A Big Bag of Apologies...

Erm, well... I guess I should have posted something a bit earlier on this blog, but I have MOVED! Yes, it's all very exciting, but I have simply changed blogging websites to the wonderful being that is Tumblr. You can find my new blog here:

http://thesearethedaysofendlessdreaming.tumblr.com/

Sorry for all those who thought I had just given up on my blog, I most definitely haven't!

So toodloo blogspot, see you all in Tumblr!


H

It's About Time...

I though that, seeing as I talk about them so much in this, I should tell you a little about the people in my unit, the people I will be sharing the most amazing experience with. Here is just a little peak at some of the members of Spitfire...

Kirsty: I've known her one of the longest as she went to the selection day with me. One of the original members of Sporkism, though, if I can remember, she actually set up the Anti-Sporkism group... Oh well. She may be short (and short's a GOOD thing) but she has a massive personality, and is one of my best friends at Jambo, as well as being owner of Percy the Dinosaur (more on him later!).

Hayley: I first spoke to Hayley because we have the same initials, which means we stood together in a line when picking teams. She's very bubbly and bright, and will always bring a smile to your face. I haven't seen her for a while because she hasn't been in a patrol of mine for ages!

Adam: He's my Twin. I can't exactly remember where that came from, but I'm sure as soon as he reads this he wont hesitate to remind me. He WAS an original member of Sporkism, he once ran into a rope, causing a rather large gateway to collapse, he does a great Irish accent, and he's a pretty awesome person. 

Kay: Kay is, well, a babe. She is a really cool person, has a great taste in music, and is incredibly funny person. She's an awesome person to talk to, and although I haven't known her very closely that long, she's one of my bestest friends there. She shares my passion for crazy piano playing and awesome hats. 

Mike: Mike MAAANNN, as he is commonly known. Mental, he is, but in a good way. Always cracking jokes, never knows when to shut up, which means he's still talking when we have all gone quiet, which keeps the atmosphere up. Him and Kay are the cutest thing... well... ever.

Jack: The little, crazy one. Never stops talking about diving, his passion. A little random sometimes, but that's awesome. Starts off the best conversations. He ALSO never stops talking. Always running around, never fails to make you laugh, even if it is AT him not with him. But we know he doesn't mind. 

Georgia: The REALLY crazy one. Seems to have an addiction to sugar. Never give it to her though, she'll be bouncing off the walls for hours. Her, well, bouncing personality makes her a joy to be around because it seems to rub off on everyone else. She's also very good at making tea.

That's just a few of the 36 people going, I will give you some info on the others a little later.

H

Perhaps Paradise Park wasn't quite right.

February 13th marked yet another Jambo meet up, this time in the familiar settings of Danemead. We had been there once before for our back to basics camp, but this time we would be walking from Danemead to Great Amwell, about four hours away.

Now, what with us being teenagers, and it being very early on a Sunday morning (well I say early, it was about half nine), we were all pretty tired, and cold. Luckily, we set off very quickly with out any time to think about how cold of tired we were. We were in the patrols that we have been in for the last couple of meetings, and we are beginning to think that these could be our patrols for the Jamboree. Which would be great because my patrol is pretty awesome. Anyway, we set off walking at a good pace. One of our patrol members seemed to know the woods quite well, so we were thinking, yeah, we are going to make this in good time! We had a pretty fast group, chatting, listening to reggae, laughing but walking steadily.

Unfortunately, maybe it was our lack of knowledge of how to read a map, which is unlikely, or our reliance on the person who knew the woods, which is unlikely, or even some dark wizard leading us astray, which is most likely, we, um, got lost. Quite badly. We had ended up walking in quite a large circle for about two hours, and ended up at Paradise Park, a nature reserve about a hundred meters from where we started. And yeah, we felt pretty stupid. Luckily, we have such wonderful leaders that told us to go back to the car park where we started, and take a shorter route to the lunch spot. When we arrived we got a fair few laughs and teases, mostly because we had turned up 45 minutes late, but after eating a surprisingly amazing lunch, we were up on our feet and raring to go again.

Despite our major deviation from the route the first time, and major lateness, we ended up turning up at the finish point at the same time as everyone else. It MUST have been our immense walking skills, and one of our leaders promises he didn't change our route to a shorter one. After a bit of relaxing, some washing up and some hot squash, we tidied up, sorted out some badges and then packed off home. Much to the delight, I'm sure, of my parents, I turned up on the doorstep very muddy, very messy and very happy.


All in all, a very nice day, thank you guys!



H

And finally....

I'm finished! Fund raising that is. After almost exactly a year of fundraising, I have raised the total needed! It been quite a long, sometimes hard, but almost all of the time fun year of fundraising, so here is the total list of things I have been doing:

- Eggs - My wonderful chickens have been providing me with eggs since the beginning, and I hope they will comtinue to! Thank you very much Ladies.

- Fudge - I have been making fudge for almost 4 years now, and I have to say it is my most reliable, and delicious, frm of fund raising. I recommend it to anyone who needs to fund raise!

- Bake sale - I have done a lot of bake sales, including the Grove school fair and a lot at Tring School.

- Making and selling hair bands, pins, etc - I did this earlier on in the year.. well, my fundraising year, and although it took a lot of time and effort, I am really proud of the hairbands and pins that me and my Mum made!

