Category: my scouting life

Out and about

Hey Blue here again,


This past week 84 has been out and about sharing her Jamboree experience with a local Cub and Scout group and she also visited the little red ninja’s again.


I love going to see people, I especially like going to Rainbows as I get to hang out with Olivia. But boy were they noisy this week! They asked 84 lots of questions including asking, when shown any photo with boys in – “is that your boyfriend?”


Everyone really enjoyed watching the video and I think they’re leaders are going to have to do their best to make their meetings more adventurous.
84 has also been busy making and selling her crafts, I’m excited as 84 has been making Christmas things. Did you know that there are only 65 days until Christmas.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Unexpected use for a necker

Never in my Scouting life did I ever think that I’d use a necker to cover a very exposed rip in my shorts. Typically, I would’ve thought my necker would’ve been used as a sling or a bandana yet, it was used completely differently. So how did this come about you may ask (and no it was not intentional).

It was an early Sunday morning and I was helping at a festival to move people’s kit back to their cars: on the Friday evening I had moved the kit from people’s cars to their pitch so today it was the reverse. Proceeding one of the hauls to a car my group were walking back I decided it would be a brilliant idea to sit in my friends wheelbarrow and they could drag me back (1st mistake!). Secondly, I was wearing fairly tight shorts (2nd mistake!) and decided to sit cross legged (3rd mistake!). After less than a minute of being pulled around sat on the wheelbarrow I got out where I noticed my shorts had ripped. Quickly improvising I held the bucket in front of my legs as I waddled back to the base where we were stationed.

Here I realised that I had no spare clothes and only a hi-vis jacket. At first we attempted to create a hi-vis skirt (I’m certain I would’ve pulled it off) until we realised it would not work. It was not until someone mentioned trying my necker that I realised I was not following protocol of ‘Improvise, Adapt and Overcome’. I then was able to tie my necker around my leg and through my belt loop.

The very important lesson I’ve learnt after this experience is that you should never underestimate your Scouting necker. A necker is the key to the Scouts’ motto to ‘Be Prepared’.

Strategy Day 1

So this evening I arrived at Strategy to help out for this weekend. My job for this weekend is to help behind the scenes – doing jobs such as creating the packed lunches, helping on bases etc.

I arrived and put up my tent up, before going to sign in – this year I’m very impressed because I get to wear a helpers lanyard as well as my wrist band. Once I had signed in I then went to help pack the lunches, which will be used over the weekend, into paper bags.

Shortly after, we had a meeting where we were told the 3 (large) patrols we would be in for the weekend and what tasks we would be completing. I found out that my patrol will eat breakfast at 7 followed by helping on the washing up station, which was followed by free time to go and visit the venue, to play with a frisbee, tennis ball, American football and football and to play cards with my fellow Jamboree participants.

To be continued …

Rumble in the jungle 2

Luckily, I was one of the only ones who did not wake up to the sound of the Beavers at 4:30am. I only then woke up at 6:30 am from the alarm I set myself.

Before breakfast, the Beavers painted jigsaw puzzles until they then ate bacon, scrambled eggs and baked beans. After breakfast, they then started washing up followed by a scavenger hunt on the campsite. They then made animals masks using paper plates and pens.

After this, they played a quick game of NESW but with a jungle twist. When called out ‘Make the sound of …’ they would sound like the animal and when called out ‘Act like a …’ they would act like the animal mentioned.

Finally, it was time for lunch – a banquet of sandwiches, crisps, fruit and veg. For pudding, they had slime (green jelly), bugs (raisins) and sticks (matchmakers). After lunch, they rolled up their roll mats and stuffed their sleeping bags as well as collecting all of their kit together.

finally, it was time for them to go home. Once all the Beavers left, we helped to dismantle camp by taking down the marquee as well as packing away our own personal tents. The weekend was brilliant and was a nice break from my revision.

Rumble in the jungle

This weekend, I’m on Beaver camp as a young leader. I arrived a couple of hours earlier to help set up camp – I helped put up the Beavers tent and the Marquee.

The Beavers soon arrived and I quickly are my lunch ready to start the activities. We all got given jungle books and then we were off on our first activity.

The first activity consisted of hunting for different tracks – the Beavers had to at first spot the tracks and then understand what each one stood for. There were a few challenging tracks to look for which I did not manage to spot.

After our first activity, we then packed our day sacks to walk to the obstacle course. Here, the Beavers completed the course in multiple variations and even attempted the cargo net. Luckily, no one fell into the stream which the course took place above.

Our third activity consisted of knot tying and putting up a tent. The Beavers learnt the reef knot and a clove hitch whilst the other lodge put up the tent. This was shortly followed by swapping activities before going to wash our hands before dinner.

Our dinner was spaghetti Bolognese, but due to last Beaver camp where I broke multiple Scout laws (https://explorerscout84.co.uk/a-scout-is-to-be-trusted-but-not-on-beaver-camp), I was expecting revenge. I was told that my dinner might become chilli infested but in the end, it was normal. Everyone then helped to wash up.

Me and my fellow Young Leader, then made a string trail. Originally it was too long but we managed to shorten it. The Beavers thoroughly enjoyed this before then proceeding to sit and enjoy the campfire. They toasted marshmallows and sang traditional songs.

