My daughter and I had a few more biscuits to eat at the 47th and there was a surprise waiting at the end!


As the move was delayed I continued scouting for the first term of 2013- 2014 and I was happy to see many of the old cubs coming back to our meetings, some moved up a section and some were new members.



On the 14th of October 2013 I had the honour and privilege to invest three new cubs into scouting and also, the same night, I was presented with the wood badge and beads by our DC in front of all the cubs, leadership team and some parents, a moment I will never forget!

I consider the 47th as my scout group, my cubs and my team. In Whitley the families have a scout group that has 100 years of history and from what I have seen their children are in good hands!

Keeping it personal as I review my continuous scouting experience, I will report from the new group soon but I will keep the 47 after Won Tolla for ever to always remind me the 47th Reading Scouts!

HEATWAVE

Long time no see! We are near to the end of this term, as we approach the Summer Break, almost like the end of a scouting year, depends how you count it, I tend to measure a year from September!

The weather is Hot and the park near our HQ is very inviting for wide games, the water relays, with the outdoors being the main theme of almost every meeting.

I have noticed that parents tune-in to the weather especially well when it's rainy and cold but for the Summer season, things tend to get a bit simpler. No worries, Summer calls for less clothes!

Sometimes the transit between the seasons is slow in scouting mainly because of the uniform and the regular meetings indoors, in the Scout Hut. So I think it is a good idea to have a few general guidelines ready and to let parents know that being summer and being scouts we will be mostly outside and possibly playing with water a lot!

Do this as a cover-all statement, as the seasons change, not like a letter for a particular event...

This way you can rely on their educated common sense to send the young scouts ready for outdoors, even when you have not planned a visit to a near by field for a wide game, obviously if the field trip or the visit does warrant an activity notification and an information form this is covered already.

The beaver and cub jumpers or the scout shirt are too hot for games outdoors on a 28C hot summers day! Can they bring a t-shirt to change to for games? Especially if there's water relays and games involved and the weather is not that hot!

High factor Sun screen is necessary, even on nice cool days outdoors. Remember, we can not apply it to our young members and we expect them to have it on before they arrive at the HQ, covering parts that the t-shirt wont cover.

A bottle of water is good practice, although Scout Huts have water and cups, it still shows initiative and good thinking. Also imagine, if during a heatwave the HQ has the water cut off, you need to drink to play! I realise this is not practical but imagine if you manage to convince all scouts to have a bottle of water in the backpacks!


A hat is always a great idea, this is like saying that appropriate shoes for games are also a good idea.


Scout huts need to have a good 1st aid field box, something to pick up and go, it will patch a grazed knee quickly and get you back to the game without delays.

In my experience a small kit with:

• Nitrile gloves
• Sterile water
• Sterile gauze to clean small cuts and wounds 
• Selection of wide plasters or adhesive tape 

all these are more than enough to cover the grazed knee. For anything more than a graze, you'll probably stop the game and seek further 1st aid or assistance anyway, so don't take this as the basic first aid advice.

Extend your knowledge to the young Scouts, highlight three things:

1. Equip: Sunscreen & Water, have them, use them!
2. Plan: Avoid working hard on hot hours of the day
3. Care: Keep an eye on elderly, family members, neighbours, they might suffer.

Also, pets must not be left in hot small confined areas, like cars.


Finally, I spend sometime refreshing my first aid and I use the Red Cross application on my iPad, excellent app but the info is also available on the Red Cross website, I submit this link for Heatwave advice. Be Prepared for Heatwave

That's all! Scouting is Outdoors, get going!

Activity Review - Cooking Kebabs (BBQ)

On Monday 26th of June we had a BBQ Kebab theme with a Global taste for our CUBS.
Some weeks before a letter went out and the cubs arrived with loads of spices and herbs, massalas and marinades for their kebabs! The focus was a cooking/global program.

So the target was to base this on a meeting time of 1h 30' and to cater for the variety of cultures and vegetarian diets. If in doubt don't forget to ask those of different dietary requirements in advance for suggestions, they know best. Also ask for allergies!

