Pathfinder Weekend report Monday, Oct 18 2010

Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frog101/sets/72157625189608810/

Ivor and David met the first group at the Church, before driving round to the 19^th and picking up the last Scouts and all the camping equipment.   We then drove up to Lees Wood with just about enough light to get the tents up.

With a little struggling by the Scouts – and leaders wondering why the tents weren’t reaching the ground all the way round – the site was prepared.  The other members of the District (Vince estimated that there was about 60 present at the weekend) were setting up the tents, or exploring the site – or having a go on the Radio (this was also a weekend for Jamboree on the Internet – JOTI – and Jamboree over the air – JOTA).  It was nice to meet up with the boys that we had taken to Kandersteg, Switzerland as part of the District Contingent – and really pleasing that we could remember their names too!

Once our site was ready, we drove to Sainsbury’s so that the Scouts could buy the food for their menus.  This was quickly sorted and we returned to base.  Surprisingly for a first night, we settled down quite quickly and early.

Saturday morning was cold but pleasant – the boys cooked their breakfasts, made their lunches and we were ready to go quite early.  David drove the groups to their drop points; Ash and Alan were dropped at Coleshill (SU948953) and Ivor and Nandesh at Black Park (TQ005832) with a final destination of the Aquadrome at Rickmansworth (TQ056937).  Once dropped, David then drove between the two groups making sure all was OK.

The leaders walking with the groups hung back about 30 metres so the Scouts had to do all the work!

Fortunately, all was running to time and Alan and Ash’s group got to the Aquadrome for about 3:45pm; Ivor and Nandesh was about 30 minutes later.

Arriving back on site, the Scouts cooked their evening meals and washed up; they then listened in as contact was made with Scouts from aboard (Anand managed to make contact with a number of groups, including a group from Malta!)

 

Sunday morning quickly came round; the boys had to be pushed a little to make their breakfasts and cook all they had bought, but breakfast was sorted and with lunches packed both groups were dropped at the Aquadrome ready to walk back to Lees Wood.  Ash and Alan would use some of the Ebury Way before heading North to Croxley Green; Ivor and Nandesh headed through Rickmansworth to pick up the Chess Valley Walk.

Ash and Alan’s group had no problems on their walk and all went to plan.  Ivor however had a small challenge as for a short while the Scouts managed to evade them! Fortunately they were re-united and after a very brief lunch were able to walk onto site – although they still managed to take an unusual route to get to the base.

Back on site, the tents were dropped and the trailer was packed.  Because we were the only ones with a full programme on Sunday when we arrived back on site we were the only Scouts still there; it was a little surreal being the only Scouts on a huge field.  We drove back to the Cabin and after the tents had been hung to dry we let the Scouts go home.

 

It had been an interesting weekend, allowing the Scouts to demonstrate their map reading skills.  My thanks go to:

Ivor, Alan, Ash, Nandesh as Leaders

Anand, Aaron, Alec, Charlie, Frazer, James R., James Z., Nathan, Oskar and Steven

 

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TLW Challenge – October 1 Friday, Oct 1 2010

For this week’s challenge:

IF YOU ARE GOING ON THE PATHFINDER WEEKEND:

You must present your Key walking equipment items (Waterproofs, boots, rucksack) for review.

IF YOU ARE NOT GOING ON THE PATHFINDER WEEKEND:

You must present a waterproof jacket that you would wear if you were going on the Pathfinder weekend.

Points will be awarded for equipment that is suitable for the task.  If you are not sure what equipment is appropriate, check out the guide page on purchasing camping equipment.

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Countdown to Kandersteg! Wednesday, Jun 9 2010

The latest Kandersteg newsletter is available from the County website: http://www.glmwscouts.org.uk/kandersteg telling us all about how the planning is going and where we will be camping when we get there.  It’s all getting very exciting! 

The Scouts and the Leaders met last Sunday to go through some of the administration – hopefully the Scouts got a chance to meet one another – after all, they will be spending 10 days together!  Some of the more useful things that I picked up from the meeting were about:

-          The Menu

-          The Programme

-          Equipment

-          Swiss “Stuff”

The menu

The Menu was laid out and I think I saw the menus on the County website.  It’s probably worth noting that we will be working in Proper Scout fashion – that is, the Scouts will be doing the cooking – so should any parents want to help, get the Scouts to have a go at cooking one or two of the meals.  Hopefully, it will give you an excellent dinner – but if not, please let me know what happened as I’ve been asked to draw up the Risk Assessment sheet for camp!

