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!