Food hygiene and safety was assessed,  we also took the opportunity to pass these on to our cubs on the day. Finally this was an outdoors activity, we all know that fires are not to be lit indoors, don't we?

When we run this the excitement and the reception from our cubs was very good, still as an adult leader I felt that something was not quite right, mainly because we had only 1h 30m to run this and nothing was really safely cooked before the closing ceremony, meaning we had to give the kebabs to the cubs "takeaway" at the end of our meeting...

Our leaders worked really hard to produce and supply us with the activity and I feel we must repeat this very popular activity, a bit more improved!

So here are 10 points, I am sure there's more to add but i guess 10 is a magic number!

1. Wash hands, preparation areas and utensils.
2. Prefer Chicken, Beef and Lamb, buy in pieces or cut them in advance.
   Courgettes, onions, mushrooms and peppers are good for BBQs too.
   Check fish products, they must be well preserved, check for various diets.
   Avoid Pork and sausages for cultural or religious diets.
3. Make clear that no BBQ food is to be eaten uncooked.
   Chicken and Pork if used, must be cooked thoroughly before tasted!
4. Make clear that each meat preparation must be separate.
   e.g. no chicken and beef pieces on the same kebab stick.
   Meat must be handled one type at a time, plan ahead!
   e.g. start with beef and lamb, wash, moving to chicken, wash, pork last.
5. Prepare a strong fire, preferable on small disposable BBQs Small BBQs keep cooking time to a minimum. Have one BBQ per Food Type to avoid cross contamination i.e. avoid one per six. 
6. Cook meat separately from vegetables/vegetarian food, it is also a cultural need.
7. Add a challenge to light the fire with 1 match or a light steel!
8. Add a global twist with marinades and spices we can prepare the food with.
9. Have a team to prepare the salad and the dips, sides etc.
10. Work out a rota for washing up, drying up, cleaning up, gathering rubbish etc.

We decided as a team to undertake the cost of the BBQ, most of us turn up at the HQ straight from work and school and we are always hungry, scouts are always hungry!

The cost was £2.50p per leader (i am not saying how many leaders and cubs, it was proportional) but we did not have small disposable BBQs, we had a big one and it was a squeeze to cook around, the fire was too weak and the grill had mixed food with all sorts, not the best set-up but it kinda worked at the end.

Last, don't forget the dessert, marshmallows and fruit kebabs are instant gratification! they are consumed even before they find themselves stacked on skewers!

So as I said this is not an exhaustive list, if you thought of a point I forgot to make then this blog did it's job!
Ah yes, here's one, where there's fire, there's a bucket of water nearby! Right?

Cub's Camp - We Survived!

I wrote this as a return from Camp log, took me weeks to post it due to work, i will post it today with some other old ones, just as I go on Holidays for a week or so...

We Survived!

Oh come on! It was never a case of survival! Easy to say this now, however when you go about planing the
event, surviving it is what seems to be the aim and purpose.

But now it's all over, cubs are back with the parents and we are in the process of review and reflect.

I am not going to bore you with the 4 pages review I wrote, I could just paste it here and blog's done and updated but what's the point in doing that when here is the place where I write about my experience?

What have I learned then... now there's a topic.

It is the yeast of the previous camp that makes the next one rise! In my case it all started with a good excel sheet used by the E-Scouts Friend from 2nd Bracknell.

I stop the planning here, it should be a simple case of who's sorting out what by when, All you need is a list of jobs, a list of people and the time they need to be done, a time table is your best tool.

A Team of 5 adults worked fine for us and you can delegate one role for the Planning stage that changes to another role for during Camp, for example "Program Zones & Badges" during Planning and "Program Coordinator" during the Camp.There are other roles but you get the gist of it.

That's planning, but preparation is another matter. Get the team to do their own prep work, if something doesn't work out, and you can't point to someone else to help out, don't do it! Honestly guys, simple is best, you got your games list, some balls, flying disks, maybe even pioneering poles and rope and plans, done! do not sweat the rest if they don't pan out as you expected them to pan out.

