14th Broadstairs Scout Camp 2014
At the weekend 90 Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Young Leaders, Leaders & Helpers descended on Minster camp site for our Group Camp and to mark the First World War Centenary we gave this years Camp a World War theme on the 19th May 2014
It started on Friday evening with the Cubs and Scouts being evacuated by train to Minster and a short march up to the campsite. Nick from Holy Trinity Scouts came out and gave a brilliant presentation on Thanet Scouts during the Wars and had uniforms and other memorabilia for the Cubs and Scouts to try (loved the Minion in the babies gas mask!). He told the story as an Air Raid Warden and the as he shouted “get those lights out” the Young Leaders slammed the shutters and doors closed as Akela turned the lights out, not sure who screamed the loudest!
It was then hot dogs & hot chocolate for supper and of course it was the war so no Ration Book, no supper or tuck as they would find out later.
Saturday morning it was up early (very, very early for some! They won’t be doing that again in a hurry!) and after breakfast all off to meet the Beavers at the end of the lane where we boarded our coaches for a day out at Dover Castle.
We split into 3 Groups for the tour of the Hospital Tunnels and then into smaller groups for the rest of the day as we tried to answer the questionnaire that Kaa had prepared. With so much to see and do how would we cover it all? Jane and Gadget had no such problem with their group. With maps and guides put away in bags they had the best tour guide you could ever want at Dover Castle, they had Hugh! He was amazing, he knew short cuts, he knew what was in each room and where it was. Thank you Hugh you were brilliant. We all meet up again for lunch, but before we split again for the afternoon we invested 4 new Cubs and Scouts under one of the large Artillery guns (if I’ve got that wrong Hugh let me know!).
At the end of the day it was back to site for dinner and campfire. Well done to our chefs, beef stew for 90 wasn’t easy! and it tasted amazing. After dinner it was campfire. With so many new Beavers, Cubs and Scouts for some it was the first time they been to a campfire and it didn’t take long for everyone to get into the swing of it.
It was up Sunday morning (not as early as Saturday, might have been something to do with all the steps and slopes they had been walking up and down at Dover Castle) for various activities including cracking codes, making maps on silk handkerchiefs and flying Spitfires on the Flight Simulators. Four of our Beaver Scouts helped Hathi plant some poppy seeds that we will see in bloom later in the year. They were planted in a corner of the site that will be left wild so we should see them year after year. When they had finished someone pointed out that Poppy was one of the Beavers, how cool is that!
After lunch it was tents down and time to pack the remaining kit.
Before camp Akela set a challenge to come up with a badge. Well done Presley badge2who’s design was picked out as the winner. Unfortunately they didn’t arrive in time but should hopefully be here for this weeks meetings.
Over the weekend we buddy’d up the Scouts with the Cubs and Beavers so each Scout had two Cubs and a Beaver to look after, it was great to see everyone getting on so well and helping each other at meal times, round the campfire, etc
Group Camp really is a great event. As an Assistant Scout Leader, a few days ago I could probably have named half of our Cubs. I think I could now name most of the Cubs and Beavers, it’s great to get to meet every one and spend time with the Leaders that you only see as you swap over on a Thursday night or at meetings. It also means as the Beavers and Cubs move through the sections they now know we are not as big and as scary as we look!
Camp would not happen with out a lot of hard work form a lot of people so a massive thank you to all the Helpers, Exec, Young Leaders, Leaders and anyone I’ve forgotten, we couldn’t do it with out you.
And of course how we could forget our Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, you were all brilliant over the weekend (even those tents that decided it would be good to get up at 4:45am!). For some it was their first night away so well done everyone and on behalf of all the Leaders thank you for a great weekend.
As well as a lot of hard work a camp of this size takes a lot of money. The reason we were able to subsidise this camp so heavily was that we managed to obtain a grant. So a huge, huge thank you goes to Cllr Zita Wiltshire – KCC Members Grants for the funding, You made a lot of people very happy, we learnt a lot and had an amazing weekend.
