Category: Cub News

12 Cubs enjoyed a weekend camping at the Scout Hut from the 3rd to the 5th of October 2014.

Friday Night

The Cubs arrived at 6:30, and after helping to start put up their tents, went and joined in with the Scout meeting, whilst Akela, Shere Khan and a number of parent volunteers finished putting up the tents in the dark! Around 8pm, after the Cubs had made popcorn with the Scouts on gas burners, the tents were up and they unpacked. After the Scout meeting finished the Cubs had a light supper of Hot Dogs, followed by Hot Chocolate, before heading off to be at 10. Most of them were asleep after an hour, and Akela was quite impressed that he only had to get up once to have a word!

Saturday

After a breakfast of Cereal, Bacon, Scrambled Egg and Spaghetti Hoops the Cubs had a kit inspection. They then gathered some wood for both the camp fire and the altar fire that their dinner would be cooked on.

The Cubs then headed out in their tent groups for a quick hike to the village football pitch. Whilst the leaders with them knew where they were going, all the Cubs had to go on was a list of compass bearings and landmarks to head to. All the groups got there very quickly, but unfortunately the promised heavy rain had arrived, so instead of the planned game of football, the leaders decided an extended hike was in order.

We headed north, via the cricket pitches to Dolley’s Hill and then onto the Ranges. The red flags were out, so we took a slight detour across a few boggy areas (around Whitepatch Bottom), which were expertly navigated by one of the sixers, who seemed particularly adept at finding the best route across the various water hazards.

All the Cubs banded together in some cases carrying each other!

The Cubs carried on to the top of Lookout hill, where we stopped for a much needed shelter from the rain and for a refreshment break, including some lovely cakes made by one the Cubs.

We then started to head back, but on the way had a game of Capture the Flag amongst the pine trees. Spot the Cubs in the picture above!

Shere Khan headed back ahead of the rest of us to get a lunch of Spaghetti Bolognaise and Spaghetti ready.

The Cubs then spent the afternoon working on their Naturalist badge: trying to find at least 6 different tree leaves around the grounds (I think the record find was 10), surveying the stream for life (at least one baby fish was found) and making a collage from scavenged leaves, twigs and other items about the camp.

After another tea and cake break, the Cubs found more wood for the Camp fire, whilst Akela started the Altar fire for dinner (and dried out the wood!)

The cubs then had a game of Sardines, before a dinner of baked potatoes (cooked on the fire), sausages, beans, followed by baked apples and chocolate filled bananas (again cooked on the altar fire).

Akela then went to get the Campfire alight, which despite most of the wood being quite wet due to the heavy rain didn’t take long at all, and only required a small amount of shredded paper & dried kindling to get it going.

Once the fire was ready, the Cubs finished their card games with Shere Khan and headed down for a number of campfire song favourites.

A particular highlight was the Cubs unaccompanied rendition of Ging Gang Goolie.

When the singing was done, the Cubs toasted some marshmallows, before heading back inside for hot chocolate and biscuits before heading off to bed for an early night. By ten there was not a whisper around the campsite!

Sunday

After a much colder night, the Cubs were still fast asleep at 7am, but Akela was already up making a breakfast of cereal, Eggy bread, bacon, beans and spaghetti hoops.

Then, following a quick kit inspection, it was time to strike the camp and pack all the tents away prior to the Cubs going home at 11.

Akela would like to thank the other leaders and all the parents who helped during the weekend, putting up the tents, and during the days helping with activities/cooking/washing up. As always without this assistance we would wouldn’t be able to provide the Cubs with so many activities.

The Cubs have continued to test their backwoods skills this week, following on from last weeks shelter building and fire lighting/cooking two weeks ago.

This week each six was given a box containing:

• 6 wooden pegs
• 1 mallet
• 4 lengths of rope
• 1 washing up bowl

Their task was to imagine they were stranded on a desert island and that they needed a clothes line to dry their neckerchiefs on, a scraper to clean their shoes on and a way to keep their drinking water (in the washing up bowl) up off the ground.