One word about Reccie, reconnaissance of the site. Do it Alone or with just one helper, the more the worst, as you tend to rely on someone else if they have seen locks, taps working, tables chairs and they might say yes without having it in their list ticked or at all. I am not saying you should distrust your team but the responsibility is yours to know if you have counted 5 tables or there are only 3! And It is the principle of the eye witness, you can rarely trust the eye witness to tell you details. In short. Do the reccie yourself, be certain you work down your list and don't add unreliability to this crucial task!

Pin down your wake up and lights out times, let me guess, 7 in the morning and 10:00 at night.

Add breakfasts lunches dinners and supper by the camp-fire, done!

Then you got ceremonies, gather wood and tidy up for inspection and free time! During camp there are not enough words to praise the Free Time concept.Cubs Love It! The make their own games, their own stories, just sit back and watch over, when it starts going sour, throw a game or a challenge in!
Blow on the whistle a Morse code message and ask them to figure it out!

Stick a hike and some cubs cooking (remember to cover the outdoor badge requirements otherwise you'll feel like you wasted an opportunity) and what you got left with is 3 to 4 hours of activities needed! this is where the theme comes to play with inspiration and imagination.

Parent's Briefing about our Camp

Much more hair but you get the gist!

This could be a short blog entry because all parents came and attended the meeting!

That alone is enough to make anybody in the camp planning team happy.

So how unprepared was I the "leader in charge" when it came to this?

A Lot! Fact is I decided against producing a parent's pack because during the past few months a lot of literature and communication was produced and distributed, so everybody had all the info they needed to know and hold to, right?

Well... Wrong!

Unfortunately there is nothing better than a hard copy of the program (timetable), the menu, the rules and the other areas covered in the presentation.

People receive emails and they do read them but do they keep them? you don't know if they do!

Going paperless is great but when we physically meet, we need physical evidence of our communication too! It's not bad to cover all angles of communication either.

During our scouting year we use many forms of communication:

• email - direct, targeted, informal 
• website - open and accessible 
• newsletter - concise, distributed 
• "next event" letter - by proxy (scout), distributed, short 
• presentation - direct, personal, interactive 
• handout - functional, impersonal, completed 
• a chat - direct, informal, personalised 

I'm sure there is a more scientific list of ways of communication and their attributes somewhere but it makes the point that we use many different ways to talk to the parents, directly, indirectly, by proxy (the scouts) etc.

So to understand the strengths of each and maintain 2 or 3 channels of communication is not wasteful, is necessary and we do it already.

So back to No hand outs for the Parents; at least I had a list of items to cover.
Well, yes but I didn't compile the list for the presentation, I just had the one for my planning, I knew it well, it was ticked, it invoked statements and answers just by looking at it!

It worked out OK but I am also good at ad-libing, most of the times... I should do myself a favour and make a proper outline of my presentation, with points to cover to know I covered them.

I know I covered them but I struggled a bit. What should have been a 15 minute presentation, it was in fact close to 30 minutes of me talking about 4-5 subjects, one or two prompted by my GSL.

It went well, but it could be easier!

Best part was when we presented to the parents the Code of Conduct, the rules discussed and written by our scouts, their sons and daughters.

I read, "Always keep your clothes tidy and folded in tents!" and then I said, "Daniel suggested that, I think...", to which his mother exclaimed, "Really!?"

Yes we were all impressed!

A Hole in the Ground

If you always wanted a foldaway shovel, also known as Entrenching tool but didn't know exactly what to do with it, here are some ideas.

Small holes that can be dug with a trowel or an entrenching tool, they are about 6 to 8 inches deep and not too wide. On grass or turf, cut out a piece, keep it upside down and watered, dig the hole and before you leave site, cover hole with soil and turf.

Dig 6''-8'' Deep

Wet Pit

Dig about 6 inches in the ground, keep the soil on the side. Use this hole to empty waste water. Replace soil and cover.

Grease Pit

A small hole, covered with lots of twigs and grass! Tip waste fat or grease in the hole. The “nest” will hold the fat together and you can then burn it at you camp fire.

