Christmas party!

Last night was our Christmas party.

We had balloon football, flour cakes, blowing up the balloons until they burst, pass the parcel, sweet hunt and loads more games that pumped them full of sugar and sent them home super hyper!

Megazone

As a kid, I'd never had the chance to go to megazone with a big group of people. Whenever I've been as an adult (it's great fun) we've only ever experienced it with a small group of friends.

With eighteen of us, it's a bit more manic.

And I'm pleased to say I didn't let the side down by being first by a long margin in the first game. For the 2nd and 3rd games I didn't fair quite so well - my battery pack ran out on the 2nd game and the 3rd I was hounded by all the scouts.

I still put up a respectable fight, but first, second and third places were taken by the young leaders.

Cowards.

Scout Pioneering

How do you pioneer without poles? A tricky question...

Unfortunately for us we've still not found a supplier of pioneering poles for our group. We can easily enough get tanalised poles, but they're not particularly good because they are generally smooth (knots don't catch) and have been known to break suddenly and without warning.

Still, we made the best of the night by doing mini pioneering with apple laces and breadsticks.

Service crew

We were very, very lucky this weekend with the weather.

Our hall is blessed with many odd additions, the most

prominant is an old metal lampost which is nestled in a holly tree by our entrance. The light has been somewhat sporadic during the past fifteen years, finally giving up the ghost about three years ago and last year when an unsupervised & unauthorised electrician ran amock in our hall, now sports a 'FAILED' sticker.

The main reason for this is the wire which was dug down approximately a foot into the ground (a normal housing wire) surrounded by a metal pipe has rotted/rusted away. It's not even really earthed. So probably a good job it's spent the last three years unplugged.

This weekend the service crew dug a trench between the hall and the lamp post and exposed the old wire. Our frendly neighbourhood electrician (the cub leader) is going to run an armoured cable in its stead and once again we'll have a nice bright beacon in the darkness.

Similarly the tyres from our successful altar fires were drilled and bolted together to make a tyre run for the assault course we're planning. We still need to add a few, but we're on our way.

The scouts also managed to wash out all the patrol boxes and put a gloss finish on one of them which will make it much easier to clean.

Finally our upcoming ASL restored one of the donated PCs and rigged it up to our free internet connection - along with our printer and provided us with a functioning router so visitors can also plug in. It was also rigged with plenty of free

software including a child protection filter!

Edible lashings

Started tonight off with baracades (a game where the entire hall is littered with chairs and tables and the objective is to get from one side to the other without being shot in the face with a beam of light.) followed by edible lashings. Breadsticks and in this case apple laces (a long stringy sweet/candy) to do a square lashing. Next week I expect them to make an a-frame.

Photos to come!

Apple Fritters. I wish...

Well last night yet again was a troop night.

I spent a lot of time preparing badges, updating record cards, arranging programmes for the newest member and sorting out Axe and Knife (and saw) certificates (download http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/forms/c-a-p-01.rtf) for the five patrol leaders that passed in October and the one whom passed during the weekend service crew.

I even went as far as to take down my tool kit and repair the patrol boxes.

At 7:30 everyone was arriving and I er... left. Why? Crouch Valley district leaders meeting and I was the des. leader for the night. So I have no idea how the night actually went! (See, I do have an alibi)

Service crew again!

Bacon sandwiches were had by all (cooked by scouts over an open fire) curtosy of tescos cooking bacon which I don't really recommend for bacon sandwiches but they were vaguely edible.

The order of the day was to raise up the two railway sleepers which when damp were lethal for slips and falls (especially considering anyone who slipped landed on the pointy ends of the canoe trailer) and build a woodpile.

It took only a moments work to pull up the railway sleepers and we set straight to work building the woodpile. It was finished (as you can see below) with a slanting roof made of fence panels, the body from pallets and cross braced at every opportunity. We even made a small box on the roof, though we've no idea what that was for.