The results were quite varied, some sixes had very good washing lines, but rickety water holders. The foot scrapers were surprisingly inventive, with good use of rope being made – although one sixes design had to be changed when it was pointed out they’d probably trip over it quite often!

Tonight, after a wide game in the woods, the Cubs were set the task of making a waterproof shelter big enough for their whole six to sit in. Given they only had 40 minutes to construct it, the results were very good, although some were much more waterproof than others. Clearly some of the Cubs like their luxuries – some of the shelters were so large, they had room for tree stump seats in, whilst others were huddled together quite tightly!

On the 24th of November we entered a team into the Guildford West District Cub Handicraft Competition. One of our Cubs also joined 5th Guildfords team to make up the numbers.

This year the competition was slightly different, rather than being given a wide range of materials and a theme of what to make, the Cubs has instructions on how to build a Zoetrope and a working (i.e. launchable) paper rocket and bellows.

Both proved to be quite a challenge, especially the folding of the bellows for the paper rocket, for which our Akela was roped in to help just about every group!

Whilst our teams rocket didn’t fly the furthest – it had a tendency to go backwards – our team did well enough overall to be awarded the runners up trophy.

More information and pictures can be found in the Cub Scout Handicraft Competition 2009 report on the Guildford West Website

On the 3rd of October we entered two teams into the Guildford West District Cub Cooking Competition. The challenge was to cook a two course meal from scratch on gas burners with ingredients costing less than £5.

The only other stipulation was that the recipe had to consist of the core ingredients as set out by County. These being; potato, pasta or rice, onion, mushrooms, at least 1 fresh vegetable, meat, fish or tofu, and fresh fruit. Other items could be added but had to be within budget.

Both our teams cooked the same two courses of Akela’s devising:

• Fruity Pork Meatballs with Onion and Mushroom Mash and Courgette
• Vanilla rice with a fresh strawberry sauce

Both our teams did very well, with one of them winning the competition, meaning they went through to the (county) regional final.

More information and pictures of all teams dishes can be found in the Cub Scout Cooking Competition 2009 report on the Guildford West Website

County Regional Final

On the 24th of October 2009, the winning team from Normandy went through to the regional final against 4 neighbouring districts. On the day the only other district that turned up was Godalming, and unfortunately (for us) they won and went through to the County final.

That said both our teams did exceptionally well as the dishes they prepared from scratch involved a lot more work than other entries.

We currently have 20 Cubs in the pack, which is down slightly on this time last year. As I mentioned this time last year, we have a predominantly young pack, so have not had many moving up to Scouts in the last year; this situation is now changing, but it won’t be until next year that we regularly have lots of Cubs moving up to Scouts.

Having not many Cubs move up to Scouts coupled with our Assistant Cub Scout Leader, Barbara (Chil) suddenly leaving during the summer holiday last year, and also our Young Leader David Ireland going to University, meant that weren’t able to take Beavers when they were due.

We do now have a new Assistant Cub Scout Leader, Suzy, who joined us just before Christmas last year. Her pack name is Baloo; I’m sure I’ll be corrected, but I can’t recall there being a warranted leader called Baloo in 1st Normandy Cubs before! However with just the two uniformed leaders, we do still need to run a parents rota, and around 20 Cubs is the most we can take at the moment. So we are really in need of another uniformed leader, given the amount of interest both from Beavers moving up and from outside the pack.

As of last September we changed the meeting time to 6:30-8:00 on Mondays.

Onto what we’ve been up to over the last year:

Before the summer holidays we entered 2 and a “bit” teams into the District Sports Challenge. We didn’t win the competition, but one team were the Volleyball champions for the day and the other team were the Hockey champions for the day. This means that over the last two years, we’ve won all four of the individual sports. Hopefully at this year’s event, this coming Saturday, we can win the overall title.

Last September we went to the District Camp at Runways End, and had 15 of the Cubs camping. On the Saturday, the Cubs joined up with the Beavers, Scouts and Explorers from the District to take part in a number of activities, such as Air Rifle Shooting, Archery, Pedal Go-Karting, Climbing, Caving and Canoeing. The Sunday saw 10 of our Cubs forming two teams to take part in the District Cooking Competition. Seeing as they’d had no preparation and were just given a recipe and ingredients, they both did very well, although the Boys team produced a Bolognese with some definite Charcoal nuances! I’d like to take this opportunity to again thank Roger Prime and Dave Chambers, who both gave up their weekend to come and help. If they hadn’t been there we couldn’t have camped.