Finally, it was time for bed after a long day. The Beavers were read a bedtime story.

I am currently writing this enjoying the silence. I have borrowed the campsites WiFi to upload the post – which I only discovered recently.

Continue reading “Rumble in the jungle”

St. George’s Day Parade

Last year at my districts annual St. George’s Day Parade I spoke about The First World War in front of the whole Cathedral. I also spoke to the VIPs about my World Scout Jamboree experience I was going on.

This year I got invited to also talk about my World Scout Jamboree experience but I could also carry one of the Explorer flag. I choose this year to carry a flag.

I got chosen to carry the Union Flag which would lead the colours. I therefore lead all of the flags and was in the front of the parade. It was a really good service however, we did not sing the Lord of the Dance or He’s got the whole world in his hands.

North America in a Bag

This week I’ve been out and about with North America in a Bag.

First I took it to the Beavers where I am a Young Leader. I know my Beavers well and I know they like doing craft so I planned the main activity to be making Dream Catchers. We played a version of “North, East, South, West” but with a WSJ spin. I also made some salsa in advance to take along so they could try salsa and nachos. The Beaver Leader was so impressed with how it went that I was given Barry the Beaver to take home.

I stayed on after Beavers to run a session for my old Scout unit. I didn’t think they’d want to spend half the meeting making dream catchers, but I still gave them 10 minutes to make one in their patrols. To add to the challenge after 5 minutes I told them they could only use one hand each. We played the Stealing the Sombrero game and then held a debate over which was better: tea or coffee. The session ended with lots of really good questions about both the Jamboree and the fundraising to get there.

The following evening I took the bag along to the Scout group my Explorers are attached to. All 4 sections meet on the same night, with some overlap, but I managed to spend some time with all of them. I spent the most time with the Cubs, I’d been a bit worried about this sessions as unlike the night before I didn’t really know any of them. It went really well with them enjoying themselves and showing a lot of interest. I also managed to speak to the Scouts and Explorers and run some games with them too.

My final visit was to my old Rainbow unit. I turned their regular circle time into a Pow-Wow with the headdress passing from one Rainbow to the next as they gave their news. They also enjoyed making the dream catchers and playing the games.

Although I’ve been a Young Leader with Beavers for a year and a half it was good to try and plan things for the older units as well. I’m also secretly hoping some of the Rainbows might defect to Scouting in the future.

Cookies and Cakes


Yum, recently at Explorers we completed a £20 challenge. We split up into small groups and our group decided to hold a cake sale to maximise our funds.

We were lucky enough to have our own personal chauffeur service in the form of my fellow Explorer’s older sister, so we were able to go shopping to buy our ingredients without relying on parent help. We bought lots of ingredients at the supermarket ready for the Great Explorer Bake Off one Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday afternoon we made fairy cakes (which were expertly decorated by my fellow Explorer’s younger sister), a lemon drizzle cake, a coffee cake, a banana and chocolate cake, crispy cakes, chocolate crunch and peanut butter and chocolate cookies (made with cutters from the Stanpit Company, another WSJ fundraiser). Plenty of yummy treats for our whole unit from Beavers through to Explorers to enjoy. Except there was a slight problem…

The evening of our cake sale coincided with the Beaver and Cubs bowling trip, so we had to rely on the Scouts and Explorers buying our delicious treats.

We sold a fair few cakes despite having two sections missing. We were able to give our £20 starter fund back and when the ‘profits’ were split we each had raised a small amount. Mine is going towards my Jamboree fundraising.

We’ve also learnt the valuable lesson to plan and check the programme in future!


Planning meeting

As a Beaver Young Leader I went to my first ever planning meeting. Here we work out what the beaver plan would be doing each evening until summer. We added dates in for Jamboree in a bag and another meeting to be run by the young leaders. To try and get as many beavers their chief scout bronze award, we had to plan our meetings to allow this and fit it in.

I was expecting to be at the meeting for just under an hour but was there for much longer than expected- I now realise the amount of planning which goes into each Beaver meeting. One of the leaders wasn’t able to make the meeting so instead was at the meeting virtually via a Skype call which however, kept cutting out.

I was very disappointed when I found out that the Beavers last meeting in the summer they are going bouldering and caving. I realised that I will already be out on the Jamboree site so will miss the Beavers last fun meeting.

Sustainability

Since, the 5p plastic bag ban occurred in the UK over 3 years ago (October 2015), the amount of people using one use plastic bags has decreased rapidly since this. Recently on the news, Morrisons has been saying that they will trial paper bags similarly used in America. They are trying to sell or provide no plastic bags to their customers to reduce the amount of one use bags polluting the planet and ending up in the sea killing marine animals.

This week at Beavers, I was responsible for running the evening. The theme for this evening was sustainability (which is one of the key principle at the 24th World Scout Jamboree) so, the Beavers were decorating reusable shopping bags. We taught them that it takes over 15 years for a bag to biodegrade and how many marine animals are dying from eating plastic or getting caught and tangled in plastic bags. We explained how to fight this issue you should think about how much plastic you are using and whether this is really needed. They also learnt about the 3Rs: Reuse, Reduce and Recycle and so how they can use this in their daily lives.

As the Beavers were decorating their bags, they were silent for 45 minutes – I’ve heard that is a record so I’m very pleased with how well they enjoyed it.