Swamp Camp 2010

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Eleven scouts, one young leader and three leaders ventured into the boggy realms of the New Forest for a wet weekend of swamp-based activities with the forecast predicting 40mph winds, heavy sleet and rain!! Fortunately Friday night was dry and beautifully clear so we setup the camp, cooked over a roaring fire and played a wide-game.

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After a cooked breakfast on Saturday morning, the scouts split into three groups to make their own swamp-crossing using whatever means they wished. The groups came up with three ingeniously different courses using a combination of rope bridges, tree climbing, pole walking and jumping!

In the afternoon, we split into two groups and went on a 17 mile bike ride through the forest.

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Rain, rain, rain! After swimming out of our tents on Sunday morning, we saw the field had really turned into a swamp! Naturally some scouts decided that puddle jumping would be fun – add to this a 15ft hole trench backfilled with clay and you can guess what happened next – “Ed(gar), Finn’s stuck in the mud!”

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One cooked breakfast later and we were ready for our final activity – making an alter-fire out of sticks and mud so that we could cook our pitta-pizzas and burgers!

All in all, it was another great camp!

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Scout Patrol Leader Training

Our newest four assistant patrol leaders spent last weekend in the depths of the New Forest with 13 other new APLs from the district.

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On Saturday morning, the the leaders talked to the scouts about various leadership techniques. Pancakes were cooked outside under typical conditions – hail – before we went through camp skills, such as menu planning, camp-site layout and hygiene!

After a healthy dinner, the scouts wrapped up warm and jumped into a minibus to be dropped off with a map and torch at an unknown location and were told to walk back to camp! Fortunately the night was beautifully clear, so the paths were lit up by the stars, but it did mean it was well and truly below freezing (we set off at -2 degrees)! The scouts in the more “adventurous” group even had to shimmy across a fallen tree to get over a river!

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The (tired) scouts brushed up on their practical skills on Sunday morning, being taught by our (tired) leaders how to teach axe and saw usage to other scouts. Then we pioneered the most over-engineered volley-ball net possible, and created a 30m “aerial runway” aka a zip-line through the forest.
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Kandersteg Expedition


As part of our centenary celebrations we wanted to do something special for our Troop Camp in 2009 and so we headed for the Kandersteg International Scout Centre (KISC) in Switzerland and we have just returned from an action packed week amongst the stunning scenery of the high alps in the Bernese Oberland. There were 24 of us in the party – eight adults and sixteen young people ranging from our youngest Scout, Josh (10), whom we invested at camp, up to one of our Young Leaders, Blake (16). We went by plane from Heathrow Terminal 5 to Geneva, and from there by rail to Kandersteg. The journey was not always straightforward but we got there okay and there was great camaraderie along the way. The on-site leaders at KISC (known as the “pinkies” for their pink shirts) led our group on several hikes and activities including an overnight stay in a mountain hut, real rock climbing, ice climbing for our older scouts, and a visit to a high alpine Cheesery. We swam in an alpine lake, rode a gondola and a summer toboggan run, and participated in international get-togethers organised by the pinkies including a great camp fire on the last night. The weather was fantastic and the trip was accident-free, so we are tired but happy! 15 months of planning and fund-raising all paid off.

Brownsea Island Camp, May 2009

Seventeen excited Cubs, twelve camp-hardened Scouts and a slightly apprehensive supporting cast of leaders and parents took ship from a rain soaked Sandbanks bound for Brownsea Island on a May Friday evening. We were celebrating our Centenary with a camp at the place where Scouting was born.

Brownsea is a magical place and something magical happened to the unpromising weather which seemed to work to our advantage throughout the weekend. We had the entire campsite and all its facilities to ourselves and were able to do all our planned outdoor activities – including shelter building, archery and low ropes – in bright sunshine. It was too windy for kayaking on the sea, so we sailed instead. In the evenings we were able to play the widest of wide games – it felt like we had the whole Island to ourselves.

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Brownsea Island Camp, May 2009


Seventeen excited Cubs, twelve camp-hardened Scouts and a slightly apprehensive supporting cast of leaders and parents took ship from a rain soaked Sandbanks bound for Brownsea Island on a May Friday evening. We were celebrating our Centenary with a camp at the place where Scouting was born.

Brownsea is a magical place and something magical happened to the unpromising weather which seemed to work to our advantage throughout the weekend. We had the entire campsite and all its facilities to ourselves and were able to do all our planned outdoor activities – including shelter building, archery and low ropes – in bright sunshine. It was too windy for kayaking on the sea, so we sailed instead. In the evenings we were able to play the widest of wide games – it felt like we had the whole Island to ourselves.

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Six a Side Competition 2009


It was great to enter two Scout teams and two Cub teams into the annual Southampton City District six-a-side football competition. Here’s the Scouts getting ready in their smart new kit. After weeks of training we were playing well and our A team only just missed the top spot, becoming runners up after losing to the 26th in a closely fought final.

Emlyn Competition

A group of our Scouts entered the District Emlyn camping competition in June 2008, producing this amazing design for a piece of play equipment as part of the competition.