… Is there anybody there?

No one ever posts on this site anymore! So I thought, even though I no longer attend scouts,  that I would write something!

Even though you will most likely have a discussion on the recent Cooking Camp on a troop night soon, I would like to mention a few things.

If any of you are feeling adventurous and haven’t been put off by the weekend of cooking, here is a link to the recipe for the meatballs that you made. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/meatballswithtomatos_74759.shtml 

Also, to start the ball rolling on an idea I mentioned to Dave, we thought it would be good to start getting you to write reviews on the camps you have been on so we have a record of what you thought of the particular camp. So, if you click the comment link at the bottom of the post and type in the space provided, you can quite easily answer the following questions for a weekend camp. For example, the questions could be -

1. The Camp - In this case, Cooking Camp.
2. The Location - Harry’s Island, The New Forest.
3. Favourite Part of Saturday
4. Worst Part of Saturday
5. Favourite Part of Sunday
6. Worst Part of Sunday
7. Would you like to do a camp like that again?
8. Why?

What you type doesn’t have to be pages and pages in length - just a few lines for each question will do. At the moment it is not essential that you do this but, you may all be asked to do it for homework after future camps.

Anyway, it will be really good to see more scouts using this site as it is a really useful resource if you use it to it’s full potential.

See you all on Summer Camp

Adam

Well, first of all the expedition went smoothly. Too smoothly. I can say that now as there is nothing left to jinx. The only eventful thing that happened was Rob trying to break his toe and me trying to break my knees.

Anyway, we all met at Fareham train station at half past eight on Saturday. The weather was sunny but very cold. We went inside and bought the train tickets to Winchester. We waited for 20 minutes and the train came. We had to change at Southampton but the connecting train only took 10 minutes to arrive. When we arrived at Winchester, we started the hike and came across one of many hills in the day. After hiking down a footpath through a few housing estates we reached the country roads. It was pretty uneventful and we stopped for lunch in a wooded area. After lunch, we were mucking about and I started to chase Rob. He tripped over a tree stump and fell over whilst stubbing his toe. Of course, it was my fault (in a joking way) that he wasn’t looking where he was going because I was chasing him. After much persuasion, he came to the idea that it was an accident and wasn’t my fault. We carried on down to the campsite with Rob hobbling along. When we reached the footpath we were meant to take, we were very near to the campsite. We came to a steep hill and whilst descending it, I stood on a rock hidden by leaves and fell over on my knees which also landed on rocks. It was very funny although I couldn’t quite work out whether I was crying in pain or laughter. When we got to the campsite, the gate was locked with a coded padlock. As instructed, we phoned the warden but there was no reply. We tried several times but each time there was no reply. As there was no one else at the campsite, we decided to climb over and set up camp. We put up the tent and got some wood to start a fire. It took a while to light but once it got going we shoved some palettes on it to keep it going. Dave popped down to the campsite to bring us some water and a sledge hammer - the water because the water system at the campsite was a bit dodgy and a sledge hammer to break up the palettes. We enjoyed a supper of hot dogs, noodles and chocolate mini rolls. We sat around the fire and eventually went to bed.

After a freezing cold night, we plucked up the courage to get out of our warm sleeping bags. The bacon was cooked, we ate bacon sandwiches and tried to make toast; and failed miserably. We packed up and started day two of the hike. Many hills and kilometers passed and we eventually arrived in Winchester. We broke for lunch and pushed on for the last part of the hike. When we got to train station, we got the tickets and luckily there was a train in the station to Southampton so we got on. We had to change at Southampton again but unfortunately the connecting train wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another 40 minutes. The time passed and we got back to Fareham at about 4pm. We walked back to the scout hut and hung up the tent.

Thank you very much to Joe, Rob and Spud for a great weekend - I hope you enjoyed it too.

See what ‘The News’ thought of our District Camp:

Scouts reach for skies at camp to mark movement centenary

There is no, I repeat no meeting on Monday.

(In this case two negatives do not make a positive, it is still negative!)

PLs, please ensure that you bring with you all of the relevent stuff on Friday (can’t think of a better word) which is necessary for your activity to work. If you need another copy of what is hapening that night, e-mail me and I will send you another copy. Also if you get stuck do the same.