Catholes

To dispose of human waste, they must be located at a reasonable distance (at least 60 m) from water sources (rivers, lakes, etc.), to avoid possible bacterial contamination of water via precipitation, as well as away from trails. It is recommended to avoid concentration of catholes around campsites. Filled catholes must be covered with a reasonably thick layer of soil, to prevent access by animals.

Make sure you check restrictions of the area you are using as site may have specific rules and methods of disposing all of the above waste!

Text for catholes, which was added here for completion purposes, is from the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathole

It Is Rocket Science - A Camping Theme

So what is Rocket Science? A very fine balance between explosion and propulsion? Lots of action under pressure?

During Camping with the Cubs we got 3 type of Rocket activities to play with. The theme of the camp is War of the Worlds, a Martian invasion described only too well by H.G Wells and manipulated so that we can stick in some space stuff and some good old down to Earth science, like good ol' scouts do.

So here are the 3 types of Rockets we have prepared for the young Martians to invade or escape Earth with.

Space Race

This is the activity found in the Instant Scouting magazine (supplement of the scouting magazine) in which balloon rockets are threaded on lines and delivery a payload.

Scouting magazine can be found at http://magazine.scouts.org.uk/ and you can see the relevant issue online here, just pop to page 10!

We will adapt this to have 4 lanes and get some racing competition game going on!

Fizz Rockets

This is the activity we found at the NASA JPL Website [Link to resource]

First I had to find a bunch of old fashioned film canisters. Ask politely at your local independent photographer or developer studio, mention the good cause Scouts use them for and chances are you'll go home with a bag of the stuff.

Then I had a look around our local pharmacy and found some good offers on effervescent Vit-C tubes, orange flavour, each has 20 disks in it! I bough two but one proved to be more than enough!

I made a simple rocket shape as per the instructions, no diagrams, just roll some paper and stick tape to make the fins and the cone nose.

First effort was a comedy flop! Filled up the canister with water and popped a full Vit-C orange drink disk in the canister. A few seconds later it went off with a weak and sad plop. I thought it was funny if not miserable! Then I thought, less water more expansion chamber. So I tried that and it really exploded!

I lost the rocket as it flew somewhere up on the roof, it might be in the chimney! What remained on the floor was the rest of the Vit-C pill still fizzing. So I made another one this time using 1/4 of the pill and it still worked just like the second attempt.

I think a tube of 20 orange effervescent disks should give us 80 goes! What I will prepare is a rocket kit, printed on not too heavy card! Cubs can decorate that before they cut it and make their own rockets.

The rocket engine (film canister), the fuel (fizz disk) and the propellent (water) will be given to them with instructions, see what they make of it!

Water Rocket

I followed one of the many instructions available on the internet but mainly i adapted them to my resources and material. There are literally dozens of instructions out there, but I will describe the one I put together.

The full assembly

I used only 1 length (about 1 meter) of PVC pipe tubing, heated up to make a bulge where the bottle needs to sit water-sealed on the pipe.

The lock and release mechanism

Launch mechanism is based on an arrangement of zip lock ties.

Pump valve from an old bicycle tyre, threaded through a cork at the end of the PVC Pipe.

I added a water stop valve at the top of the tube to stop water entering the system.

This single pipe of a launcher is mounted on a wooden frame for vertical launches.

Lift Off

I tested the launcher many times and it works. I don't have a pump with a pressure gauge on so I went by guess.

For the program, all we need are a few 2lt bottles and some sturdy light material for the fins, I used the polystyrene round base Tesco Pizza comes with, good packaging material excellent fin making material... We also have some old plastic boards that are light, sturdy and easy to cut.

I got a video of the launch and it looks great but I lost the rocket at school next door, I have put an "If Found" note on it I hope they return it.

This is not a problem during Camp as we have a huge field to land on!

Meeting Report: Hobbies Night

Hobbies was the theme of the night. And with mother's day just next Sunday we were also going to decorate a tea candle holder only to realize last minute that we couldn't find the glass paint in the stores! No Panic, there is no activity that can't be stretched to fill a 15 minute gap!

