Light festival, Heavy buckets

So this weekend I had the amazing opportunity to help collect money and fundraise at the famous Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival.  If you haven’t heard about this carnival before it’s one of the largest illuminated processions in Europe, with a history going back hundreds of years.

After heading south down the M5 we arrived and unpacked at a small remote Somerset Scout hut which I would be staying in overnight.

After braving the park and ride we arrived in the bustling town centre. We saw a steel band, a samba band and an amazing giant bubble display. It started to get busy and knowing we needed food before joining the procession we wandered of towards the start, grabbing a hotdog along the way.

Walking around the corner to where everyone was lining up we were blinded by all the lit up carts, dazzled at how many lights each one contained.   These were amazing – some of the larger ones were made of several long sections and had obviously taken a lot of work and time to create.  In amongst these were smaller entries from around the country.

We found ourselves a gap to join in by one of the smaller entries and waited  for it to set off.  As we moved along I got the chance to collect change from some of the thousands and thousands of people lining the route. It was incredible being a part of it and seeing all the faces light up at the sights.

It took several hours to complete the route and once we’d done so I had a chance to see the rest of the procession as it also reached the end, but there was more to come.

The procession is followed by the squibbing.  This funny sounding thing is where one of the streets was filled with 200 people each holding a long stick with a holder for gunpowder and when they were lit there was a fountain of sparks showering down the street. Bridgwater is one of only a few places in England to still take part in this spectacular tradition.

We started the next day with a traditional full English breakfast cooked in the scout hut, before heading off to start counting the money.

We arrived to a room already full of people and tables covered in small change.  Before we arrived our individual collection buckets had been emptied into a single large bucket that was brought over to us.  We were surprised at how large the pile of coins was when it was tipped out onto our table and then astounded when they told us there was a second bucket!  We had no idea we had collected so much.

Then came the task of sorting and counting it all.  Fortunately we didn’t have to count all the copper coins (over 5,000 of them) or the 5p’s as once we’d sorted them we had some scales and could split them into bags of about £20 each  – when they double checked our weights none of our bags were more than 10p out!

We still had to stack and count all the other coins  (along with a few notes, a screw, a chip, a packet of salt, some fairground tokens and a flyer for a gym!) . We spent several hours sorting, stacking and counting coins – almost as long as the parade had taken the night before.

It felt good to get it totalled up and back on the road home again.  I still can’t believe what a great experience it was, and so different taking part rather than just watching. I hadn’t really thought about what happens to all the coins that get collected at these events so I have a lot more respect for the people that do this sort of thing .

I can’t wait to do it again next year.

 

Equipment: A very serious blog post.

I was recently challenged to come up with a list of things I’d take camping, but only things that began with the first letter of my name. Which of course is E for Explorer, or is it Eighty Four?

It was harder than I thought but here are my top 25 items:

  1. Emergency Blanket
  2. Extra Thick Socks
  3. Earmuffs
  4. Eurohike Tent (other tents are also available)
  5. Envelope
  6. Equipment
  7. Eye drops
  8. Ear plugs
  9. Eiderdown
  10. Espadrilles
  11. Elephant dung (dried)
  12. Entertainment system
  13. England’s Glory Matches (other brands are also available, just not starting with an E)
  14. Email
  15. Energiser Batteries (or maybe Every Ready, still taking bids for product placement on this one)
  16. Electric toothbrush
  17. Elf on the shelf.
  18. Emery board
  19. Edam, eggs, enchiladas, escallops and other edibles.
  20. Embalming Fluid (you never know)
  21. Epic novel (on an e-reader)
  22. Elastic
  23. Eagle Scout Repellent 😉
  24. Erasers
  25. Exam revision
  26. and of course: Everything Else!

Beast of the future

Unfortunately this is not another snow camp unlike the beast from the east but it was another camping trip.

I went camping last weekend with my friend who I hadn’t camped with for a couple of years. It was nice to catch up and because we were the only ones from our unit, we made friends with other explorer groups in our county. I saw my Jamboree friends as well, who as well as I were taking a well deserved break from fundraising.

