communication issues

Seems I havent been communicating correctly with everyone.

This was brought up today as we cancelled explorers because of the weather, and the message didnt get around to everyone.

From now on I shall endeavour to keep all people in the loop as far as possible.

Actually feel quite bad about that. pretty bummed out.

Tidying up

Braddles and I went up to the hut over the weekend with the intention of clearing up the back room.

Cue music and tea, and off we go.

Started out taking pretty much everything out of it, attempting to catalogue some of it and putting it back.

wow. there was a LOT of stuff in theere, Im not going to write it all down, but suffice to say that there were 9 opened HP sauce bottles in there.

So its a bit tidier in there now, and there is a shed load of gumpf to throw away, but it is more organised. 

Part II of this is to go back of a weekend, with a BBQ or something, and really get it sorted out shelf by shelf, audit the tents, and make sure we know whats there.

Second week

Well the second week giving control of the night over to a patrol was not as successful as the first.

The night did not even start well, as no one in the patrol managed to turn up on time. When the first of the patrol turning up I had decided that no one was coming so started the evening myself.

Patrol turned up just as we broke parade for games asking for time to prepare for the evening. So whilst our 'leaders' prepare for the evening the scouts got changed for games and we play two rounds of the Minute game (All sit down count out 60 seconds and stand up when you think the minute is up, Closest one to a minute wins).

The 'Leaders' now 'organised' ran their first game of the evening. Which was a one on one football game (split the unit into two teams giving each member of a team a number. When your number is called you run up and try to score a goal before your opponent).

This game was cut short and not all the scouts got a turn. when some of the other 'leaders' decided that is was time for the next activity, painting. Each Patrol was given a selection of brushes, a palette of paint and a canvas a where told to paint a portrait of their patrol leader. This was given no dead line as it seemed that the had no further plans for the evening. The majority of the scouts soon getting restless and the painting activity did not really involve the entire patrol. So pretty quickly carnage ensued.

At this point it was decided that the actual leader would take over as the patrol had completely lost control of the evening. We got the paintings cleaned away and got the patrol to mark the paintings and the had out points.

before the evening ended we invested a new member. make the count up to 6 investitures in the year already.

Next weeks leading patrol have ask everyone to bring along a baby photo, which should be interesting.

Not as much carnage as expected

SO it went off quite well actually. 

Other than the fact the flag was upside down, and I cut myself... (on a kitchen knife, nothing more serious than that)

The idea being that a patrol runs the entire night, with no real help from us, to give them an idea of how much effort it is to co-ordinate and sort things out week after week. 

First up- was good, started with a game of quarters, or some such thing, with the novel way of non random selection for teams. which worked ok actually, and then let loose. It was good as there was no physical contact, but still very competitive- which is a good thing to think about. 

Then a game of wink murder, swiftly followed by getting on with the evening. 

As leaders we were tyring to be slightly disruptive, just to give it an edge, but not too bad. 

During the cooking, Braddles and I did most of the prep work, while Whitey sorted out 3 of them for investiture next week. 

Each team was given the same ingredients in the style of ready steady cook, and off we went. 

Mild chaos ensued, but I made sure we concentrated on our own stuff, and didnt intefere, letting the duty guys get on with keeping order and making sure nothing drastic happened. Which worked quite well. 

Food was done by 9pm, and as a point for future cooking stuff, it should be noted that hot water and bowls should be out on the tables for immediate washing up use, to expediate clearing up at the end. 

The leaders and the duty guys ended up staying for about 20 mins after, clearing stuff up, but was kind of to be expected really. 

oh, and the leaders are clearly kicking butt when it comes to getting points. 

a success so far. Lets see what happens next week. 

Ye Gads. 

First in a series

So this evening is the first evening in which we let the Kids (ahem, young adults) take over for an evening. 

This one is meant to be something along the lines of ready steady cook, and I suspect that the actual cooking and clearing up is going to take a fair bit longer than they think it is....

Im predicting total chaos, but it might be ok... 

first week back

Entertainment abound...
only really a skeleton idea of what was going to be happening this evening, so the fact it went off quite well, was a very good thing.
Started off with blindfold punch and judy, followed by a thinking/practical game with candles, mugs, string, gaffa tape and bits and pieces.
That was organised by Braddle, and it progressed excellently. Though I think that we need to make it a little more complex and more difficult- they were surprisingly quick at it.

After break we sat down and told them basically what was going to go on this term, camps and outs and things like that.
The First is to Alton towers- just for a weekend at the end of March.
There will be a camp on the second May Bank holiday- which will probably be at Youlbury, or maybe in Gloucester, and Summer camp is going to be- probably- at Hawkhirst waaaay up north.

A minor point about the May camp is that GCSEs and exams start around that time, so it might be a quiet one...

We are also looking at getting 100 nights collective expedition nights out of the Explorers, and the person with the most nights by the middle of the year will get a free Out- which we are planning to be at Milton Keynes snowdome.

Christmas

Christmas party the other night... went off ok, certainly not the most disaterous we've ever had! No, really, actually it was good. 

Started off with a boisterous game of balloon stamping... and didnt tell them we were going to turn the lights off until they started. Most amusing. 

Then a quiz, kindly made up by one of the other leaders, which was great, except I didnt know the answer to all the questions... ah, maybe I should have watched even more TV as a kid. 

The chocolate game was quite a success, especially as we didnt actually introduce it as such- the leaders got all the bits together, and started playing. One by one, the kids drifted over to join in, and within 3 mins, I stepped away and let the whole lot get on with it. A good piece of gaming with no shouted instruction or any type of information. One could almost call it viral...

The evening finished with charades, which I wasnt too convinced about, but they absolutely loved it. The most well thought out one being Brokeback mountain. (interesting point), everyone seemed obsessed with acting out the film/book content, rather than simply acting out the title... ie breaking syllables into sounds and acting them out... symptomatic of todays youth? I dont know.