The Programme

The programme is packed with plenty to occupy everyone.  As was noted in the meeting, we do have a couple of walking activities planned – Kandersteg in the Swiss Mountains will be a lovely place to explore and I’m looking forward to it!

Equipment

At the meeting, a kit list was handed out.  Reading the County Newsletter, rucksacks will be OK  – but make sure that all the side pockets are properly closed up; last time bits fell out (I think this is what Paul picked up on).  Looking at the programme, and how much walking will be done, ensure that all those travelling HAVE PROPER WALKING BOOTS.  On the pages of the right of this web site is a guide to buying camping equipment – have a look.

Swiss “stuff”

Camp bank money should be in Swiss Francs, If you can, try and get small denominations over larger ones… remember that not all the camp bank money gets spent on presents to mum and dad; some seem to fund the local sweet making factories (and Chocolate is one of the big things of Switzerland!) and shop keepers don’t like taking big notes for a small Toblerone.

Apart from very expensive timepieces (not just watches!!) the other big thing in Switzerland is the Swiss Army Knife.  Two companies make them – Wengen and Victorinox – so the temptation to have something very Scouting (a pocket knife) will be very present.  We will be following Scouting rules around this and to that end:

-          we will be working with the scouts to check and test their safety knowledge about the use of knives

-          Scouts will advise Leaders if they have a pocket knife in their possession

-          Scouts will not be allowed to carry pocket knives except on the campsite for certain agreed tasks.

More information, including confirmation of details, will be sent out later.

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TLW Challenge w/c 8 March Friday, Mar 5 2010

Last week’s challenge was fun – I had a great time working out the points from that!

Inkeeping with a request from Ivor that I link the TLW challenge to the Scout programme in some way, I decided that the following question should be about routes.

Please answer the following two Questions:

1.  When PLANNING a route, what walking speed (in kilometres per hour – Kph) is generally considered reasonable?

2.  What is Naismith’s rule?

Note that Question 1 is about planning the route  -we all know that the speed that the group Actually should walk is the speed of the slowest person.

Have fun!

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District Adventure weekend Tuesday, Nov 4 2008

The District Activity Weekend commenced for Ash, Ivor and Tom today.  The days target was Cwm Rhadiar, just past Brecon in Wales which is a straight drive using the A40.

So Ivor using his car and scout trailer, picked up Tom from his place at 11.35am, and then went on to Ash’s to collect him and most of the equipment. Departure took place about 12.10 and it took 5 hours to reach the destination.  This was the first error because we wanted to get there before it got dark so that putting out tents up was easy.

However we succeeded with tent erection but it probably took 3 times as long as normal. This followed with a meal for the 3 of us cooked in one tent and then later that night we went to the main barn and joined others from the District playing cards with spoons!! Tom did not feel lonely after that.  However it was a very cold night on the Friday and the barn had no electricity, gas or mains drainage.  There was no hot water, showers or flushing toilets (buckets with seats on they were described as!)  The barn did have an original Aga cooker which worked well and when there were lots of people inside we all warmed up ok.

 

Next day we all went on our various hikes.  Tom, Ash and Ivor stayed together in a group following a route that Tom and Ash had prepared earlier that week.  Tom did most of the map reading and guidance.  There was help from Ash and Ivor but when you are climbing hills, going through fields with sheep, jumping streams and other obstacles completely alien to North London, you do have to work together.  The walk was circular so we returned to the barn and our tents at about 3pm having set off at 9am.  As Friday, a meal was cooked by Tom but Ash and Ivor ate with the leaders in the barn.  The scouts and Explorers got a nice fire going outdoors but the wind was very strong on Saturday.  At least it wasn’t as cold as Friday because we had woken up to frost all over our tents Saturday morning.  Friday evening we had the benefit of a very clear sky and a sensation that the stars were in the field with us, but Saturday was completely cloudy.

In the evening the 17^th Harrow leaders had everybody playing bingo, the prizes being the crisps and food not used that day.  However everybody was very tired and disappeared to bed by 10.30pm.

 

Sunday was a mad rush because we had to be off site by 9am in order to be at Langorse climbing centre for 10.15am.  Breakfast, packing, and tents down was very tight in such a small space of time and Ash, Ivor and Tom were last off by 9.15am.  Ivor put his foot down in the car, and they arrived at the centre at 10.20 only to find they had beaten the others there.  It appears the wrong postcode was put into the Satnav.  Tom and Ash went pony trekking with 10 others from the District, while Ivor caught up with some sleep and at 12.30pm everybody collected their bits for lunch.  Everybody made their way home then. We used the M4 and reached Harrow by 4pm.

 

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