Our woodpile also keeps our altar fires dry, holds our ash & water buckets, spades and in our roof box a set of bread baskets which kids can load up with wood to carry off to their altar fire.

After the event I was on my way home when I went past a skip piled high with plastic crates - seeing the builder responsible for renovating the property I asked if I could pinch them to which I was told to help myself. Twenty crates later we've got lightweigh altar fire seating for 10 big kids or twenty small ones. Bargain!

Fires!

It's the time of year when we're actively encouraging firelighting outside. Which is fortunate because I'd lost my scout hall keys.

After a quick visit from our GSL who opened the main security gates things went a bit smoother and the scouts grabbed themselves an altar fire and bricks and got down to the business of burning things.

Everyone finally managed to light a fire and some groups managed to light one two or three times.

AGM

Our Annual General Meeting is always held on the Tuesday before bonfire night to conincide with the beaver/cub night.

Whilst there wasn't an overwhelming number of scouts, we did get a few and the guy competition helped raise our bonfire to a blistering temperature (as well as scorch a wide area of grass!)

Unfortunately no-one returned their forms for the swimming gala or could make our service crew DJ night, so we'll have to reschedule the latter and try harder for the swimming gala next year.

Guy Competition

Whilst only a few scouts turned up (perhaps confusion over half term) we managed to make four guys (one for each patrol and one made by the leaders) to burn at the AGM next week.

The hall was amazing devistation with straw everywhere, wallpaper paste over the floor and newspaper stuck to tables, walls and ceilings.

Still, it's a good effort by the few that did turn up and an investiture to boot!

Homeless awareness night!

We got together on a windy October evening to 'camp'. The patrol that attended had six cardboard boxes between themselves, sleeping bags, the clothes they wore and not a lot else.

Fortunately some kind scout leader was running a soup kitchen that evening and supplied them with the breadshops waste bread and leftover veg soup with a small amount of cooked chicken sprinked in.

After soup we sat round a fire

outside and discussed issues affecting the homeless, the different types of homeless out there (not every homeless person sits outside and begs for money. Some sleep round friends houses untill they can pick themselves up or the social services finds housing).

It's still hard to believe in this day and age we still have a high homeless population and with the coming recession that the number is likely only to go up.

The night was extremely cold, windy and wet. In the morning after everyone was up we cleared up the camp, using the new scout altar fires to burn the rubbish.

Another sucessful camp!

Caving

How can you go caving in flat Essex on a troop night for only half an hour?

Easy, BYO. Armed with groundsheets, duct tape, tables, chairs and bits of removeable staging we built our own mini caving system for the kids to try out.

Fortunately I work in construction, and with a few trips round the office picked up enough expired safety helmets (after all we weren't looking at rocky cave ins, just the chance someone might lightly bash themselves on the noggin.

Tiger (the shop rather than the animal) supplied us with head torches at £2 each and bingo, a fun night has enthused them to go on a proper caving trip.

Whilst I'm happy to build caving systems and walk around tourist caves, I'm not sure how to break it to the troop of my love of small enclosed cramped dark places. Or lack of.

Burn baby burn!

Service crew again today - supposed to be twelve till four! I popped down early (9:30) to find our cub leader already hacking down trees. So I joined in and we felled all but one of the final fifteen or so which we'd noticed either suffering from dutch elm or were elderberry! The scouts arrived and we cleared the area of the recently felled trees ready for our bonfire - along with all the wood from the other two attempts I've made at clearing the site.

Just as we finished up the logging, three cubs made an appearance (some time after our cub leader disappeared!)

We then painted our scout hall - this took about two hours when I take off the 'lunch time' break and to be honest, it was a fairly good job considering my hired labour for the day though it'll definitely need a second coat!

Around four, we decided to light up the fire. It was at this point I discovered our lack of matches. I had just one. To make it count we gathered as much thin wood as possible. I then cheated somewhat with some meths and cotton balls from our previous hot air balloons and within seconds we had a roaring fire. Ten minutes later the fire was around twenty to thirty feet in the air and I was becoming concerned we'd get yet another drop in from the fire brigade (because we're so close to the train line, we often get concerned commuters who see lots of kids lighting fires in our area and just assume that they're up to no good!)