Friday night
 

After the forty five minute car journey, darkness was setting in on the New Forest. The grass was wet, leaving the conditions more difficult when putting tents up. We laid a tarpaulin out on the grass and put all of our personal kit and team kit on it so it didn’t get wet. We left half of the groundsheet empty to lay the tent on to put up. What seemed like was going to be an enjoyable weekend took a turn for the worse, already! Jake decided to come over to light his gas lamp as I had the matches. When Jake lit the match, it flared up and burnt his finger; instead of dropping it on the grass and putting it out with his shoe, he threw it towards the tent. A small trail of smoke rose into the air; I feared the worst and tried to get the match off. There on the middle of the porch roof was a hole, not a huge hole, but enough to let a lot of water through. Jake and I went up to tell Dave. As you can guess, he wasn’t best please and told us to deal with it. So I was left with a hole in the tent, all of the kit to set up whilst the other patrols nearly had their tents up. Very kindly, Mitch set his patrol some work and came over to help me.  My face brightened when Mitch told me that we had a spare Vango (the tents that we were using). We were going to use it as a store tent, but as shelter for us was more important, we didn’t go along with the store tent plan. Whilst Joe and Sam packed the other tent away, Mitch and I got the ‘store tent’ out and started to put it up. Things were looking good and I was smiling again! As there was problems with Mitch’s stove regulator, we share a stove and a dining shelter. After eating hot dogs and playing Turn that light out, we were looking forward to getting to bed.

Saturday (all day)

Waking up to the smell of bacon is always a nice feeling (unless you’re a vegetarian), for Joe and Sam that was! I was cooking whilst they were doing whatever they were doing in the tent, but I didn’t mind as I love it! We spent the morning lolly-gagging around, washing up, washing ourselves and doing some sheets in our tent such as Phonetic alphabet anagrams as the weather was not too good.Later on in the morning we did a troop activity which was animal relay. We had to have one card each which had an animal name on and how they act. We had to race the same animal from different patrols to a point on the field and back again. It was good fun and a laugh.

After that, we started on lunch. The menu was spaghetti bolognaise, made with the usual ingredients but not with a jar of sauce. I made my own sauce with chopped tomatoes and tomato puree. Lunch went well, but it took a while to wash up as we had lots of dishes and were in one area.

Later on in the afternoon, Eagles did the orienteering that Mitch had organised which consisted of compass bearings and activity sheets on the way around. That was good fun and it was fortunate that the rain and bad weather kept away.

Patrol by patrol, we did first aid with Gareth to achieve stage 2 on our first aid badges. We learnt how to treat burns and cuts which was very interesting.

Just as the weather seemed like it was going to keep of for the evening, we played a patrol team’s football game. Nearing the end of the game, the sky went dark yellow and the heavens opened. Everyone dashed to their tents until the rain eased off.

A good idea turned into a bad idea when we had a barbeque over an open fire. The rain was on and off, the sausages were dropping off and the burgers were just getting burnt! Every time a drip of fat touched the embers, the whole burger set on fire. Lovely! For desert we had toffee apples, but didn’t play the wide game we had planned as the field was extremely wet.

We had an earlier night and completed a booklet that Mitch had sorted out for us. It’s to keep a record of all of the scouts that have been in the troop. We had to write a bit about ourselves and fill in some other information about the patrol.

Sunday (rain, rain and more rain!)
           

Sunday morning was spent cooking breakfast (boiled eggs) and playing games in the rain. Mitch and I sat down for a while whilst Dom and Sam burnt bread, which I think was meant to be fried bread.

Time was ticking and the rain was getting harder; none of the kit was packed away and the parents were arriving in 30 minutes.

After getting the tents down, which were still wet, we put them along with everything in the cars and headed for the hut. As most people went home, the PL’s, Joe and Tim and some of the leaders had the task of getting the kit sorted out into patrol piles, ticking the things off and putting the wet things up to dry.

By about 5:00pm, I arrived at home, wet and miserable like everyone else.

Overall…
 

I think that the weather really spoilt the weekend. The activities that Mitch had planned for the whole troop would have gone a lot better if the sun was out and it was dry, but the weather can’t be planned; It is such a shame that the campsite was booked the weekend before! The patrol camp, originally a troop camp had too many troop activities but were planned and organised extremely well.

Friday 20-22nd
Friday

We all met up at the hut at 5:30 to put the items we were taking into our cars. The first quite major issue I found was the shortage of parent’s cars, maybe it was because my car and Joe’s car weren’t there because our parents were using them for other things, maybe it was that there weren’t the vans, I really don’t know. When we had got the kit in the cars (I was pretty unsure where all my equipment actually was) one of the parents told me that the motorway and A roads were chocker block, so there we go.