On the Friday evening I failed at circus skills but instead aced a game of cards. Followed by a disco, to then finally fall asleep at 1am the next morning.
The next day we could choose which activities we wanted to do. I did archery, rifle shooting, caving, a blind folded trail, tomahawks, arts and crafts, laser tag, bushcraft and many more.
The evening entertainment consisted of a silent disco where half the room would be dancing to the cha cha slide and the other half of the room would be singing and dancing along to YMCA. This finished gone midnight so yet again, I finally fell asleep at 1.
The final day consisted of rain and more rain – luckily this hadn’t been over the whole weekend. I did some more arts and craft by building a tower from spaghetti and sweets, did some archery and played some more cards. I went home having had an amazing time and meeting some amazing new friends.

13 things I hate about being left handed

Another weekend and another camp to recover from!

I’ll write about that another time but to give me a chance to rest here are 13 things I hate about being left-handed (Fact 42)

  1. When writing you end up with pen all up the side of your hand.
  2. You have to go out of your way to buy left handed scissors (all the supermarket school stationery sections only stock right handed ones)
  3. Bumping elbows with a righty.
  4. Being told you’re left handed by someone who you knows you and suddenly realises and asks how long have you been left handed.
  5. Having to self teach yourself how to do things oppositely like archery.
  6. Most door handles are made for right handed people.
  7. The mouse being defaulted to use with your right hand ergonomically.
  8. Having to buy left handed stuff in general i.e. can openers, rulers, pencil sharpeners, screwdrivers, etc.
  9. The constant threat of being burnt at the stake for being a witch.
  10. The annoyance of being the odd one out in a family of right handers.
  11. Everyone complaining that I’m not really a lefty as I used to eat right handed, although rather inefficiently.
  12. People always assume everyone’s right handed – in restaurants tables are set up for right handed people.
  13. Being told “I bet you’re really creative.”

But the best thing about being left handed is the left handed handshake comes naturally.

PS there’s a town called Left Hand in West Virginia.

A Wild Weekend in the Woods

Trees!

I have been on another training camp with my Jamboree unit last weekend. On the Friday night, we travelled up on the minibus, jamming out to music for 2 hours and catching up with one another.

We arrived at the campsite after pulling down a very very bumpy lane. Once the minibus had parked up, we were told by one of our leaders that there were no proper toilets – instead it was a wooden shed with a hole in the ground which fed the soil.  In the dark I was not prepared for all the spiders I was going encounter especially after Strategy.

State of the art toilet facility!

Before we set up our tents, we had to help the rest of our unit put up the cooking tents and say hello again. Apart from the disaster of me not being able to find my spare batteries and then finding them in the only pocket I hadn’t looked in I could help. We then got to set up our own tents before sitting around the campfire.

Pretty Fire

Around the campfire we had an introduction where we got new numbers to call out when someone would shout ‘number off’ and we’d count in order our new number. We got put into our patrols for the weekend and agreed on a time to wake up and start to light a fire to cook on.

I woke up on time to meet with my patrol to collect fire wood and start the fire. We collected lots and lots of wood as there is no such thing as having too much wood and we started cooking once the fire got hot enough. We cooked the eggs first, then some veggie sausage on a giant saucepan until I found a smaller saucepan so we could start the bacon. I was on putting the bacon onto the frying pan duty and saved my egg to have a bacon and egg buttie. Our patrol then washed up and gathered with other patrols, 20 minutes late, for flag break.

We would be doing 4 rota activities in the morning including; social media, personal hygiene, airport security and washing.

At the social media station we learnt about how landscape should be the natural photo shot with the photo not being staged and hence natural. So, our task was to take natural photos of the other groups without disturbing them.

At the personal hygiene station we learnt that our main goals would be to be happy whilst keeping clean by washing our hands and to always tell a leader if something is wrong. Our task was to be blindfolded with paint on our hands and to wash it off and to stop when we thought they were clean.

At the airport security station we had to work out what items we would be able to take in our holdall going to the USA from the UK and visa versa. I learnt that you can only take liquids of 100ml and your water bottle has to be empty when taking it through security.

Clean as clean can be

Finally at the washing station we had to make our t-shirts muddy and then cleaned them. First we rinsed them to get the majority of dirt out and off of them and then we used hot water with washing powder to wash our t-shirts and then rinsed them in cold water again. We then wrung out excess water and hung them up to dry and went to get lunch.

