Tag: community

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.

 

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?

Planes, (Steam) Trains and Automobiles

This week I have been helping the community by helping at my county’s Vintage Fair. On Scout Scarf Day (Wednesday 1st August), I wore my scout necker with pride whilst line painting out pitches – we measured out the distance of the paths and the roads and then painted lines on the ground. We also put up barriers in the afternoon to set out areas for the main event.

On Thursday we helped to park all the exhibitors into the pitches we painted on Wednesday. On Friday, we set up our free stall and helped to direct more people to their pitches and in the evening we watched as the vintage cars, tractors, fire engines, steam engines and trucks drive around the site.

On Saturday and Sunday, we helped to run our stall. There were a range of activities including splat a Scout (which was refreshing as it helped to cool us down from the heat), a donut challenge (where you had to eat the donut from the string without it dropping, using your hands or licking your lips), a tombola (where all the prizes were kindly donated by some of the stall holders), a balance the coin on the lemon (where if it held for 5 seconds or more you won 5x the amount you put on the lemon), a teddy tombola (where you could win a prize every time) and finally a surprise tube (where under every tube there was a different prize ranging from good to bad e.g. there could be a tin of mushy peas to sweets to toilet roll to bookmarks).

On Sunday, before my shift I looked around the fair and took photos with my camera. I saw a Dennis fire engine from Dorset, which we believe my Grandfather may have driven as a fireman. Mum says one of the “vintage” cars I took a photo of was newer than her first car.

I also saw the Poppy Parachute Team who raise funds and awareness for the Royal British Legion.