So sat in a circle we went through every single cub's hobbies and we have 12 of them! We had a few questions prepared as well to help us focus on some facts about what they enjoy doing.

So in our pack we have a swimmer who take swimming very seriously and wants to be an Olympian.
4 footballers, one of them a goalkeeper with trophies and medals. I have to say having more than 100 of these awards at such a young age was not an uncommon occurrence amongst our sport personalities!

We have an author, with a book already in a competition aspiring to be Roald Dahl.

We have collectors of teddy bears, toy cars, fighter planes, and rubber erasers... we have gamers, spending hours in league online games.

I have to make a foot note here; We need to be aware that some online games are not suitable for our young ones, I would like to make this clear that parents need to be aware of the ratings and that we as scouters need to play our role safeguarding the children.

Footnote aside, we have a pack that is interested in a variety of things and we can integrate this to our program.

For Mother's day we had an activity that didn't run but we also had an invitation for our local church with a lovely message about how mother's day began in the Church of England.

So Next Sunday our group will parade at our local church or st Agnes and have breakfast with mum before the service.

Cubs Space Camp - Part 2

Our Camp Badge

Months ago I started planning the end of May camp for my cubs.

I am using the first person here because is my blog and I log my personal account of it. The truth is that it was a team work and I am just the Leader In Charge of this residential experience.

In Fact if I act my role correctly I will have to do nothing more than the rest of my team, however as I want to gain my nights away permit I can not resist to be involved with everything, just this once, to get a good feel of the width and breadth of things.

Planning was helped by getting my bearings right (thanks scoutsmastercg) and cutting it down to addressing "What will happen When and by Whom", a simple list of Task, names and Dates should be enough to mark this down. An hour's meeting, 10 minutes if you have an experienced team, should do it.

The "How" that concerns method, tools, equipment and resources is Preparation, easy to do once it's split among the team members, once you got the planning out of the way!

Another big help came from a scout leader from 2nd Bracknell, who answered to my forum post and emailed me Excel sheets used from previous camps. Browsing through the excels gave me a good idea of how little I needed to sort out. What made me very happy is that a good 75% of what was needed to be marked and checked, I've already had completed! I was more ahead of the game than I thought I was and I had a good guideline of what to deal with next.

Some items regarding the planning are decided between us leaders, now it was time to involve the Cubs. We have the Camp Site we have a time table, mostly about the Breakfast Lunch Dinner slots and some scouting stuff in between, now we need the flesh, the activities and games.

With the theme decided by the planning team as the "War of the Worlds!" we can focus on the activities and more to the point, ask our Cubs what they want to get out of the 3 days camping.

We are at this point now that every decision is about the fun stuff we will do, it is a happy place to be and we also have managed to raise some extra cash from a special fund raising activity to buy ourselves the bespoke camp Badges, a picture of which you can see at the top of this blog, to get some equipment and material to play a few games when there and to cover contingencies.

Oh yeah, and Food!

We are not out of pocket! We are not out of steam! We are not out of time!

DON'T PANIC!

The Stick Meeting

Tonight we had the start of Term 5 with a meeting themed around Stick. We had matchstick puzzles, pioneering and teamwork, all that in under an hour and a half including a fire drill so in detail this is how it worked out!

Tonight was mainly about team building and we also covered these areas and badges:

1. Creative - A: Problem solving
2. Creative - A: Pioneering

So first we had a matchstick puzzle welcome game, which remarkably all leaders and cubs got engaged to try and solve 5 match stick problems.

We originally got this idea from an OSM Activity but we prepared our own puzzle and solution sheet based on fun shapes and quirkiness.
We took our puzzles from Learning Tree, visit [http://www.learning-tree.org.uk]

• Tip: Use matchsticks, the difference between having a handful of matchsticks to not is enormous. Before that we had cubs that just didn't get what to do, leaders also expected to see matchsticks and rightly so. Thank goodness we have a bag full of them at the back (headless matchsticks to be on the safe side!)