After lunch we got set the challenge to decide on what our patrol wanted for tea and decide on 2 people to go shopping whilst the rest of the patrol helped with the big bonfire/ campfire we would be having in the evening. By a fair game of rock, paper, scissors it was decided that I and a other person would go shopping. So, with our shopping list and £25 we checked the kitchen pantry and went to catch the minibus to the supermarket.

Look what we foraged!

After a quick stop to a scout hut to get extra utensils on the way, we arrived at Asda to go shopping. We got our trolley and were off. We met the vlogging patrol with their body camera and compared our shopping trollies. My patrol’s trolley contained; pasta, carbonara sauce, bacon, muffins, fizzy drinks and cheese. The other patrol’s trolley contained vegetables and noodles for their stir fry.

Not Spag Bol!

Once finished, we travelled back on the minibus to see the others had built a huge campfire whilst we had gone. As soon as we got back we started cooking our tea. Everyone wanted some of our carbonara and we served many of the VIPs who joined us. There was plenty to share round. We then washed up and headed over to camp break to finish the evening, to name our mascot bear and to play a few games.

After the games we had our massive campfire which the circumference was the size of a trampoline and the height of a traffic light. It went from freezing cold to boiling hot in the split of a second. We then did our sketches in our patrols as well as our campfire song.

The next morning we cooked pancakes with bacon and went full out on toppings. We then broke camp and had campflag where we were told we’d have to walk to the village hall to listen to the parents’ meeting. It wasn’t a long journey walking and we listened to the meeting while eating homemade cake. We said goodbye to our friends from the other county and then we were back on the minibus home – where we stopped off at the services on the way back quickly. We arrived back in our own county and went back our separate ways after our karaoke session in the minibus.

Blue helping with the washing

Our mascot’s official name is now Blue – in the photo you can see Blue having a go at hand washing our clothes.

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream …

Last weekend I went camping, yet again. As you already know from my many camping experiences is that there is no such thing as bad weather only bad kit.
The weekend was beautiful to do water sports and I did kayaking in the morning of the first day and then some canoeing in the afternoon. When kayaking I learnt how to do a 360, paddle to the side, paddle backwards, turn around efficiently, the different ways I could get in and out of a kayak and the different types of kayaks.

My next activity was canoeing. I have never been in a canoe before so this was going to be a first time experience for me. I originally sat in the front of my canoe. My new friend, sat in the back and she controlled the direction of the canoe whilst I acted as the engine powering the canoe forwards. It took a while to get the hang of thing, we struggled to turn, go in a straight line and do some of the skills. However, when it came to swapping over positions in the canoe we were skilled at balancing in the river whilst swapping ends. I was then in control of the direction of the canoe and we paddled up stream. Once we got up stream, we created a sail boat using all 3 canoes to ‘sail’ with the current back to the bank.
For dinner, we had fish and chips and settled for an early night. Me and my friends learnt a new card game – apparently it was the proper way to play cheat. Where aces allowed you to change suit, 2s and 3s were the amount of cards the next player had to pick up, 4s meant you had to place 4 cards down with either the same suit or number, 8s missed a go and kings changed direction. This new card game took over an hour to finish and then it was time for bed.

The next morning, we ate breakfast and then were back out on the water in the kayaks again. This time instead of using the slip way, we seal launched from a mini slip way. We had to capsize our kayaks to get our stage three paddle sport badge so after a lot of fun enjoying paddling towards the wind up against the strong current. I managed to capsize my kayak safely and then warmed up before helping to pack the campsite down.

I had a great weekend – even if I was constantly worrying about whether Bat would get his revenge from Beaver camp.

84 facts about 84

I thought for this blog I would tell you some facts about me.