- Coconut shy at the Albury Fair - This was one of my best money raisers, but also one of the hardest things I had to do. I give all my thanks to Ridgeway Scout troop for lending me the stall. The day itself was a very wet and cold one, but after six hours on the stall, your fingers and toes get cold enough that you don't  feel them. I'm so glad I did it none the less.

- Recycling phones

- Bag packing at M&S - The people from my selection day, Kirsty, Chris, Helena, Chloe and I, did this as part of a group fund raise.

- Babysitting - I've done this for my parents quite a lot, looking after my brother.

- Pet sitting

- Raffle at the Crong Music Evening - I did this with Chloe, another girl from the Spitfire unit. It was a lot of fun, and the music was great!

 

So that's it! I also have to give a big thank you to the Tring Lions, who gave me a very kind donation towards my Jamboree.

 

Any other money I make between now and the Jamboree will go towards and kit I need, hiking boots or a new camera.

 

Now that I have finished my fundraising, I feel just that little bit closer to the Jamboree.

 

 

 

H

The Badges...

I mentioned before that I had some fund raiser support badges for sale, and now I finally have a picture of them!

If you want to buy one, contact me my leaving a comment on this post, or on hannah@lorato.co.uk



H

The Jambo Journey Continues...

So we had another camp on the weekend, this time at Lees Wood, which was actually the place where all of us met for the first time. It was nice going back there because it was a really nice camp site, and what made it especially nice was the fact that we got to sleep in huts, not tents, which was a nice change! When we got there on Friday we lounged around for a bit, then had a very nice home made pizza and were told what was in store for us this weekend.  We then played a wide game that was supposed to take us until 10:30, but it actually finished at quarter to midnight. We trudged back to our hut, only to find that as soon as we snuggled down into our sleeping bags, we were wide awake. After about an hour, Kirsty FINALLY admitted that she seems to never be able to stop talking, we went to sleep. Some of us got up at half 6 to make breakfast (ouch!). which was very nice for a breakfast cooked by people that were half asleep, we started on our day activities.

Patrol 2 (which was my patrol) went tree planting first. You see, on the Jamboree there will be at least one point in time when we will have to do some community service in Sweden, either on or off the site, and our leaders thought we needed some... practice. In Less Wood they have ordered about 500 trees to be planted in the wood, and we went to help. It was pretty cold, and we were all still tired, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. I'm quite proud of all the trees we planted, which I think turned out to be over 200 over the whole course of the weekend. We then moved onto planning an entertainment for people for when we get to the Jamboree, as well as trying out some Stomp, which was VERY interesting! We had lunch and did quite a bit of hanging about while things were getting sorted, and then we started working on some other projects. We had decided at the last camp that we wanted a unit cook book that could have all of the recipes on it that we could try and use with the food we are given. We also made a list of songs to learn, as well as another list of things we needed to take. Each unit gets half a shipping container that will go to the site early that can be filled with any extra things we might want, including footballs, twister boards, a Horse (?!?) and two birthday cakes, seeing it will be mine and Chloe's birthday when we are there!

That evening we had a talk from one of the people in our unit's Dad, who went to the 18th Jamboree in Holland. It was really interesting to get some info on what goes on day to day at the camp, instead of just the amazing activities we will be doing. He gave us loads of tips on how to talk to people and make friends, how to spend and manage our time, and just how to get the most out of the Jamboree in general. Because he had previously gone to one, he had so much.... stuff from it! He had all sorts of t shirts, scarves, badges, photos and things people had given him, including some 15 year old sweets which we were allowed to eat! That may sound disgusting, but they tasted a bit like fruity Mentos...

We had dinner cooked by one of the other patrols, and then headed off to bed again. Unfortunately, the next morning it was my patrols turn to get up and make breakfast, but after being crown Queen of Eggy Bread, I guess it wasn't too bad. We started the day with a bit of pioneering, as well as designing and being to make our life sized (not really, about a 10th of the size!) model of a spitfire. It was designed like one of those aeroplanes that can just be slotted together so it's easy to transport, and although at the moment its just bits of wood painted white, I think it looks really good! I'm very excited to see what it looks like at the end. We also designed the route card for our next meeting, which is a hike.

We got all our stuff packed up, said our farewells, and went home to a nice warm bath and a hot cup of tea... (as well as a whole lot of homework!)



H

And....

It's 200 days to go everyone! 200 days until we leave for the best Scout camp ever!!!

Jambo Update!!

Happy New Year! It's 2011, the year of the Jamboree! I have been working towards the Jamboree for almost a year now, and I still have 7 months to go. But there is still some news from Jamboree Central (Our Troop).

Horray! We finally have a confirmed date for our Home Hospitality, also known as HoHo. And the country is.... the Czech Rebublic! The average temperature in the summer is between 20 and 25 degrees, and can get as hot as 30 degrees! So it should be roasty toasty when we get there on Sunday the 7th of August. We will be leaving for the Jamboree on the 24th of July, and be getting home on the 11th of August. Which means that my birthday is going to be on the last day of the actual Jamboree! That means I will probably have the closing ceremony on that day! Woop Woop! Though, that also probably means I might have all the packing up to do, but even THAT will be fun!

I am going on a camp to Lees Wood in a couple of weeks time, but I don't know anything about that yet. At our last camp we were given our brand new Jamboree scarf, as well as fund raising badges and our uniform badges. If anyone wants to buy a fund raising badge, they are £1.50 each, just contact me!


I will give another report of the camp when I get back from it!




H