We had a near full troop of 22 Scouts back in the Hut for ‘Patrol Pancakes’, welcoming 5 new arrivals: Luke, Luke, Oliver, Jacob and Jo. After flag break we discussed what was great at WINGS 2014, before a couple of wide games ‘Hare and Hounds’ outside on the Rec. Here are some fun slo-mo videos (your browser needs to support HTML5-MP4 format):
Cooking is a very popular activity and throughout the year we cook (on fires and on portable gas stoves) a variety of foods including sausages, dough wraps, backwoods cooking using foil, and one-pot wonders; and we also cook to celebrate Chinese New Year and Burns Night. Our Scouts have a fondness for pancakes, an easy popular meal. As you can see from the photos and slo-mo videos, several pancakes were tossed into the air, with most landing safely back in the frying pan!
The second week back we split the patrol into two groups circling them through an introduction to how geocaching works using a handheld GPS to find several caches hidden around the Rec. As part of the geocaching badge, scouts will need to create a geocaching account and find some local caches. Please download the Apple or Android app and start searching – its great fun and a family activity something that can be enjoyed anywhere – just requiring a smartphone, the geocaching.com app, and some luck! For the Navigation badge scouts learnt how to set a map and then walked a bearing to a waypoint. We will revisit both of these topics to complete more advanced tasks, later in the term.
We have lots of opportunities to earn new badges this term. Other activities planned include a Hallowen fright night!, hobbies & interest evenings, a night hike, and cake baking. We are also offering two chances to camp; we hope to send a team to take part in the Loddon District overnight ‘Great Breakfast Chase’ ay Crays Pond, Goring Heath, and as a Troop we are organising an Autumn ‘Survival Skills’ Camp a great opportunity to build and sleep in woodland shelters, cook on fires and learn bushcraft at Dorneywood, in Burnham Beeches.
The Autumn Term Programme can be downloaded here (PDF).
REVISED 2nd NOVEMBER 2014
If you are interested in joining scouts, or if you would like to assist the leaders with delivering any of the activities (we always welcome additional help), please email Scouts@wargravescouts.org