Fund raising part 2 - The Fudge

Unfortunately, relying completely on the sale of eggs to get me to the Jamboree is a nice thought, but might take me a decade to get me there. So I had to find something else to sell at many fairs and events of which there seem to be many around the Christmas period. A while ago someone, I think it was my mum, bought me a sweets cook book. One of the recipes was fudge, and at the time I thought that would be a nice thing to do, everyone loves fudge, me and my family included. I gave it a go, and after rather a few completely failed batches and about, oh, 4 years, I think I can finally say I can go into a kitchen and whip up a pretty decent batch. Luckily for me, where ever I go, it always sells.

I have been selling it at my brothers school fair for the last four years, and have managed to build up some people who come back every year! This year I also sold a lot at my school fairs, of which there is one about every half term or so, and at the Victorian evening in Tring. I was lucky enough to sit on the end of the stall run by my old Scout troop, and I am very grateful to them.

In total, between the Grove school fair, all the stuff I have done at Tring school and Victorian evening, I have made over 200 bags - nearly 16kg! That's a pretty big stomach ache! Its one of the best sources of income I have for the Jamboree, and I am so glad that I have it. It is a lot of work, but it is most definitely worth it.


Apologies for the wait but it is, after all, Christmas!

H

What a Jolly Swedish Christmas...

I had another Jambo camp this weekend past, and lets just say it wasn't quite what I had expected! When i heard that we were going to be going from one hut, into the centre of St Albans, and then back to a different hut, I though, well, its going to be some sort of orienteering challenge. I couldn't have been more wrong. We were put into groups, given a recipe, and then told that later one that day we would be cooking a Swedish Christmas dinner. My group got one part of the pudding, almond tarts, and then headed into St Albans. This was really good training for the Jamboree, because every day we will have to go and fetch our food. We don't know how far away it will be, or how much there will be of it. We will also have to cook without a recipe, just a pile of food, Ready Steady Cook style.

Once we started cooking, or preparing in our case, because ours didn't take very long at all to cook (One teams took 3 and a half hours!) we were told that we had some 'projects' to get on with. These were making some Christmas decorations. We made Reindeer out of clothes pegs, and although they took ages to dry, and a fair few fell apart, I think they worked really well! We also made Snowmen/Skiers, depending on how you looked at it. These were for our place names at the table, and some people managed to come up with some rather inventive ideas, including a pirate and a Snowman on a rampage. There was also crackers to make (possibly the most frustrating thing I have EVER done!) which I was VERY pleased with, and fabric hearts, which we hung on our small but very festive tree. There was also light to hang around the hut, along with the paper chains we spent ages make. Once it was all finished, I think its fair to say we were all very proud of our efforts, as well as pretty hungry!

Luckily for us, dinner was almost ready, and as we sat down, although there was a bit of waiting, we, with Sporks in hand, tucked into a mushroom starter, delicious main and a whole lot of pudding. It was very nice, and definitely something I would love to eat again. It was nice to do something that involved us in Swedish culture more. Once this was done, there was some clearing up to do, before the boys headed back to the hut where they would be sleeping, when us girls got to stay in the warmth of the original hut. We did have to finish cleaning up though, but it didn't really matter, because once we laid out our sleeping mats and bags, it was nice to just hang out, and chat and muck about. We listened to music and laughed and had a pretty good time.  We did eventually settle down to bed.

The next day we woke pretty early (well, earlier than I normally would on a Sunday!) and we got to work. It was mainly about cleaning up the hut, and then the boys came back over and we had a massive discussion about a lot of really important things, like whether to do a flash dance as our unit entertainment (YES!) and some advice about the actual site. When it was time to go I think we were all pretty sad, because this was one of the best Jambo meetings yet. I got to know some people that I didn't really know before, I leant how insane and how much fun we can have together.


H

Oh, and another thing...

For those who didn't know, my Nana included, THIS is a Spork.

General Scouty Things...