Then we played a game called  The Helium Stick, that's a name you can google and find exactly what's all about but suffice to say that it's a team building exercise used even by corporate team-building events! That was good fun; we used a long bamboo stick, the longest we could find about 2m long and it worked a treat for 12 cubs, 6 on the left and 6 on the right.

• Tip: give out the instructions on how it's played; emphasize on the team work, that they will feel the stick lifting by itself and that yes it's very easy, only it isn't if you don't think as a team! Once all the instructions are given do not try to achieve a start position where all fingers touch the stick, just slip the stick on any fingers stretched and let them get on with it, spotting the occasional wrong finger!

The main activity of the meeting was building the New-market Ballista, so while everybody was trying to put the helium stick on the floor, we prepared 2 sets of bamboo sticks and red elastic bands. We also had the long 170mm by 50mm blue elastic parcel bands and some pots to act like the ballista launchers.
It took awhile to work it out but with a simple printout schematic at hand and with the advice to split the design in two teams, one do the triangle the other the V shape, soon we had 2 ballistas.

The Finished Ballista

Then we gave them light balls (the ones you see in ball pits) each team had different colors and the task was to aim and fill the bucket. It is hard to aim and figure out the ballistic target! so a leader was employed to hold the bucket and collect flying balls, the first to deplete the ammo in the bucket won! Blue balls won!

• Tip: Show the two different lashings they can use with the rubber bands is easy but not irrelevant with lashings, sheer and square lashing is demonstrated quite easily.

Last we had 5 minutes to fill and we did the Thurman Throw. This is the best way to throw a stick to a team mate without spearing them through!
An illustration is available at the scoutmasterscg blog, visit [http://www.scoutmastercg.com/thurman-throw/]

• Tip: Adapt it for Cubs with the thinest bamboo sticks found in your bunch of pioneering bamboo sticks. The strongest cub at the back and the weakest at the front. Make it a race between two lines of Cubs.

This meeting worked out pretty well, it was all indoors and everybody got involved. Building a team is very important as each Cub needs to develop trust to it's fellow scout and seek the benefits of working as a team.

Scouting Songs - A Confession

Ever so often in Scouting life you will hear everybody singing a good ol' sing-along and you will be part of it.

With camp-fire songs, repeat-after-me songs and action songs, time passes by, the program fills up and moments that stay in the minds of all the scouts are created.

It's loads of fun but its not something we can all do. What I mean is that some of us are more self aware than others, especially when it comes to opening our mouth to sing. I think it took me a year or so before I loosen up enough to enjoy a sing-along.

Come to think of it, it was always a difficult one for me, even as a young scout I found it hard, hating being on the spot with my shouting voice and gold-fish memory for lyrics...

Nevertheless I will try my best and find enjoyment even in things I am not too good at. It's all part of the game!

As a scout leader the trick was to find songs I enjoy singing and Kumbaya was not one of them, let me tell you. So every time I listen to a song that I think it's weird or silly enough I make sure I find the lyrics and get it to the meeting for the scouts to try it out.
Now have a few songs that "Won Tolla does".


The first song I came across was the classic do as I do song, the Penguin song, with actions and everything. Sometimes when I think I found a new exciting song, it turns out to be an old scouting staple. Old scouts tend to say "Oh Yeah! we know this song!" but what they don't say is that they are glad to find someone silly enough to do it!

Lately I have been trying to remember the 2-3 Greek Scouting songs we used to do with my patrol on camps and around the fire. I seem to remember there were not that many of them and the single more popular one we used to do every time was the "Θυμήσου όπου πας / Remember Wherever You Go" one, which Ironically I had forgotten completely...

What I haven't forgotten is how it made us all feel warm and together around the camp fire.

Stitch in Time or Badge

I felt like writing about stitching a badge, after a short comment on a forum turned out to be an exercise  in written instructions.

A lot of people ask me, WonTolla where did you learn how to stitch, and I reply, Scouts! therefore I only stitch badges, badly and nothing else.

I have a cheap small sewing kit, i think I found it in a Christmas cracker or at a hotel some years ago but you can buy some from the pound shop!

