Woggleknot.com – An Explorer Scout's Blog

This post is quite late because I haven’t really had much time this week. I’ve got loads of coursework that needed to get done and I’ve been revising for a maths exam I have next week. Also, I AM NOW SIXTEEN! It was my birthday on Wednesday  so I didn’t bother blogging then either!

Anyway, last weekend I was at Bradley Wood as a young leader to help out at this years winter camp. These camps are very fun and I enjoyed the last one in 2008 back when I was in scouts. The camp was a bit pricey at £30 for scouts (I only had to pay £5! Leader’s price ) but it was easy to see why – so many things were going on, and some things needed to be hired – such as outdoor laser tag and arcade game machines.

When I got there all the scouts were scattered about the site doing activities so there wasn’t really much to do. So I just wandered around and did a few activities for a bit too! I stayed at the shooting range for quite a while (I’m not very good, but I really like shooting) and I watched a few groups of people play laser tag outside on the field.

However, on the second day the camp had to be cancelled because of the snow – people were having difficulties getting vehicles and equipment off the site so we had to abandon our tents, put on our rucksacks and walk to a nearby road. It’s kind of funny when you think about it – the winter camp was cancelled because of winter weather!

The Field Gun competition was tonight. The “Field Gun” was a bit better than the one we used at Bradley, and it could stay in one piece without anybody having to hold onto it.

I was supposed to be helping the leaders, but one scout troop didn’t have enough people in the team so I ended up actually taking part in the competition.

The obstacles were really good, and it was a bit similar to the stuff you could see in the video I posted last week. The scouts began by dismantling the field gun. There were three obstacles on the course. The first was a small wall with a hole in – equipment was passed through the hole and the scouts had to climb over. The second obstacle was barrels stacked up in a pyramid shape – the scouts had to climb over and pass the parts of the field gun over. The third obstacle was a rope and pulley which the scouts used to pull themselves and the field gun parts across from one side to the other. Once all the parts and people were across, the field gun was rebuilt and the scouts had to run back to the beginning of the course.

It was slightly embarrassing being quite a bigger than all the other scouts taking part, but it was still fun.

Next Friday there is a competition called the nighthawk challenge, which Bradley Scouts are entering.

In the competition, the scouts have to hike from checkpoint to checkpoint through the night (and into the morning). The checkpoints are only open at certain times, so Scouts must arrive within a certain time window, or they are disqualified. The walk is usually around 12 miles long. However, the walk isn’t the hard part.

There is also team of Adult volunteers called “Hunters” who split up and search all the areas where scouts could be walking, and any scout troops that get found loses a point. The scout team that reaches the finish point ,and has lost the least amount of points, wins.

Scouts must decide on which routes they should take to each checkpoint, and they should choose routes that hunters are least likely to find them on. In order to win the competition, a lot of decision making and good tactics is necessary.

I managed to win the competition last year with my team, and hopefully the team from Bradley Scouts this year will do well too!

Tonight we built some rafts to use in the little reservoir. I learnt a new knot called a “Japanese Square Lashing” which we used to tie barrels and wooden poles together. I wish I knew the knot when I did other pioneering projects with scouts because it’s a lot quicker than using a square lashing, which is the lashing knot I used to use for things like this.

Unfortunately, by the time the raft was finished it became too dark to go in the water for long, so the scouts only got to test the rafts out for a few minutes in the canal – from one bank to the other, and back. However, it was still fun making the rafts (at least for me)

It was also “bring a buddy” night, so we had a few extra people, which is good. After we dismantled the raft two scouts got invested, so it was a nice finish to the evening.

Tonight was my first night as a young leader at Bradley Scouts, in Huddersfield. I’ve decided that I’m going to blog after every meeting so I can keep a record of what I’ve done. The blog’s called “woggleknot” because I wanted a weird name that’s also scout related.

Tonight was the first night of the term and the scouts needed to be sorted into two patrols. The leaders thought it would be a good idea to hold a kind of “scouts olympics” for the two new patrols to compete against each other.

The games included Javelin Throwing (Made by rolling up newspapers tightly), Equestrian (Piggyback races), Velodrome (racing around the hall on mini scooters) and a few others. My favourite was boat racing. The scouts had to sit in a line on the floor as if they were ina a boat, grab the legs of the person behind them, and shuffle to the end of the hall – it was quite funny to watch!

It was a great first night full of fun and the scouts seemed to really enjoy it.