The district handicraft competition this year had the theme of being stranded on a desert island with a “mountain” stream. The challenge was to design and build a model of the island. We entered two teams of 4. The standard of the models was very high, but unfortunately after two years of winning the competition, this year we weren’t triumphant.

However we did triumph this year in the District Quiz. I unfortunately could not make the event, but I heard that our team was a long way in the lead for most of the competition. The only downside to winning the District Quiz, however, is that it’s up to the leaders of the winners to organise the next years quiz!

At the end of last year, the Cubs made Christmas cards and gifts to sell at the Christmas show, as well as the props for their “3 years of Cub Scouting” song. We have continued running Pack and Sixers Forums each term, the most recent of which resulted in the Sixer’s run Paper Aeroplane Challenge evening. At the District St Georges Day parade two of our Cubs with the ADC Cub Scouts, led the Cubs in prayer.

We have recently returned from our May Camp at Bentley Copse. After having a river run through our site last year, we decided to camp at the Nest, which meant we had an indoor kitchen, and also had somewhere dry should it rain. The Cubs and Leaders did camp outside, and for the most part the weather was lovely. I’d like to thank Kevin Riley for transporting all our equipment to and from camp, Nick McEvett (or Bagheera as he’s now known) for helping throughout the camp and the ADC Cub Scouts for once again organising the food. Now our Cubs have a short presentation about what they did on Camp….

Just in closing I would say that as previously mentioned we are on the lookout, as always, for more leaders. On that subject, we are as always very grateful to the parents, who’ve given up their time to help at meetings over the last year.

Currently we have 20 in the pack, with 1 linking to Scouts. There are a number of Beavers waiting to start at Cubs, however it is not known exactly how many (at least 3 due and a couple more later in the term), due to Amanda not having been given the records. Due to the fact that I am now the only Cub leader after Barbara resigned and David went to University, I am not in a position to accept any of the Beavers into the Pack, and have also had to turn away (or rather indicate that a position was not immediately available) at least 3 young people from outside the group.

District Camp -15 camped, 1 attended for the Saturday. I would like to thank Mr Prime and Mr Chambers (or Lofty and Shere Khan as they’re now called) for helping out over the weekend, without them to bring up our leader/young person ratio we couldn’t have camped. I would also like to again thank Mr Pick for transporting our equipment to and from the camp.

The camp as a whole was enjoyed by all, and the “late summer” weather certainly made it quite pleasant. On Saturday the Cubs took part in a number of activities with other Beavers, Cubs and Scouts from the district. Amongst other things the activities included Air Rifle shooting, Archery, Climbing, Go-Karting and Canoeing. On the Sunday 10 of the Cubs took part in a cooking competition – both managed to produce Spaghetti Bolognese and Fruit Salad with minimal assistance – however it has to be said one of the Bolognese dishes did have some heavy charcoal overtones.

This term I have revised the programme to fit in with the new Cub Scout Programme – those Cubs who turn up to every meeting will obtain their Community Challenge, DIY and Emergency Aid stage 2 badges. Thanks to Carole, we will be visiting St Mark’s church before Remembrance Sunday, which will count towards the Cub’s My Faith and Community Challenges. We have also done some of the requirements for the Promise Challenge, on that note next week we will have another Sixers planned/run evening which will involve indoor bivouac building (with bamboo and newspaper).
We are also planning on putting on a Christmas show with the Beavers on the 4th of December, at which each section will put on a show.

Looking further ahead I am planning to camp at Bentley again next year, although this is somewhat dependent upon our Leader situation at that point in time. That said we do have a number of very keen parents, who whilst they can’t due to work assist regularly on a Monday evening, are willing to camp and help out with activities – one father actually enjoyed just pegging out tents!

We have the District Handicraft Competition later this term and will be trying to retain the shield for the third year in a row.