If I run this as an activity I'd have a small first aid kit handy, for pierced fingers or worse.

So what you'll need is needle, thread, a threader and of course the badge and your shirt/top.

Use a thread length long enough to circle the badge outline (as if you circle it with a pen) 3 times. (yeah I just made this up but use enough till you figure it out)

Thread the needle: Push the threader's thin wire loop through the needle. Push the thread through the threader wire now poking out of the needle, pull the threader, thread is through the needle now. Make it hang equal lengths.

Knot the thread: Make a nice knot at the end of the thread. To do that take the two hanging ends, lick them stuck to one, coil them 4-5 times around the needle, pull the needle as if you stitch the coil, you have a good wet knot and fast too.

Stitch it: Place the badge on the shirt. Start with one thin stitch just inside so the knot is easy to hide under the badge.

You always work on the up side, the good side, no need to feel or pull needle under and over, just think of it as if you try to pick some threads from the fabric, work the needle almost parallel on the surface of the fabric, point in and almost immediately out, two three strands of the fiber --)))-->
Then follow through picking the badge's decorative edge, if you look closely and you'll see it's all a coiled thread too

So in one push, pick a bit of shirt and a bit of edge; it should go through without resistance, no need to try push through the badge's body. Work in parallel to the surface.

Continue all around, pace it as loose or as close stitched as you like. It doesn't matter it's your world, it's your tree!

To finish just pull the needle two/three times though the same final stitch and if you do it hard enough the third time it will snap and you are done!

There, who said you need a bucket of inspiration to write a blog entry eh?

Tin Can Lantern - A good way to punch holes

Hey all Scouters out there!


Some cool tricks this time, couple of things for tin cans I picked up, hope you like.

First things first and where due is due, I wouldn't write this if i didn't pay attention and listen to the awesome "The Urban Bushcraft Podcast" folk! Podcast is available on iTunes and on their website at  http://urbanbushcraft.co.uk/, The hosts are scout leaders, they love their subject, which is bushcraft and survival oriented and I could not recommend a podcast more!

Listening to the Christmas podcast episode of Urban Bushcraft while re-arranging my wardrobe, they described a great way to use old tin cans!

If you check my previous entries, I described a way to make a tin can hob, a vagabond hob with a tin can and some tea light you can cook pancakes and get the young scouts excited in camps or evening activities.

Preparing the tin can was a bit of a hit and miss for me, you think punching a few holes are not a big deal, well it is! Here is a trick to try and I can't wait to try it myself too.

Fill the tin can with water, freeze it to ice and then using a big enough nail hammer punch holes to your hearts content without the tin can warping and bulking! This will give you a good finish to your tin can.

Don't just stop at making hobs, try making patterns and shapes, even messages, given time you should have a lovely tea candle lantern, decorated with anything you like! The episode was a Christmas one so fir trees and little angels were the designs of the time.

Now, Easter is also a celebration of light, I know in Greece it is for sure; everybody carrying the holly light from church to home in a progression. Small tins punched with shapes or spring flowers and Easter eggs or bunnies around it would look great when you light a tea light inside. Why not punch two holes on the top on opposite sides and fit a handle made of wire too!

Last, if you keep the holes up the top two thirds of the can and use the bottom third to melt some paraffin wax in it adding a wick you have an integrated candle in a tin as well!

Let me entertain you

Ah the bitter taste of defeat!

I heard a parent telling me the reason that one of our scouts decided to give up scouting is because she got bored with it. The scout in question stopped way back in September, together with her friend and a couple more scouts. They just didn't turn up back from the Summer break.

So why does it feel so bad now, eh? that was months ago, water under the bridge and all that. Well...
You can't win them all, right?

It comes down to one thing. Can we provide exciting program, exciting activities week in week out that captivate the young mind and keep them coming for more? If we put it this way, I don't think we can.

Planning a term just to the power of fun activities is expensive and evidently not enough.

We can only offer what our resources allow, how much time we got and how much will it cost are always the questions. But what we need to focus on should also be driven by the young members. We must be able to listen in order to enable our young scouts achieve their potential.