This being a Saturday, I guess they weren't interested and I sat around until 7pm to make sure the fire died down and no one drove over the embers in the dark. A very successful day!

Patrol Competition

Our Wolves patrol won our first patrol competition of the term (Congratulations!)

Next week it starts all over again. Forthcoming challenges include best cooked dinner and best guy fawkes as well as points earned in games and inspections.

Wednesday night sucess

Nobody likes to boast, but I'm proud of our PLs

This wednesday they showed the troop what they learned at camp in regards to camp gadgets. None of the leaders did any supervision and when after twenty minutes I popped outside to mark them I was suprised at the level of quality and number acheived. If they can do that outside of a troop night at a camping competition, they'll have it nailed.

We did the final bit of theory on first aid, next week we'll be doing casulty make up and treating our 'injuries'.

Graham did the first route card with them. We'll soon have them competiting in the county marathon!

Scouts visits cubs!

When we realised our troop consisted of only one former cub, we realised something was wrong.

The last cub we saw turned up, saw everyone was having a great time but didn't want to come up. Why? He didn't want to come into a complete group of strangers.

So after a brainstorming session with the PLAPLC (Patrol Leader/Assistant Council) at the start of the term we decided to run an evening at the cubs!

With three bases we ran cooking bacon over candles on home made frying pans from wire and foil, making peppermint creams and the great crisp taste test!

As you can see, they had a lot of fun and at the end played the scouts at patball and won 2-1

PLAPL Camp

Weekend forecast: Friday, rain. Saturday, rain. Sunday, rain.

Oh good.

Fortunately the weekend went a lot smoother than that (with the odd little hitch). Friday night we arrived, dropped gear and went off for the fish and chip walk. This was an intergroup activity as the walk included the cubs as well as the scouts and their respective parents (and dogs).
After filling up (and getting ourselves some matches) we walked back to the campsite and lit a fire. Still no rain.

Saturday night was very cold - the sky was completely cloudless. Whilst everyone was generally warm we did find it a little hard to sleep and woke early on the saturday to get the fire lit. After a fairly late breakfast (9am) which demonstrated to the scouts that even if you get up at 7am unless you get a fire going quick you can't start cooking until you've got some quality embers, we made camp gadgets.

We started off with the dead simple and necessary wet and dry pit, then moved onto washbowl stand, plate rack, mug tree, billy tree, washing line and finally shoe scraper. Lunch was a simple ploughmans affair and was followed by a hike from camp supposidly to Belchamps and back via a cicular route.

Unforunately the leader organising hadn't had a chance to walk it and by the time they were supposed to be back and lighting fires they were still about five miles away. One taxi ride later and since I was sitting around the fire was good and strong on their return dinner was cooked in short order.

Campfire started at 8pm and was the first 'real' campfire the PLAPLs had taken part in. We arrived at the fire with 'anywhere we go' and lit to 'campfire burning'. First stunt took some organising - it was my magical multiplying wall. Whatever you throw over is thrown back many times multiplied. First came the example conkers and wood. Then I made a cup of tea using teabags (need lots of those at camp) little cartons of milk (snatched from McDonalds), packets of sugar, then finally the water (Resulting in the scout who was throwing the stuff over the wall getting a good soaking - or would have if he'd stayed still).

Several campfire stunts & songs later we returned to camp for a few games of cards and bed.
Sunday it rained. A much warmer night though. Unfortunately we'd used all the kindling on the fire the night before. It'd been quite windy and if we hadn't we wouldn't have had much chance of lighting it. We did however show them where to find dry kindling (in the middle of bushes) and that even wet kindling worked if you got thin enough bushes. Fire alight food was all cooked by ten giving plenty of time to take down and hang up the gear at our hall to dry out. How comes it always rains on the last day?