Lots of stuff has been happening with me in Scouts lately, so although its not specifically Jamboree related, I thought I ought to tell you a little about it.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a talk to the Ridgeway Cubs about the Jamboree (see, I DID mention it!). At first I was pretty, well, worried. As you walk in , the first thing that hits you is the noise. 30 or so 8, 9 and 10 year olds in a fairly echo-y hall is any speech-givers nightmare! But actually, it turned out quite well. Once they settled down, they were a very nice audience to talk to. Some were a bit squirmy, but I think that most of them took in what I said. I talked them through a bit about what the Jamboree was, and why I was going, as well as a bit on fund raising and when they can go. We then played what turned into quite a long game, along the lines of each pair having a card, and then them having to find their matching pair. It was based around countries, to try and get them to learn something, and I think at least a few of them enjoyed it.

It was a nice way to start to learn how to talk to people who had never heard of it before about it, to see what their reactions were. Of course, its going to be different with people my age, or older people, as I'm going to get different reactions with all of them. But Cubs are a good starting point. What's more, I got the honour of joining in their game at the end. I can't exactly remember what it was called, but it mainly involved me being a 'Princess' and the Cubs had to come 'save me'. It was a lot of fun, even though i did get slightly squished and trampled on. I was quite sad to leave early, but I had to get to my own, slightly more sophisticated Explorers. This left my slightly less princess-like friend who is a permanent helper at Cubs to take my place as Princess. I don't think he minded at all.

My second Scouty date in my calender over the past couple of days was my Chief Scout Gold Award presentation. For those who don't know, the Gold Award is the highest award you can get as a scout, apart from the Diamond award. It consists of collecting several activity badges, and then planning and going on a two day hike. It had to be a Purpose with a Journey, or the other way around. I did it with 5 of my other friends from scouts, and to make it a bit more interesting, we decided it might be nice to head down to Dorset, hike all the way through Swanage, and then camp on Brownsea island, the birth place of scouting.

It was a very long, and very tiresome walk, and we seemed to pick a very hot weekend to go, but it was a whole lot of fun. We went all the way down to the bottom of dancers ledge, had a nice beach lunch, consisting of fish and chips, in Swanage, walking along a nudist beach, (no, that WASN'T intentional!) and when we finally got to the camp site, it was amazing. We were right next to the water, and spent a very long time paddling and occasionally swimming/falling in it. The camp site itself was very pretty, with water on one side and forest on the other. We slept outside that night, even though we had lugged the tents all this way, it just seemed right to sleep outside. We then packed up our things the next morning, and headed off to Corfe Castle, our end point.

I think  it was a very good experience for all of us, and a lot of fun too. It was my first ever proper hike, and really encouraged me to do the DofE. I hope it will be much of the same.

Anyway, back to my point, we had the awards on Tuesday, along with the AGM. The beginning bit was, admittedly, a bit boring, but it was nice at the end of it the have something to prove our efforts.

Sorry for this post being so long, I didn't think I would have this much to write!

We have a camp this weekend, so I will keep you posted on that once I get back

H

Sporks: A Complete List Of Uses

This is, as you can tell by the title, the complete list of uses for the Spork.

1. Knife
2. Fork
3. Spoon
4. Three in one tool
5. Presents
6. Drinking
7. Eating
8. Scratching your head
9. Christmas tree decorations
10. Hair styler
11. Lock picker
12. Garden tool
13. Rake
14. Cutting through rope
15. Attacking zombies
16. A very light hammer
17. Guitar pick
18. Light switch
19. Drum stick
20. Making very small snowballs
21. Ice cream scoop
22. Toasting marshmallows (not advisable with plastic Spork)
23. Stroking cats
24. Musical instruments
25. Wind chimes
26. Catapult for grapes
27. Moustache comb
28. Nose picker
29. Watering plants
30. Defending yourself in a fight
31. ‘Sporking’ people
32. Hunting rabbits
33. Good for eating Chinese food
34. Throwing Spork (to annoy people)
35. Digging your own grave
36. Eating soup and cabbage at the same time.

