Dear Scout Parents,

After winning the Loddon District “Big Camp” back in May we are keen to build on that success and are now looking at “The Great Breakfast Chase” (GBC) competition.

GBC is essentially an “Evening Hike with Camp”, over the weekend of October 10-11th.  It will be a fantastic opportunity to put into practice all our recent map and navigation work, and counts toward our annual “Murray Plate” trophy score for 2015.

GBC starts on the Saturday afternoon.  Each team arrives at the site around 1-2pm to pitch their tent for the night.  After some last-minute map and compass practise, teams are then given a route to plan and hike (typically 5 or 6 miles) which they start between 5pm and 8pm.  Each team is fed supper (hot dogs and burgers) before departing.  Teams should complete the route in 4 hours, so the last team that sets off should return back to base around midnight.  Following sleep and a well deserved breakfast, the event ends at around 11am on Sunday 11th October.

There are a number of checkpoints along the route where the teams get to complete various activities/challenges, and they earn components/points towards their breakfast, which they cook the next morning.  Often teams participate who have limited experience of this type of event, and these teams are ‘shadowed’ and the very purpose of the checkpoints is to allow the teams to be monitored along the route.  Teams are 4-6 scouts.  This year the organisers have made it mandatory that each team takes 2 mobile phones, and teams will now be called if they are late reaching a checkpoint.

For the past two years we have fielded one team.  Last year we came 8th, in 2013 we came joint 4th and in 2012 we came 2nd.  So we are keen to improve our score and maybe win this year, and would ideally like to field two teams!

I will be coordinating 1st Wargrave’s entries, and I will be involved in balancing the teams based on age and experience.  I will also be your parent contact for the duration of the GBC activity.

If your son or daughter would like to participate please can you let me know by return email no later than ** Thursday 1st October 2015 **, so I can submit our teams in good time. The cost of the event will be £10 which goes to Loddon District for organising the event.

I will need parental support to transport the Scouts to the event and to bring them back on the Sunday. We will try and do this in a small number of cars as this year’s base camp at Furze Platt, Maidenhead has limited vehicular access.  Please can you let me know whether you can assist in any way, and especially on the Sunday to help us pack-up.

There will be a GBC “Permission to Camp” form etc to be completed which I can forward once we know who would like to take part. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Regards,
Paul

Paul Worthington
Assistant Scout Leader – 1st Wargrave Scouts