Anyway, best part was the reviews afterwards "best camp we've been on" was the overall view and now we're happy they know what we expect when they go off on a patrol camp!

Preparations for the PLAPL Camp

A PLAPL training camp is for the Patrol Leaders and Assistant Patrol Leaders. We as ASLs are taking on the role of Patrol Leaders (does that make me the assistant as the other ASL is technically in charge?) for the duration. Last night we got the PLAPLs to put up a Icelandic 3 tent (one of the biggest and in best condition we own) and a dining shelter. We started at 7ish and finished at 8ish which was quite impressive considering that only one of the scouts had actually pitched and slept in one before.

Once up, they realised the size of the tent - though I doubt they'll understand the true magistry of the Icelandic series until it starts raining tomorrow and is freezing cold.
As we said last night, anyone can camp in the warm summer weather but they need to know how to deal with a wet camp too! The first comment that suprised me was one of the PLs said 'if it's raining tomorrow we won't be able to have a fire'.

I really hope there is a downpour now so we can show them it is possible to light a fire in any condition if you think carefully about what you're doing and follow some of the skills we've been teaching them over the past two/three years! It reminds me of the story my driving instructor told me about a fellow student who took a test three weeks before I took mine. Her test was quite late in the year in the early evening. As she was in the middle of the test, it got particularly dark and started to rain. Even though this student had had over 42 hours of driving lessons they had all been at midday and miraculously, it had never rained. She didn't know where either the headlamps were nor the wipers - and she failed because of it. Similarly all of our camps I can remember for the past five years have been in dry, warm weather - they've never had to light a fire in the rain and it is something I hope to correct this weekend.

Cooking Competition #2

Last night we ran the second in our four part cooking competition. The 'lunch' competition was to be spaghetti bolognaise. I got down early to get all the gear out and ready for them and to also get out one of the repaired kayaks. Whilst the scouts were busy with the lunch the other ASL in the group, our helper and myself ran down the road with the kayak to the local reservoir and put the it in - to see if it leaked!

It was successful - no leak from the newly drilled holes and the kids all fit comfortably in the kayak.

I've now ordered my own kayak as I don't fit particularly comfortably in any of the group kayaks (£425!) and it has the advantage of having a hatch I can store my gear in when I take them out for a day trip.

The kids have been cooking solely on gas at the moment. This weekend the PLAPLs are at camp and will be only cooking on a fire. That reminds me, must get out fire grids!

Service Crew

Early Saturday morning - misty, chilly and overall a bit damp. Not that it deterred us from site work.

It was a hard weekend for the scouts (and a parent!) - we shifted a couple of tons of wood chip to cover the landscaping fabric we'd put down after Rochfest (our annual music night) over the old scrub and stinging nettles and the whole place was looking a lot more presentable. We painted the service crew shed and even fixed three of our kayaks - though our kayak repair advisor did manage to drill holes in the wrong end of one of our kayaks...

PAPL camp next weekend as well as our fish and chips walk. It never seems to end in our group...

Kayaking again

Our second night of kayaking for the PAPLs - all arrived promptly and we each got boats. Everyone got a chance to practice sea rescues and one of our PLs enthusiastically attempted to paddle roll.

I've never had so many chances to dunk someone in a swimming pool!

Hot air balloons

Last night we finally got round to making our hot air balloons. It was the first time in approximately ten years since I'd last tried this and that last time was not exactly a success.

To make a scout hot air balloon you need only a few things. very, very thin wire, sellotape, cheap black bin liner (cheaper the better), cotton balls, meths and matches.

The idea of the wire is simply to provide a very small bit of structure. Run the wire around the big opening in the bag and over lap the plastic over the wire. Secure in four places – equally distant from each other. Imagine cutting a circle into quarters. Using another two thin bits of wire poke it through the sellotape securing the wire on the quarters of the bin bag. It should form a cross. Use one of the cross pieces to secure the cotton ball in the middle. Soak in a little meths and light holding bag upside down (ie hole closest the ground, bottom of bag up.