Keeping children entertained is not what we should aim for. If they are bored it's because we are not relevant to their needs. Feeling that you belong and own the scouting meeting is key. Take scouting ceremonies, for example, they do this very well.
We start the day by following a known routine, the opening ceremony or grand howl. We all know what to do, how it's done and not many outside our circle know what's going on and why; but we do. So we start with something that we control and we are part of. Not the most entertaining thing or the definition of fun but they love it!

What about the time between ceremonies or when meetings are over?
Week in, week out, do they know that they are the owners of the scouting adventure?
Do they have a reason to come back?
When we break for Summer, do they know why come back in September?

We need to include them in the program planning, not just by asking them what they want to do, writting down a wishlist. We need to sit and listen to them talking on equal terms. What do they come up with when we talk about adventure, hikes, camps, visits, or the news, our community, their school life, their friends.

In other words it's not about compiling a list but understanding their needs. And when we show them we do understand they will stop being bored and start being scouts.

When you see numbership falling, scouts not proud of their uniform, not participating in activities; alarm bells should ring.

Leaders should ask first, What are we doing wrong?

Wood Badge

The Wood Badge

This is indeed a happy entry! After 2 years and 19 modules I finally completed my training and validation for the Wood Badge.

I have not been awarded the badge yet, that's still to come, but to mark the end of a successful training, what better way than to stick a few names, dates and facts, what I want to remember in the years to come, here on my scouting blog!

I knew I finished the validation last Monday when I went to the training center prepared for my final 4 modules; 8, 9, 16 and 19 and got them validated by Richard... Thanks Richard!

Today however I actually saw it with my own eyes! I went to check out my online profile at the scouts.org.uk and I noticed the little blue bar all the way up to 100% and all my modules green and marked as completed!

The Getting Started Pin

From my first validation on the 29-09-2011 till my latest one on the 28-01-2013 it's been a trip. It started a bit earlier than September 2011, around May that year, when I joined the 47th and started my first training course, the one called "Getting Started".

With the "Getting Started" done you can proceed, if you like, to train for the Wood Badge. Looking at the training modules, realizing the task at hand and enjoying the whole learning experience I decided to follow the Harmonized Learning courses offered by the Berkshire Scouts. Training with them was an amazing experience and got to know many new leaders who were starting their scouting in Berkshire just like I was.

My validators were Barry at the start and then Richard and Margaret but mainly Richard, who had a very open and friendly approach to me, my evidence and presentation. He will see the good work in you and in what you submit for validation, even if you have not spotted it, as we usually do more than we realize.

So with the Wood Badge done, whats next? Well, training is an on going process in scouting and I got to set some new goals with one already in progress, getting a Nights Away Permit.

Then I would like to be a fully qualified First Aider and a bit later, when the cost and time permits, Mountain Leader, Hillwalking Permit.

Let's see what else there is!

Cubs Space Camp

First entry of 2013! Hello!

It has been a while since my last entry, I think it's a good one as it's all about planning the Cub Scouts spring camp!

Last night after our regular Monday meeting at the scout hut we had the first planning meeting for the camping! So I will account the events so far starting from the canceled camping in October.

October we tried to make it happen, camping in Autumn with a halloween theme but sadly that did not happen. There is a separate blog entry for that in Scouting Yarns.

Since then we decided that we really need the next one to be planned well in advance and with plenty of time to raise funds and plan the activities and stir up some excitement.

So end of November we scouted for sites and we decided to book Cray's Pond for a weekend in May.

The dates moved a bit, due to other leader's commitments, eventualy settling for the 24th 25th and 26th of May. That's the weekend start of Half Term, a tricky period for parents who allready have plans to take advantage of the half term break. We know that but we hope to get them on our side early enough so they won't mind and support us.

So 2012 ended with a camp site, the site's cost, the camp dates and a low number of cubs; only 8 come to our regular meetings with a few more comming up from beavers in spring.

We also got a Leader in Charge, your's truly... Where to start?