Camping is the most essential scouting activity and last week we had our first camp of our new scout section for the 1st Jennett's Park group. It was only for 2 nights, the 21st to the 23rd of March, two cold nights but packed out activity days.It was in part a group camp, with the distinction that the scouts would camp a bit further away from Cubs and Beavers and mostly run their own program.
Camping at Earleywood was always going to be a muddy/wet affair but the weather was not too mad. Cold nights, yes, a fair bit of rain, hail and small wind storm but most of the day time and Saturday was dry and we even had sunny spells.
Most of the kit and equipment, mainly for the kitchen mess, was borrowed from 2nd Crowthorne and the Explorers. Leaders then filled in the gaps of essential kit we needed. All in all we had everything we needed for a weekend camp!
This was the camp that we all got invested into our new group, raising the demographic up by 1400% being the newest invested scout section for 25 years in the District! We now all wear the red and yellow neckers and soon the group name and other badges will be stitched on our uniform.Our main activity was planned to be a pioneering project but we did not have time to do this because we got involved with backwards cooking, fire-lighting and an impromptu wood chopping frenzy!
We were lucky to have a friend in scouting, our DC who goes by the name of Hagrid and knows a thing or two about fires, got us to prepare our ember fire grills and the grand fire for the Saturday night group event around the fire circle.Picking sticks of all shapes and sizes, getting the fire-lighters, kindle and wood to cook, preparing the food and cooking it for lunch does take a lot of time and group work. We also set alight a tilley lamp, but with the vapolux working we managed without the tilley.
Dinner was Leader's special spag bog, very good indeed! none of it would be possible without the amazing impromptu cardboard box cooker screen (patent pending). Who would have thought that the gas rings, as heavy and pro looking as they are, they would struggle to boil a pan of water!!! We knew this because breakfast took a bit too long to prepare that morning.
We went to bed with our pink hot-bean teddies straight from the microwave oven and a cola bottle full of hot water... at least I did... Thanks Cubs!
Sunday looked dry so we did run both wide games we had planned for. A Scavenger hunt, with a cryptic message attached to it and the very successful rope trail, where the scouts in pairs, one blind the other guiding, had to negotiate a route marked with string through a small copse of woods.
Lunch time was catered by our amazing Cub Leaders, who invited us to join them for a sandwich and hot drinks. Then it was time to strike the tents and pack it up before the rain comes back again. No such luck. I must've rained for 5 minutes and made a wet mess of all tents and tarps. Drying them up was an electric affair...Parents came and scouts went and the campsite empty of scouts but with still some tents unpacked and drying. Two nights away is a squeeze to run with inexperienced scouts, some of them knew how to strike a tent but some didn't manage to focus on the job and with time ticking away you have to work hard to get everything packed away, especially when the tents must return to their owners that night.
Leaders worked from pick-up time, that's 14:30 till 17:30 on site to pack up and clean up, leaving it better than they found it. It was past 19:00 at night when the kits were returned and with tents still drying in a living room.
We did sleep well that night!!!
P.S. A big "Thank You" to the scout groups who helped us make this camp happen so early in our scouting experience. without your kit and support it wouldn't be possible! Thank you.