  1. I’m a girl
  2. I’m taking my GCSEs next year
  3. I went back to school last Thursday
  4. I go to an all-girls school
  5. I’m taking 12 GCSEs
  6. I took the equivalent of a GCSE this year – it was a HPQ (which is a higher project qualification)
  7. My favourite subject is Maths
  8. I dance frequently
  9. I started dancing at the age of 3
  10. I dance contemporary
  11. I started scouting at the age of 6
  12. I was the only girl in my Beaver colony
  13. I’m now a Beaver young leader
  14. My Beaver young leader name is Snail
  15. I went to a different troop for Cubs and Scouts than I did for Beavers
  16. I was a Rainbow
  17. I was a Brownie
  18. My Mum is a Rainbow leader
  19. My Dad was a Cub
  20. My Nan was a Brown Owl
  21. My Great Grandma was an Akela with Cubs
  22. My Aunt was a Guide leader and a Ranger leader
  23. I’ve been to Brownsea Island
  24. I’ve been to Australia
  25. I’ve been to America
  26. I’ve been to France
  27. I’ve been to Wales
  28. I’ve been to Germany
  29. I’ve been to Belgium
  30. I can understand 2 languages – Python (a coding language) and English
  31. I know a bit of German and French
  32. In binary 84 is 01010100
  33. I have a black cat
  34. I have a new kitten
  35. I have two Bunnies
  36. This one isn’t about me but it needs saying – cats are better than dogs
  37. I love hoodies
  38. My favourite colour is lilac
  39. My favourite TV show is The Flash
  40. I have never seen all the Harry Potter movies
  41. Fence posts are hard to hammer in
  42. I’m left handed meaning that I am part of the 10% of the population which aren’t right handed or ambidextrous
  43. I spent the last Friday of the summer holidays round a campfire
  44. I love to read
  45. It’s one of my many Auntie’s birthdays today – Happy Birthday
  46. I have 16 cousins (not all with the same Auntie)
  47. I like to tell jokes
  48. I’m on my 48th fact – backwards 84
  49. I went to the cinema today
  50. I’ve broken one of my habits over the summer holidays
  51. I’m rubbish at replying to emails – sorry guys
  52. I’m 5/8 through my fundraising
  53. I despise wasps
  54. I got stung by a wasp in the summer holidays
  55. I’ve been stung twice by wasps
  56. My favourite dish is lasagne
  57. I have my own domain name
  58. I’ve got an elf on the shelf
  59. Our elf on the shelf is called Eddie
  60. I’ve got around about 40 of the unit badges
  61. I am aiming to get all 100
  62. I’m lazy as I started writing this on Sunday and it’s now Wednesday (Edit: its now Saturday and I’ve decided that I’ll back track the date.  Edit: now it’s a week late!)
  63. My unit name is very cheesy
  64. 64 zoo lane
  65. My favourite Nintendo Switch game is Mario Kart
  66. I’ve got the same size feet as both my Mum and my Sister
  67. The year 2087 is when I’ll turn 84
  68. My favourite superheroes are all DC
  69. I’ve started bullet journaling
  70. I’ve got my bronze DofE and I’m going to start silver soon
  71. My sister is annoying
  72. My go to outfit is usually a striped top with jeans
  73. I know the whole of the phonetic alphabet – ish
  74. Pepsi Max is nicer than coke zero
  75. I own a Vaude tent
  76. Mint choc chip ice-cream is the best
  77. I’m learning my flags
  78. I have a west country accent (but I don’t come from there)
  79. My favourite kids’ TV programme was Charlie and Lola
  80. I love classic 80s music
  81. I’m a bit addicted to Costa mint chocolate chip Frostinos
  82. I’ve just walked out of Frankie and Benny’s restaurant
  83. I need one more fact as it’s very hard to come up with facts
  84. One of the above facts is a lie

Where it all began

Brownsea Island Map

Before the Jamboree, I set myself the challenge of visiting  Brownsea Island. I achieved this last week when I visited my grandparents on holiday.

I arrived in Poole Harbour with enough time to catch the 11 o’clock ferry. In less than 20 minutes I arrived to my destination and, as if I was landing on the moon, I took one step for man off of the ferry and took one giant leap for mankind explorerscout84sblogskind.

Olivia with the Scout Stone

I found the Scout Stone engraved with the words, “This Stone Commemorates the experimental Camp of 20 boys held on this site from 1st-9th of August 1907 by Robert Baden-Powell later Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell Founder of the Scout and Guide Movement”. Olivia (the Rainbow from my Mum’s Rainbow Unit) and I took photos with the Scout Stone.

