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

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