Disco socks
Tag: explorers
There’s no mud
Up too late last night!!
The Fifth has doubled in size in 10 years and, to match the growth, we have had to buy an awful lot of kit. We welcomed girls in 2007 and that meant we needed more new tents, toilets and changing areas. We are careful with your money and we shop around for months to find the best deals for The Fifth. How about some examples?
An excellent turnout from the explorers who got all their kit out ready for a weekend at gilwell. Thus will include 24hrs of continuous activities from Saturday to Sunday
checking they have all the poles for the mess tent.
They can be genuinely useful! It makes Phil’s job much easier when they all muck in.
Do you know what the worst job for a leader is? It’s telling kids that they can’t join the group.
Click the image to see our growth since 2002
We refuse a couple of kids per week and we hate it. Our waiting list is not something to be proud of. It doesn’t show how succesful we are, it just shows that there are dozens of kids who don’t have the benefit of all the fun, friendship and adventure that they deserve.
We know this. We do our best to get as many kids in as possible. Â We’ve nearly doubled in size in ten years.
We could open a new beaver colony, cub pack and scout troop tomorrow with the numbers on the list. Isn’t that awful? we have just taken 8 kids from the list into cubs and that gives us 165 youth members but we have another 96 kids aged from 6 to 14 who want to get in.
Have you seen this? It’s rather good
[youtube clip_id=”cOM1n22XyHA” height=”” width=”640″]
We’ll keep trying to grow. We’ll keep recruiting adults and we’ll keep offering everyday adventure to as many kids as possible. Â For now, click on the tab marked links at the top of the page and you can choose to see the waiting list policy on there.
I dropped by to visit the explorers while they were setting up their hammocks for the night
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- The first one up,
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- Sooooo comfortable
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- Rob working on his knots. He must have had an awful scout leader… (gulp… oh the shame)
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- Backwoods cooking for dinner. Stew in a bag.
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- Nick lets his knots take the strain.
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- Looking good, although maybe the tarp is a bit high.
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- Sean loves his hammock
How about some facts and figures? Camping is the best thing that we do in scouts and we recognise that with badges for the young people as they move through the sections.
2,464 nights away among our 155Â under 18s
That’s nearly 7 years away.
Between the cubs scouts and explorers:
- only 5 young people have not been on a residential experience with us (and of those 5, 3 joined this term)
- all the explorers have been on a residential.
- I don’t include the beavers in this bit because they have 12 who do not have nights away badges but Badger and Squirrel have a sleepover planned next month
29 beavers – 17 have a nights away badge
and a sleepover is planned in July so that will round up the rest of them
- 11 have 2 or more
Cub Camp 2012 Group Picture
41 cub – 38 have a nights away badge
- 32 have 5 or more
- 14 have 10 or more
55 scouts – 53 have a nights away badge
- 40 have 5 or more
- 38 have 10 or more
- 19 have 20 or more
- 3 have 35 or more
Switzerland Trip 2011 Group Photo
31 explorers – all 31 have a nights away badge
- 29 have 5 or more
- 25 have 10 or more
- 22 have 20 or more
- 12 have 35 or more
- 9 have 50 or more
- 7 have 75 more
- 1 has 121 nights away
And every single one of these has been run by our 100% volunteer team of leaders
The Fifth have started buying hammocks and tarps for the Scouts Summer Camp.
We hit a major stumbling block when we found out the price of tarpaulins (the sheet that goes over the top like a tent) but after alot of hunting and emailing, we found a supplier who has provided us with all the tarps that we need at a fraction of the cost. They’re ‘seconds’ so they are slightly discoloured but at a discount of more than 60%, I think that we can put up with that! (we’re saving over £1,000)
We can’t wait to try them out, the explorers are hoping to give them a trial run this Friday and then the scouts will be let loose with them in the Summer.
The pictures below are from our suppliers at DD Hammocks.
The explorers bundled down to Frylands wood to see who could make the most adventurous and imaginative meal over a fire.
The winner was Dave Cole with his 100% homemade calzone.
