After the success of last years big budget districtfuncamp08@stoke for this year we organised the small budget “credit crunch” distictfuncamp09@stoke over the weekend of 3/4/5th July with 140+ Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Leaders attending.
The weather was much kinder to us this year but we still had our ration of “liquid sunshine” to cool us off after the all too brief blistering temperatures of Saturday morning. For activities we rolled out a few old favourites like the water rockets to take pot shots against anything and everything in range, a water slide to take the skin off your knees and elbows as well as an inflatable swimming pool with 2 shallow ends and not much water in between… but it was wet and cool .
This year we introduced the all new Annual District Scout Challenge Trophy which was the “Field Gun” Competition. A course was created in the woods with 3 obstacles, a Zip wire over the muddy stream, a wobbly log bridge over the same stream (OK over the mud!) and a log wall where the Gun crews had to dismantle the “Field Gun” and carry it and the crew over the obstacles and around the course, racing against the clock. In between obstacles they had to reassemble the gun and load a shell, and “fire” it before proceeding to the next section of the course. There were a few time penalties awarded for dropping equipment or crew members into the stream, taking short cuts or arguing with the referee, but don’t panic… it wasn’t a real gun or real shells.
There were 5 Scout Groups that took part in the competition with the emphasis being on teamwork. We therefore had 5 different versions of what teamwork was all about, varying from “all chiefs and no Indians” to “all Indians and no chiefs” but thankfully all crews managed to complete the course without loosing any fingers or toes …….and most importantly with minimal damage to the Field Gun!!
The winners were 1st E.N. (Bish) Gun crew who romped home in 8 minutes 54 seconds with a handsome lead of exactly 1 minute over second place 7H (IRRJA) Gun Crew. 25E (Louigi) came 3rd in 10min, 35 secs, 4th was 6E (Gigadi) in 12min 16 sec and following up the rear was 7H (Sushi Tribe) Gun crew in 13min 36 secs.
Unfortunately a planned Leaders race never materialised after a sudden plague of bad backs and in-growing toe nails.
The evening was topped off with a traditional camp fire in the woods where the plucky Cubs, Scouts & Leaders of Ealing and Hanwell demonstrated their “performing arts skills”. Some good …… some not so good performances.
I am sure that a human pyramid juggling act singing “I’ am a Little teapot” would go down a storm with Simon Cowell on the next round of “Britain’s Got Talent” .
On Sunday the plan was to have the Cubs race over the same course but unfortunately due to a mindless act of vandalism, the Field Gun course as well as the new crate stacking equipment was wrecked overnight, so these events had to be cancelled.
So the morning was spent launching those few remaining “airworthy” water rockets, skidding around on the water slide and many separate games of cricket, rounders and football. A kite was even seen to make a brief appearance over the scout field. After a rummaging around in various store tents the string, staves, Akala’s knicker elastic and duct tape was then hurriedly formed into a variety of Ballista’s for the annual “Water Balloon Ballista Challenge”. The aim was to fire as many water filled balloons as possible to hit the opposing teams to get them wet, gaining points for each successful direct hit.
Unfortunately the worlds stock of unbreakable water balloons seemed to have been purchased so a considerable time was spent playing “ping pong” with these balloons until by chance one actually burst giving 1EN the trophy …yet again!!!
The event ended early afternoon in the sunshine, so much to the delight of the Leaders the dry tents were packed away by the ever helpful Cubs and Scouts with barley a raised voice of encouragement from the Leaders. … well every story has to have a happy ending.
As always, thanks to all of the Leaders and Helpers that made it all happen!!
Dave Folkerd. GSL 25th Ealing