On the way to Harry’s Island the roads weren’t that bad until we got into Burley and the roads were almost at a stand still. The campsite was easy enough to locate as there was a big O2 pylon right next-door to it.

When I got there most of my items were unpacked and it was almost nightfall. I laid all our kit on a tarpaulin then we put out another one for the tent to go on.

It was about 10 minutes later when Jake lit a match then dropped it on Adam’s tent next to ours, this was the beginning of what I will call ‘The Hour Of Pure Hell and Unfortunate Events’ (for Adam). This set Adam back along way and Adam and Mitch spent a lot of time conferring with Dave, who refused to help at the time, on what to do.

Meanwhile me, Paul and Tim had got the tent up and, Tim and Paul were almost done putting up the dining shelter while the PL’s discussed things about the hut. When I got back they were done and all the kit was under the dining shelter. Then I asked them to put their personal kit in the tent while I tidied the dining shelter so I knew where everything was.

After that I told Tim and Paul to get a bench from the side of the hut in Harry’s Island while the PL’s talked to Dave about the gas cylinder. Soon after that we got the hotdogs on and we all found out what a good cook Paul is (I still have that luxurious taste in my mouth) the only problem was the darn pan had about at least 1 cm thick grub and filth on it, so my patrol and I spent the next half a hour washing up.

‘It was 10:00pm at the 1st Fareham Camp and all the scouts were by the camp fire made out of gas lamps’ (had to do that, just to show how rubbish Big Brother is). Mitch had planned a wide game for us all to do, ‘Turn That Light Out’ is what it was called. It was quite fun. Wolves and Bulldogs won by far!! Mwahahaha! I think we played this for about 1 hour, it was a running around/stealthy game but it was more running around!

After this we all went to bed.
Saturday

This was the day when we were meant to get up at 6:30 but eventually got up at 7:00, had a wash and started breakfast. Most patrols were just getting up! Here is the time when I again praise Paul for his Pyro personality and cooking skills, the breakfast was amazing.

We pushed on and by about 8:00/8:15 we were done. What I was hoping was that the warden would come down about now with the Letterboxing packs, but no he didn’t and I was left to make the decision for my patrol to have free time. 10 o’clock came and went and there was still no sign of him, so me and Jake decided that we would gather kindling and get wood for the fire, needed for Mitch’s BBQ.

11:00 was the time when the warden got here and eventually gave us the packs and had a little talk with me and Gareth, by 15 minutes past we were away with Martin supervising. He had to because of safety, maybe the warden thought I might get lost. I wouldn’t of course! (Chuckle chuckle)
This was, I think, apart from the cooking, the only actual single patrol time I got. I had planned many activities for my patrol it was just that Mitch had planned loads of troop ones!

Anyway we were out for just about under 4 hours hiking around, it was a good route and I believe all my patrol enjoyed it as well. The principal of Letterboxing for those who don’t know is that you use compass bearings to hike around and find little capsules hidden in many different places open them and stamp a notebook or envelope as we used!
When we got back it was time for lunch with a twist……………..it was 3:00 in the afternoon! We were meant to cook our 3 course meal (Dave does this count as a badge) Salad Starter, Bangers and Mash and Pancakes. By the time we had finished it was 5:00pm!

Another thing I should mention was the weather of this camp, damp, cold and wet……very wet. Luckily the weather managed to hold off for the Letterboxing but still it was just typical to happen on the weekend of the Titchfield Carnival, The Great South Run and our Patrol Camp!

Mitch was getting a tad worried as they hadn’t got the fire started yet, as the wood was all damp and wet, but Paul managed to start it by setting alight to a plastic Asda bag with lots of shavings inside.
The fire just wasn’t going to be big enough but Mitch decided to let it dye to embers anyway ready for the barbeque. It was very wet at this point and by about 7:00 we started the barbeque by putting sausages on sticks and cooking them and then using 3 grates to cook the burgers on. 20 went on and only 8 came off so some people missed out.

We had a big camp fire though and nearly everyone led a song.

Bed time was earlier at 10:00.

Sunday

Packing up day or disaster day some might call it. We spent from 8:00, the time we got up, to 9:00 cooking and washing up then until 10:00 making a fire. It was a big one, no it was, seriously!

Anyway by 11:00 Bulldogs patrol went to see Gareth to finish stage two of the first aid badge, while the others did Mitch’s obstacle course in the pouring rain.

11:30-12:00 was lunch and then it was pack stuff into our bag time. By 12:30 we started packing the kit away in the rain, maybe we should have started earlier as the parents arrived and we were still packing up by about 2:45 we left with all the wet soaking kit.