While at the Scout Stone, a group of Cubs came along waiting to have a group photo with it. I spoke to the leaders and told them who I was and what I would be doing – going to the Jamboree of course. I showed them my UK contingent necker which they were very envious of and I persuaded them to buy some of my badges. Who knew I would manage to do some fundraising whilst on holiday! I learnt that the group were camping on the island for their summer camp which I am very envious of.

The Neckers floating in the Trading Post

Being a dedicated badge collector, I had to visit the Trading Post. Inside there were Neckers ‘floating’ from the ceiling and badges were displayed from all across the world. A pin the map was covered with pins – this is where you use a drawing pin to pin the location you have travelled from. They had a UK map and a World map where there were pins covering every county and most countries.

I brought a necker, some badges and a woggle to commemorate my journey and spotted the Brownsea Island Units badges for sale – unfortunately I already had these. However, I learnt that the different colours outline of these badges represent the 4 different patrols.

I donated one of my unit badges to the shop and they were very grateful for it. They have many displays of badges including those from previous Jamborees.

Nature!

After my visit to the trading post, I also spoke to a Scout from Wales who was also camping on the island – I’m still envious of them too. They asked whether I would be willing to trade neckers with them, unfortunately I had to say no. I had only brought my Unit necker and UK contingent necker with me, which I would only receive one of.

Peahen

Being in the National Trust site, allowed nature to live peacefully. I saw many different species of animals, however I did not get to see the rare red squirrels which live on the island. I saw peacocks which did not have there tails up, peahens and peachicks (which are baby peacocks or peahens – depending on their gender). I learnt that even baby peachicks have feathers on their foreheads as well as the peacocks and peahens.

Beautiful scenes

On the way back to Poole, we thought that our ferry would go straight back to Poole harbour until we found out that we were on a tour around Poole harbour. I learnt that one of the islands is used as an oil farm and the oil gets transported back to the mainland via pipes underground. Another one of the islands held a £9 million house and in Sandbanks the houses are worth over £6 million.

Statue of B-P on Poole Quayside

After our detour, we arrived back into Poole Harbour. We went back into the harbour and we headed back to my grandparents house.

Whilst I was on the island I talked to many different people – some ex members of Scouting, members of the public and Scout groups – sharing with them all about my Jamboree experience.

I’ve read that at the Summit Bechtel Reserve there is also a Brownsea Island – I’m looking forward to seeing that one too!

01010100

Recently, I went on a cyber camp residential and learnt how easy it is to hack into computers.

Under a controlled environment, we hacked into one of our fellow teams computer. With this we were able to open up a conversation between the victim and the hacker, make random lights on the keyboard flash, make the mouse go crazy and open up unwanted tabs.
We also learnt how to change the users password whilst not being logged into the computer and we made our thumb print with latex to use to hijack our phones finger sensor ID.
We got taught why to keep ourselves private online through a demonstration of having a picture of a Yellow Lamborghini, and having to find out who it belonged to and other facts about them. It was surprisingly easy to find out who the person was and their age etc. all through looking at one picture.

The 3R’s

For the older audience these were ‘reading, writing and arithmetic’ for the youth of today it means ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’. Sometimes there are 5 R’s to include Repair and Reinvent.

Recently I ordered the UK contingent supporters badges, I was shocked to discover that they are all individually wrapped. Inside two further layers of plastic bag.

In a World where we are becoming ever more conscious of the affects of our continued bad consumer habits and the affect that plastic has on wildlife to have them over packaged was a complete travesty. The 5 key principles of the 24th World Scout Jamboree are adventure, friendship, leadership, service and especially sustainability.

I try to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible.

Lots of restaurants now only give you plastic straws if you ask for them and many restaurants use paper straws, but these often coated in plastic. On a recent visit to a well known Asian based chain of restaurants I had a smoothie and it came with a paper straw which shows even big businesses are trying to cut down, (Although before I’d finished the drink the straw had disintegrated!)

Given our Unit fundraising badges aren’t individually wrapped I don’t see why these ones needed to be. Hopefully this can be rectified for future batches. How about it UK Scouting?