Hey Blog! As mentioned in the other post today, I was on Scout Camp last Friday, so here I will tell you all about it!
I talked about Scouting in Be Prepared! sometime in spring. Since that one all of our meetings have been regular, once-a-week, and, typically Scouts, doing interesting stuff. I haven’t been on a Scouting camp since 2019, when I was in Cubs (the branch of Scouts for 8–10-year-olds) and that was only my second camp ever!
The first Scout Camp ever was in 1908 on Brownsea Island, Poole harbour. However, whether this is recognised as such is questionable, as this was a trial run for ideas in Baden-Powell’s book ‘Scouting for Boys’. The camp was a success, and the Scout Movement was launched. Without this camp we wouldn’t have such an influential organisation! However, a lot has changed since the 1908 camp, not the least is there are a lot more troops. For instance, in the first two camps I did only my troop (First Belper) took part. In this recent one, there were five or six! Yep, it was a District Camp!
The camp started on Friday evening, so we all arrived and began to set up tents. The tents we were using were cross-frame with two hoops (there isn’t a proper word to describe it that I can find) and fairly big. Unlike in Cubs, we were three to a tent rather that four. This meant there was much more room for all. We had supper – crackers and cheese, and cupasoups for those who wanted. Then we went to bed; as for going to sleep it was more like 12 o’clock for most Scouts, though the Cubs did manage to keep us awake till 11 or later!
Saturday morning
After waking up and having breakfast, which was cereal and bacon sandwiches, we were sorted into teams for activities. These teams were the colours of our wristbands. All the other Scout troops had done this, as there were Scouts from each of them in one group. I was in the green group. There were six activities set out over the course of the day, and the different coloured groups were to move around each one. We went down to the bottom of the field for ‘flag break’, which is not breaking the flag but ‘breaking it out’ (in the olden days when flags flew on sailing ships, they would be tied up, but the twine they were tied with would be broken to release them). Our first activity was Circus skills.
No one had to dress up as a clown, thank goodness. However, there was juggling balls, at which I was hopeless; juggling clubs, at which I was even worse; stilts, really cool and amazingly I could just about keep my footing; tightrope/slackline walking (they seem to imply two different things – what do they mean?) at which I was OK, though I had to hold on to something; unicycling, at which I had NO chance, and several other things. All in all, I think the tightrope walking was the most fun, with stilts a close second. We were then sent down, after a fifteen-minute break, to Craft.
Craft was about making things. The first thing I made was a bracelet, which I am currently wearing now. It’s a design where you fold the paracord in half, then knot it, making a loop, then thread the cord you make it with through the bead twice, once each way. Tie a stopper knot at the end, thread it though the loop, and job done. At the same table, I made a woggle – the thing Scouts wear on their neckers to keep them together. It was made the same way except you didn’t make a knot at the beginning and you threaded three beads on each time. Then, after attaching the back to the front, you had a finished woggle. After this there wasn’t much time left so I went and made a piece of cord.
The third and final activity station of the morning was Challenge. In this one you had to do all sorts of challenges like carrying a football between two poles in the fastest time, or knocking over as many water bottles as you could in thirty seconds with a tennis ball hanging from your head! I succeed in knocking down all the water bottles twice, and this was definitely my favourite activity in this whole base! Another of my favourites in this station was the knotting challenge where they asked us to tie a reef knot. I know a reef knot back to front, so I could tie one pretty easily! After tying a reef knot, I was asked to do it behind my back, eyes closed, and one-handed, all of which did not prove difficult. I was then quizzed on all the other knots I knew, but I have a book called ‘50 knots you need to know’ by Marty Allen, which I have learnt several knots from, including fisherman’s knot and alpine butterfly loop, both of which I demonstrated. However, I fell short at a Turks Head and Monkey’s Fist! Knowing a bowline, I taught a couple of Scouts how to make it using the rabbit-hole-tree method (loop over towards you is the hole, attached end is the tree, the tip of the rope or rabbit makes the loop, he comes up through the hole, round the tree, back down the hole). You never know when they might need it – if they need to winch someone into a helicopter it would be very useful! We next all went back to the camp for lunch.
Saturday afternoon
The green group went to Bushcraft. In this there was rope making, pendant making, den making, and everyone’s favourite – S’mores making! I made a short piece of rope, then a pendant, and hung the pendant from the rope. Unfortunately, there was only one s’more per Scout (Maybe the leaders had ponced a few before we got to them…).
We then went to what must be the best activity of all the ones that day – a base called Bounce! This had pogo sticks, at which I was rubbish; space hoppers, just the same, and bouncy castles! There was one where you tried to demolish your opponent with a punch-bag on a string, a small persons’ bouncy castle, and a race one which you climbed through as fast as possible to a slide at the end. I went through the first and last many times, and enjoyed it HUGELY!
The final one was Water. It meant getting wet, in more ways than one. There were bottle rockets, which you sent up with water, reusable water bombs, which were not for a water fight but for team building (throw it to a partner and see if you partner can catch it without the water bursting all over them, wet sponge tin can alley, and instead of hook-a-duck, chuck-a-duck, where you catapulted rubber ducks into a paddling pool. By the time we were walking back to camp, the sun had dried me, so I didn’t have to change.
We had dinner: it was pasta and meatballs in tomato sauce; and each Scout lined up to ‘adopt a Beaver’ (Beavers are the branch of cubs for 6–8-year-olds). Then we travelled down the field to the campfire to join the district in songs, most of them absolutely crazy! We dropped off our Beavers with their parents and had supper – the same as last night, except that I had hot chocolate. I was much quicker getting to sleep this night!
Sunday
We got up, had breakfast, which consisted of cereal and crumpets/muffins, and were delivered new wristbands for fencing and crossbows. I was lucky, as I got to do both! There was no time to do anything else, so I went straight down to the shooting hall to do Crossbows. These crossbows were much more modern and powerful than I had imagined, and I would have loved to own one! Straight after that was fencing, which I did three years ago at a different Scout activity. It’s just possible that I will start fencing regularly, so watch this space!
I wandered around the different bases doing what they had to offer. At midday, we all came back to our little section of the camp to strike tents and prepare for leaving. The Closing Ceremony followed, at which point we all reaffirmed our Scout Promise to our new monarch, King Charles III. Then we all went home.