Back at HQ the PL’s, Joe, Tim and Paul sorted the kit out. At about 5:00, I think we went home.

This camp was a good one, apart from the weather, but I believe that no more patrol camps should be done with 4 patrols in the same camp.

Special thanks to all who have turned out to help in the half-term to help dry and pack the kit away.
soaking kit. 

If any scout would like to lend a hand tonight at the hut at 7:00 Dave and all the patrol leaders would be very greatfull.

… to everyone who turned up on the Patrol Leaders night on Friday. We hope that you enjoyed the activities that took place. Although the evening went quite smoothly, we would have got alot more done with time to spare if EVERYONE in their teams had listened to the instructions given.

Last troop night (8/7/06) was planned and run by all of the PL’s leaving the APL’s incharge of their patrols.

As an APL i did notice that HARDLY ANYONE SHOWED UP and that the leadership of The PL’s wasnt too great, like for instance rob didnt seem to have a clue about what we were doing at football and none of them can rais their voices :-S but id give em a 7/10, because my team won everything

(Mitch can’t get in to post at the mo, so I had to post this for him - Dave)
My Expedition

Over the Easter weekend, the 15th and 16th April, Rob; Jake; Tom and I went on a rather long stroll along the South Downs. On Saturday we all assembled at the Scout Hut at 9:30, we shared all of the kit out and made sure we had everything. Then Dave drove us up to Hollandsfield, a car park near Chichester. This is where we started walking. It was ok for about an hour, and then we meet a hill, that is when Jake started complaining. We carried on walking stopping occasionally to have a break and to see if Dave had found a new motor bike. When we got to Chilsgrove, we stopped and had lunch. Then we started walking again after about fifteen minutes we meet a hill about as steep as Dave’s stomach. After that, nothing exciting happened until it started raining and we met Beacon Hill. It was just fortunate we were walking down it, not up it. Then we arrived at South Harting, we were going to be staying at the Scout Hut.

When we arrived, it was still raining, so we quickly put the tent up so we could put all of our kit in. then we got Mr. Coventry to open up the hut as that was there the water and toilets were, he also was kind to let us use the kitchen. Therefore, we cooked tea and washed up, by that time it had stopped raining, so we went to go and build a fire, the scouts had already kindly cut wood for us to use, but sadly, it was all wet, so we never got a fire going. Therefore, after about an hour of doing that, we went to go and play in the park just outside. That was when Tom decided to tell me that he had phoned his mum, and arranged for him to be picked up. This was because his feet were hurting, however, he did have rather big blisters on both of his feet, a valuable lesson make sure your boots are big enough before going out walking. Before that we had spent time organising a way that he could be back in time for his football match. However, that had all gone to pot as he had gone home already. That night must have been the record for scouts going to sleep at night as by 9:15 we were asleep. In all that day had gone to plan, we left when we wanted to, arrived when we wanted to. Just a shame that Tom had to go home.

On Sunday, us who were left got up at 7:30. We had a very relaxed morning. We started by having breakfast. Then we cleaned up the hut, making sure it was how we left it. Then we packed all of our stuff up and made our lunch. We finally left at about 10:20. We then started walking, first off, all we met another big hill. After about an hour we were already half way, we thought that that was good as we would be back really early. Then we came across an old man walking with his wife, he then asked us where we were, we pointed at where we thought we were. He said that we were down her; nowhere near, where we wanted to be. Then we had a closer look at the map, when we saw that we had gone the wrong way, and the man was right. Then we started walking down a path, then we met a gate, Jake and I knew where we thought we were, but it was down to Rob’s superior map reading skills that told us that we were not. He was the one who then found us a route to get us back on route, we then met a cyclist, who then told us we were in a very different place. Then we met a woman on a horse who then directed us in another different direction. Then we were at the point where we met the man.

Fortunate for us we saw the warden who did tell us exactly where to go, and he even showed us a shortcut. At the end of the track Rob said we needed to go down this path, Jake and I disagreed, we said, as it is a National; Trail would it not be a gravelled path like this other one, Rob agreed. Then we met the woman on the horse, she said that it was the path that Rob originally said it was. After that there were no problems, it was just when we met another BIG hill, this is where Jake and I died. Just luckily, we were only 15 minutes away from Briton.

Distances:

Day 1
Originally: 13km
We Walked: 13km

Day 2
Originally: 8km
We Walked: 11.5km

In total 24.5km