I started off with the normal red plastic spork. It was the most useful thing I owned. It turned out that several people on Jambo also had one, and so Sporkism was born. Unfortunately, my oh so lovely brother broke my spork, and so I had to buy a new one. I have now moved on to a titanium spork, and it is DEFINITELY the coolest thing I am taking to the Jamboree.

More uses to come, if I think of them! 

H

( Many thanks to Kirsty, Adam, Hayley, Mike, Georgia and others for some of the ideas above!)

Mmm... Deep Fried Jam Sandwiches...

This was our first proper camp. It was at Well end, a camp site I had been to a couple of times. It was from the 21st to the 23rd of May, and it was an absolutely baking hot weekend. We had only just met each other, but there was a really good atmosphere around. We arrived, got together in groups and started putting up the tents. This was, well, interesting, and mixed with chatting and mucking about and playing rugby. Well, I call it rugby, it was more 'tackle whoever had the ball'. Nothing very sophisticated, but good fun all the same.

Once the tents were up, we got together and were put into patrols. We swap around these patrols every time we started a new activity so that we got the know everyone. We had to make the majority of our meals, and one consisted of making an oven out of a cardboard box and some tin foil, then putting a pizza (which we had also made) inside. Its was surprisingly delicious. The evenings were spent round the camp fire, chatting and laughing until it was time for bed.

On Saturday we started on a project. We were told that we had to have a gateway to put at the front of our small site on the actual Jamboree. We spent the first part of the day designing them with skewers and bits of thread, and then moved onto the big stuff. We worked long and hard on our massive pioneering gates, often having to have a break from what was the increasingly roasting day. But finally, we were done. I think its safe to say that all of the groups were very pleased with their 'creations'.

As you can see, ours had a VERY awesome revolving... thing. Which, I guess, didn't really work, unless you were a three foot high dwarf. But we were proud all the same. We also found out that one of them could be collapsed, and then put back up again, like a piece of Ikea furniture. This only came about because my friend Adam ran into one of the poles in the dark. Very funny, and rather scary at the same time!
Another one of the awesome, if not a little strange things we did was make deep fried jam sandwiches. Which, I know, sound horrid. But just wait. They were exactly what they sound like, jam sandwiches dipped in batter and then fried. And they were amazing! There is nothing more satisfying sitting around with your friends on a very hot summers day, eating deep fried jam sandwiches with a spork. If you never have, I seriously recommend it.

Now, Sporks. Possibly the worlds greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, scrap that, they are BETTER than sliced bread. There is nothing to describe the awesomeness of a spork. A religion was born from that camp called sporkism, to celebrate sporks. And so was the counter religion Anti-sporkism. But we wont go into that. One day i will make a post with the completed list of 'uses for sporks'.

But until then, that's all I have to say.


H

Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots of London

As we go along on our Jambo adventure, we are having a lot of bonding exercises. One of these was a day called 'London Adventure'. We didn't know much about it until we got there, but the long and short of it is: we had to go around London, using any mode of transport, apart from car, and take pictures of ourselves with certain landmarks, of which we had a list. They were things like Paddington bear, The Swedish Embassy (because we are going to Sweden!) and a red bus. There was about, oh, 25 of these 'destinations' and each of them were ranked with different points, depending on how hard they were to get to. I think that Paddington bear was only 10 points, whereas the Swedish Embassy was 25!

There was a lot of running around that day, a lot of missing of buses and trains (one team managed to leave half their team off the train, with the other half on!) and it was a lot of fun. We stopped for lunch half way through, and although we were all supposed to meet up at the same time, that didn't really work, with teams arriving half an hour after the one before, and someone getting pooped on by a bird in the process. Yes, it was VERY funny.

It was a lot of hard work, and it did involve a LOT of running, but I think we all got on really well, and learned a lot about London in the process. We saw loads of sites that I had never actually seen before, like the Globe Theatre. We went to the statue of Nelson Mandela and London Bridge. It was a great day, and I think that I made a lot of friendships a lot stronger. 

