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