Hey Blog! This time I\u2019m telling you about Activation, the Scouts opportunity which I joined in June to assist with activities for younger Scouts!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once a year, a field in Derbyshire is taken over for the weekend. No, this isn\u2019t a Glastonbury rip off \u2013 this is a Scouts activity. All the county teams \u2013 the climbing team, the caving team, the biking team, the sailing team, etc \u2013 turn up for the weekend to give the children a taster of the activity. This is the place I tried sailing and found I really enjoyed it, back in 2019 \u2013 and subsequently went on to get a lot more involved. The Archaeology team is a new addition to Activation \u2013 only starting two years ago \u2013 but has already become popular. It seems the Cubs and Scouts quite enjoy it \u2013 and if how I reacted to the sailing has anything in common with how they react to archaeology, then we\u2019re going to have several more archaeologically interested Scouts in a few years!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because the field is pretty much just a field, there isn\u2019t much of archaeological interest in the ground. Therefore, digging is kind of pointless. Instead, we do practical activities, such as building a roundhouse, or making prehistoric jewellery. Or what I was helping with this year \u2013 Roman signalling. It\u2019s a bit like semaphore, which I really should memorise, but perhaps easier to understand \u2013 there is simply a 5-by-5 grid, which has an arrangement of letters in it, and by arraying ten flags in a particular grouping, you can signal a letter. A, at the beginning of the alphabet, is first in the table, so is 1.1 \u2013 you need one flag in each group. B, as the second letter, is 1.2 \u2013 one flag in the first group and two in the second. Those who are mathematically minded will have noticed that since it\u2019s a 5-by-5 grid, you can\u2019t fit all the letters in \u2013 there are 26 letters in the alphabet, not 25. The Romans solved this problem by having an alphabet with only 24 letters in \u2013 I and J were written with the same character until quite late in history, about the 16th<\/sup> century; and U and V were likewise written the same. I don\u2019t know what they did with the extra space in the grid \u2013 maybe it was a punctuation mark or something. Those who are spatially aware will have noticed that you can swap the numbers around \u2013 to try and signal K, the first letter of my name, you need 2 flags in one group and 5 in the other. But if you got them the wrong way round, you\u2019d be spelling W \u2013 and my name does not begin with a W! So if you try this at home, think before sending (a good idea in all communication) and ensure the flag groups are the right way round so the other team you\u2019re signalling to knows which is which!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Activation has four groups per activity per day, with about 20 Cubs\/Scouts in each. I only helped with the Cubs, who all came on the Saturday, and because we had two activities waiting, we divided the 20 into two groups, so the activities were easier to run. This meant I only had to deal with 10 Cubs at a time \u2013 and while I can effectively communicate with 20 Beavers I know at once, when I don\u2019t know the children, the smaller size is helpful. I started by introducing what I\u2019ve already said above, and then we started signalling. While the individual words\/letters we signalled changed over the day, we generally started by signalling initials, before moving on to a word that meant something \u2013 the number of activities at this year\u2019s Activation, for instance. Unfortunately, since we didn\u2019t have a full hour with each half-group, no group had the full practice and therefore we only managed a word or two with each new set. Still, I think almost everyone enjoyed it, and hopefully we\u2019ll be able to use the activity at another event and maybe get a few more signals sent. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to send a long message? To signal this post, you\u2019d need a day and more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other activity for the cubs was making mini ballistae. These catapults were developed by the Greeks, and their use lasted until the invention of the quicker longbows and then cannons made them obsolete. Still, they were extremely effective \u2013 some inventors even designed a repeating ballista which had a loading compartment and operated on one rachet that would draw, load and fire all at once. Effectively, the first machine gun! Ours were not as advanced, being made of lollipop & cocktail sticks and pieces of string rather than large beams and enormous cables. However, I think they too were much appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did not attend on Sunday, but by all accounts the Scouts attending had a great time. They were making larger trebuchets, though by larger I mean about a foot or two tall. Not like the properly big one, about two or three metres tall that Dad and I tried to make but have put aside for now to make space for a larger project. Perhaps next year, there\u2019ll be space for a really massive one and we can have something that will fire a large ball the mile or so downhill to the local lake. Maybe. After all, who knows what I\u2019ll get up to for Activation next year?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hey Blog! This time I\u2019m telling you about Activation, the Scouts opportunity which I joined in June to assist with activities for younger Scouts! Once a year, a field in Derbyshire is taken over for the weekend. No, this isn\u2019t a Glastonbury rip off \u2013 this is a Scouts activity. All the county teams \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-ed-in-a-shed-2"],"yoast_head":"\n