H

Fund raising part 1 - The Chickens

As you probably know, I have to raise a lot of money for this amazing trip. £1325 to be exact. This means a LOT of fund raising. My biggest long-term form of this is my two lovely chickens. We got them about a year ago and their names are Pebble and Rose, the first is a Silver Link, the other a Columbian Black Tail.

Everyday I clean them out, and collect the eggs, which I then sell to friends and their families. They are lovely pets, though they do take quite a lot of work! It's worth it though. they have been massive contributors to my Jambo fund, and I hope they continue to be.

More about fund raising to come.

H

Scouts Speak Up.... Hoe-downs, Happiness and a Whole lot of Tea.

The weekend just passed I went to a Scouts Speak Up course up at Gilwell park in north east London. This is the home of scouting in the UK, and as the website says, 'It’s our biggest centre and boasts excellent facilities that rival any activity centre.' It really is a very cool camp site, and was a perfect choice for the course! The course itself was a media and communications course, trying to train people who were going to the Jamboree how to talk to the media in the press, on TV and on the radio. This meant a lot of practical stuff, like using a portable radio mike to record interviews (in which I managed to forget where curry came from!) and then listening to them back. It was strange how weird your voice sounds on the radio!

We also did some interviews with a video camera, which I found much easier. This was probably because it was just like having a conversation with someone, it was very relaxed. There was also a press activity, and a main project on campaigning, which was A LOT of fun. I was in the Hot Pink group (woo!) and our topic was anti-social youths, which was a lot harder than you might imagine! We came second over all, which I think we were all really chuffed about! 

On Saturday night, we were told we were going to have a 'cowboy themed party', but I don't think any of us were expecting what was to come! There were hay bales everywhere, cactuses, palm trees (okay?), decorations, and all the leaders were properly dressed up! We all had an amazing night (well, I certainly did!) with all of us rocking out most of the time to the top hoe-down hits. We did have some 'normal' music at the end, but there was nothing more enjoyable than watching people slip sliding around trying to dance like a cowboy. With my AMAZING partner and a whole bunch of new friends, I had the best time ever.

All of this was split up with cups of tea (8, count 'em people! A world record, I'm thinking) and getting to know other people. I made some great new friends, and learnt a lot! I really hope I can keep in touch with them, and see them again at the Jamboree, which I am more excited about than ever!

H x

First isn't always the worst

The first time all 36 of us met as a unit was on March 7th at Lees wood. All of us knew one, maybe two people, but all that I knew was that I was in a room full of strangers (minus Kirsty and Chloe, the two other girls who were at my selection day!), who would turn out to be some of the best people I know, and that I would be spending some of the best times of my life with them.

We started with the typical getting-to-know-you exercises, where we got to find out a little more about everyone, including some of the leaders. The day that followed was a mix of activities like fire lighting, games, and putting up a tent blind-folded (which, as you can probably guess, was VERY interesting, and also VERY funny!) There was also a fair bit of tea making, house keeping and name learning. We got to have a proper chat with some more people over lunch, and I made some good friends just on that first day. It was all a bit crazy, and there was a lot of info to take in, but it was defiantly so much fun.

I will post some pictures up when I can.


H

Let's start at the very beginning.

Okay, so I'm very new to the whole blog thing, but here we go.

On the 21st of Feburary I was chosen to go to the 22nd world scout Jamboree in Rinkaby, Sweden. I am in the 44th hertfordshire unit, Spitfire. This was a name we came up with together, and will feature on everything we do. So far we have had two over night camps, 3 days together, and one year to go BBQ. All of these have been amazing, the weather has been, well, varied, and the activities have been so much fun! But I will share some more about that later...

The Jamboree is held every four years, each year in a different country. Last year it was here in the UK, and I was lucky enough to go along for the day, which was mind blowing. there was about 42,000 people there, and the size and scale and general vibe there was glorious. This was one of the main reasons I signed up for the Jamboree, and I'm so glad I did.


That's all for now, I will keep everything up to date each week.