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Review of the year and a very happy Christmas to you all!


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On 15/12/2017 at 5:45 PM, Tampa Turtle said:

Good adventures! Nice job. Jealous.

 

Thank you! I'm blessed with a hugely keen group of scouts at the moment so there's always enough that want to do everything to make pretty much any event viable. I also have several who are as keen as me to get as many photos and video footage as possible of what they get up to so there's lots of material to put it together from.

Incidentally the photo at 0:36 is what they left on my phone when I got some of them to look after it for me while I had a go on a climbing wall. Genuinely lovely photo that I intend to get printed and framed for my wall.

I'd also recommend putting this kind of thing together as way of getting more adult volunteers involved. It's what we make them for, we're fighting kids off with a stick, it's the adults that we need to take more kids. So that who we're trying to advertise to. People want to volunteer for things that are fun! So show them!

Edited by Cambridgeskip
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31 minutes ago, blw2 said:

yes, very nice year I'd say, by the looks of it.  I especially like that there seems to be a lot of 

scouts actually doing....

   the team building problem solving stuff

   the pioneering stuff

Certainly we keep scouts as hands on as possible. Scouts don't come along to be talked at! Yes sometimes they need some instruction on things before they get started but I work on the basis they should never be asked to be quiet and listen for more than 5 minutes at a time. It's not a lecture on quantum physics we're giving, it's how to use a compass or tie a knot or whatever it is.

The pioneering was great fun and was the PLs idea. As part of our troop program we normally have a camp in early spring that is themed on a particular skill or activity. We've had in the past rock climbing, a couple of hiking/navigation camps but this time they asked for a pioneering based camp. Not sure what they'll go for in 2018 although I know they liked an idea from our neighbouring troop at 18th Cambridge who did a banquet camp where they spent all weekend preparing various dishes backwoods style and then served them to parents when they were collected Sunday lunch time. I like the idea as well but their choice to make, not mine!

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1 minute ago, Tampa Turtle said:

I like the windy tents at about 1:29....brings back some memorable trip memories.

That was from the mountaineering course they can go on aged 13+ in Scotland. They spend 5 nights sleeping at the scout mountaineering centre* where they do day trips from and finish with a 3 day/2 night high camp in the mountains. The photo at 1.28 was on the same trip. Those two scouts had just got to the top of their first "Munro" (Scottish mountain over 3000 feet), what the one on the left had taken her hood down for I have no idea. I was out in the mountains that day as well with another group and can vouch for the weather being a mix of snow and hail on 40mph winds. Pretty unpleasant and a recepie for instant exfoliation! My hood that day stayed up and my snow goggles on.

*the mountaineering centre is wonderful. A disused railway station that got bought up by our neighbouring scout county in the 1960s and adapted to run mountaineering courses from. Wonderfully eccentric.

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I recall going over a peak in North Carolina at about that height with me and a slow lad watching a sparrow slowly flying into that wind for about 5 minutes to get over the peak. I tried taking a movie of the grass bending and to capture the sound and the clouds far below us moving and the tiny alpine type plants. But you never could really capture it though me and that boy mention it now and again. I recall being grateful for a rock outcropping to get out of the wind, brew up a quick cup, and --actually getting a signal--being able to call my wife on a cell phone for the first time in a week. :)

 

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On 19/12/2017 at 5:11 AM, oldbuzzard said:

The boat at 1:33 has a nice "Swallows and Amazons" vibe.

Yes, it's an old keel boat! They are quite peculiar to the Norfolk Broads which is an area of tidal wetlands which extend quite a long way inland. Most of them are pretty old now. We do a trip on them each spring. It's great fun.

As it happens re Swallows and Amazons.... there is a boat that once belonged to Arthur Ransome that is owned by a sailing club just down river from Cambridge, we've been up the club and sailed on her a couple of times. That was quite special.

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Love the video. Our historian did a "year in review" video at a previous COH and it was a bit melancholy since we lost a scout this year and you saw the pictures and videos of events with and without him. Especially hard to be in the room with the parents who are also major Troop leaders. Same year my youngest just got his Eagle. Real roller coaster. Still worth the trip, glad I was there for that boy and my son to say nothing of helping the walking emotional wounded.

We had our holiday party for the Troop...basically just a pot luck. No program just folks talking and laughing. Got to sit in on a BOR for a scout completing STAR rank...crackerjack lad, very active and no problems. Restored my faith in scouting again. Now that my boys have aged out still trying to get used to my 'elder statesman' status; fortunately there are a few older hand scouters who are giving me advice--it is trickier than I thought.

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