Featured, Scouts

Scouts Cycle from Groombridge to Crawley, with hammocks!

At the start of October a combined group of both scout troops (plus a couple of guest cubs) cycled from Groombridge, just round the corner from Adamswell Scout Camp, all the way to the outskirts of Crawley.

On the way we took a detour to Hammerwood Scout Camp, where we made use of their superb supply of trees for a whole-troop hammock camp for the first time.

After ‘pitching’ their hammocks, a healthy mountain of stew and some pancakes, the scouts went off in the woods for a wide game before returning for some marshmallows.

We awoke after a slightly chilly night’s sleep to egg and bacon butties prepared by the overworked leaders before heading off for day two on the bikes.

All in all it worked very well – definitely the lightest-weight camp we have tried with such a large number of people – there were 35 of us in total.  We have just got to find a suitable location for us to try it again!

Thanks to everyone involved (leaders, young people, accompanying parents) but Rob in particular – it was his first time as Event Leader!

Featured, Scouts

Scouts go Microlighting

The scouts went camping at Old Hay Airstrip at the weekend. It is tucked away down some very narrow roads about 10mins from Paddock Wood in Kent.

On arriving, it took everyone right until late supper to get the tents up, but there was a wonderful moon as we all retired to a well-deserved night’s sleep (all I can say is the leaders slept well).

This was the first greenfield camp that many of the scouts had done, so there was lots of basics to cover (pitching tents, altar fires, wet pits, chemical loos, cooking for themselves, washing up).

Apart from the basics, we managed to cover knife skills – the scouts (and the cub and beaver) produced many good tent pegs and some fair attempts at cutlery. We all had an archery session c/o Carl and an enormous camp fire c/o Donald, complete with s’mores.

The catering worked out well this camp; the menu included a traditional scouting breakfast, hearty chicken stew, chocolate cake and custard, pancakes and lots of hot chocolate.

The main event was microlighting.  As usual when doing anything to do with flight, we spent the whole weekend looking at the weather.  On Saturday only three scouts got to fly before it was blown out, but on Sunday they managed to get all the scouts apart from the last three up in the air.  Overall though we had some great weather (too much sun was a problem rather than too little), it was just a bit blowy.

A big thank you to the Lee and Tony from Kent Scouts Air Activity Team

Providing fun and adventure for boys and girls 6 years old and up.