Let inflate, release.

My first bag had a perfect amount of fuel and gracefully lifted over the trees and landed in the field next to us.

The scouts scuttled in, made their own. The results were fairly good – two of the three patrols made a successful flight. Wolves had the best, unfortunately it went up too high to catch, caught in a slip stream and hurtled over towards the nearby airport. I’ve checked the news this morning, no plane crashes or airport closures so I hope it didn’t inconvenience anyone. Tigers made a pretty good effort however it didn’t make the lift off and crashed landed in the scout field. Eagles were last, the balloon took partially off and caught fire. I didn’t expect this one to fly and turned to pick up the meths. When I turned back, it was afloat following its twin over into the airport slip stream pouring burning plastic off the bottom. Fortunately this one came down before it reached the airport, but it’s reminded me to keep a better eye on the scouts creations in future!

Kayaking

First kayaking session of the season held in the local swimming pool. We were fairly lucky to get the group in as it was packed! I taught two of the scouts the basics and with practice they should get their BCU 1* in a couple of weeks. Afterwards I retired the bar with the SCU and found one of them was the county canoe assessor. We chatted about the requirements and if I’m judged competent, I can apparently take out a group of kids on still water or class C (like the river Chelmer) without my BCU 3* (which I’m taking anyway).

In a weeks time we’ll be doing another service crew session – sounds like a good idea to fix up a few of the canoes and perhaps make a trip out before it gets too cold!

Again? this is getting repetitive...

Last night we once again failed to make our hot air balloons. Was it the weather? nope, it was the fact our wire strippers had gone A.W.O.L
The evening started with patrol time, an inspection then a blind trail setup outside. During patrol time the patrol leaders begain work on planning their next patrol camp and setting a menu.
We finished off with a short manic game run by our young leaders whose interpretation of the rules was a little shakey then we closed out with our notices.
On Friday we're all meeting up at the local leisure center to go Kayaking in their swimming pool. In other kayaking related news we finally got some foot rests for our own fibreglass kayaks so we should be able to retro fit them and as soon as we've got an instructor get out on the water!

First service crew weekend

It's always been my intention to set up a service crew down at our hall and whilst we've done work days down there before, they were nothing compared to the half day we had down there this weekend.

I'd been at a wedding down in Kent the night before so not only did I have to organise the day, but I also had to travel back to the hall before everyone arrived!

At 12 sharp we were assembled down the hall and I walked the crew through the jobs we need to do as soon as possible.

Before work could commence on chopping down trees etc I did a short seminar on the use of knives and saws and signed off the scouts certificates.

The first item was the building of a service crew hut round the back of the scout hall. There has been the remains of a shed there for several years and it was time to make it into somewhere for tea and coffee and most importantly of all, darts.

First we had to remove our kayaks from behind the hall where we were going to be building the shed and emptying them of water. In a relatively short time we tackled the bushes of stinging nettles and laid out the shed. We broke for lunch and then within half an hour or so had the shed up.

We chopped down a couple more Elderberry trees and one of the PLs showed a new member of troop how to light fires. We then used his fire to burn some of the smaller green twigs and leaves rather than adding to our rather large pile of wood.

We finished off the day by tidying and sweeping the hall, cleaning out the shed, mounting the dart board and putting out the fire (and emptying the cold remains into the ash bins)

Next crew we'll be in a more artistic mood painting our metal racking and service crew building as well as finishing off their axe and saw qualification. Roll on next troop night...

Meeting planning - and a camp!

Last night we had an ASL meeting (No SL present, he was busy) and we took the PLC meeting plan and bottomed out the other activities we wanted the scouts to take part in.

We also planned our PLAPL camp (PL/APL training camp) and rang round to check dates. The very first PL we rang had just got Man-U tickets for that weekend, so it seemed fairly unlikely he'd be in attendance so the night was rearranged for the next weekend which fortunately everyone could make.

The idea of the camp is a back to roots idea of camping in patrol tents, cooking on fires, fully marked boundaries, store tents, dining shelters etc. The menu planning will be up to them, however the weekend will include a hike, gadget making, backwoods cooking and hygiene. This all stems back from feedback from a previous patrol camp where everything didn't exactly go to plan.

Hot air balloons cancelled again!

Still too breezy for hot air balloons - we were expecting gales but even a slight breeze makes it difficult.

Today was the start of the cooking competition. The PLs were tasked to cook a single greasy fry up (egg, bacon, fried bread and cup of tea) as well as hot water for washing up. The task was supposed to take 30 minutes but unfortunately took about the entire evening. This gave us plenty of time to sort out the patrol boxes which so desperately required attention.

We were lucky to get our hands on some patrol boxes from the international jamboree. These boxes are thin wood but just about suitable as a table and some of the gear wasn't too bad. I think we only paid £10 for each (including stove, set of pots etc) but the gear isn't nearly as good as some of the really old stuff we've got. Graham (the other ASL in our troop) and I emptied all the new and old patrol boxes and sorted them out so we had three decent sets of gear.

At the end of the evening we announced our intention to hold a PL/APL training camp and a space camp for the whole troop. We got all the PLs and senior patrol signed up to the canoe club next week (19th) and got another two for the service crew this Sunday.

After the meeting in a more relaxed public house setting SL/ASLs discussed the meeting and direction of the troop. Tomorrow night we're looking at the programme to set it in stone as it were so the kids know what is happening and where.

Next week as the SL is off on hols, we're going to pitch a full patrol camp with patrol tents before the meeting so they can actually see what a proper site looks like.

First Meeting

First meeting back. It's quite early in the year but we managed to get a fair turn out. All six PLs and APLs turned up as well as three scouts (small patrols!) and the young leaders also made an appearance.

The evening programme involved a game to start, followed by some patrol time where they could choose their new patrol names. Meantime we laid out print outs of all the available badges they could take part in, and were asked to choose three to work towards. We followed with a 10 minute first aid session on DRSABC (Danger, Response, Shout for help, Airways, Breathing and Circulation). We intend to follow the first aid course throughout the term to gain the first stage of the emergency aid badge. Hot air balloons have been delayed due to the wind.

A final game to finish off the meeting and a quick talk about what we're looking to do over the next few weeks. The announcement of the service crew proved popular with 7 of the 9 scouts signing up for the first session in a few weeks.

PLC - The Patrol Leaders Council

8This was the first Patrol Leaders Council held in about ten to fifteen years. We had a full turn out with eight kids.

We presented them with the EIJ2008 photo book to check out and we spoke about a number of important troop issues

- better integration with the group, after all we don't see the cubs except at the AGM
- programme ideas for the forthcoming term
- christmas camp
- summer camp

It was agreed we would make the effort to go down to a cub meeting and run some activities. These will be making confectionary (peppermint creams, pop corn etc) and then schedule a bigger night where we will set up some pioneering for them to try out.

We got ideas enough for twelve weeks of programme. Most of it was centered around cooking and a cooking competition, but we did also have a caving night and hot air balloons put in.

Christmas camp was discussed and the scouts voted unanimously to return to our usual Christmas camp haunt at Fairmead, near Gilwell.

Summer camp was also discussed and the PLC was asked to think about locations and what they'd like to do.

Welcome to my scout blog

Here at 4th Rochford change-is-a-happening. We've got enthusiastic kids, a patrol leaders council, a committee dedicated to fundraising and making things happen and the formation of a service crew to sort out our hall.

I was at 4th Rochford many years ago as a Scout, then a Venture Scout. Now I'm back after university as an ASL and we're trying to make 4th Rochford the best place to come for some proper scouting.

So from the start of our new term, we're looking forward to the year ahead. Our older kids have now graduated to young leaders and the patrols they've left behind have had scouts promoted into PLs and APLs.