Group Centenary Camp 2007 Blog

Scouts across the world are celebrating their centenary this year, and we felt that this was as good an excuse as was needed to run a camp for everybody in the group. For a group of our size this is no mean feat! In just over a week's time 118 children, 34 leaders and 26 parents will be heading to the otherwise sleepy village of Potterne Wick in Wiltshire.

During previous camps parents have enjoyed seeing photos and hearing details of what the campers have been getting up to. We will do our best to do the same for this camp. Please enjoy the photos and report and appreciate that the leaders might not be able to update this page very much during the weekend! We will do our best.

If you would like to email camp, you can do so by emailing groupcamp@10thbath.org.uk.

News from camp

Monday 7^th May – the end!

I got the laptop out to update the blog last night after the camp fire, but then realised that the drizzle had started and it wasn’t a sensible idea. I had two choices – sit round the fire, or go on line. I chose the fire - sorry to those waiting for the daily update!

Sunday was another good day at camp. The Explorers were set a treasure hunt which took them all around the local countryside looking for clues. The Cubs and scouts took part in the last two of the bases that they had been doing on Saturday.

They also enjoyed the assault course that the Explorers had kindly built for them on Saturday afternoon. The Cubs and Scouts were given the opportunity to choose their own groups and it was quite interesting to see the selections that were made. It was also nice to see how some of the older Scouts interacted and supported the younger children, including the odd show of brotherly affection!

In the afternoon the Beavers joined us and the activities changed to a series of much shorter bases where groups of mixed-aged children took part at the same time. This was the first time that we had mixed everybody together and it was again wonderful to see the different ages interact and work together. The bases included craft, games and intelligence events so that everybody got taxed a little bit. They included cocktail making and cake making, games and quizzes, spiders webs and challenges with tyres, to name but a few.

After a bar-be-cue tea we cut our centenary cake. This was based on the camp’s theme of “safari”, and our cake had been decorated in all sorts of safari animals. We even found our own gorilla on it! Everybody then moved on to the Beavers favourite part of camp – the camp fire. We had all of our favourite songs, and James provided extra entertainment by getting a bit close to the fire! The day was rounded off by soup and biscuits before bed.

As I mentioned earlier the drizzle arrived on Sunday night and we may have even had rain during the night (I was asleep, I don’t know!). It was certainly a wet start to the day, although the heavy rain saved itself until after we had taken the camp photo. The Beavers were settling into their archery and the Scouts were enthusiastically tidying their tents when the heavens opened and dumped all the rain meant for Wiltshire on the tiny village of Potterne. It now seems almost tradition that we pack up camp in the rain and this weekend was no different. There will be the odd parent polishing their cars after driving off of the muddy camp site at lunch time, spinning their wheels trying to get out of the gate just that little bit too hastily. Once all of the children had been collected the sun arrived again, but the damage was done and everything was soaked.

This is the first time that the leaders have tried a group camp, and I believe that it was a success. It wasn’t without incident but that’s only to be expected with 118 children running around. Most importantly they all appear to have enjoyed themselves, the leaders haven’t fallen out with each other, and we all got home safely. There is a long list of people that deserve to be thanked, including leaders from the 10^th and 4 other Scout groups in Bath, parents and supporters who all gave up some of their time to make the weekend happen. There were 62 adults directly involved in running the weekend, taking roles such as running activities, cooking, transporting kit, clearing up and acting as emergency contacts. One travelled for 4 hours to join us and others made similar long journeys so that they could come along. I am pleased that they did – we couldn’t have done it without them!

I’ve got nearly 700 photos from my camera alone, and I wasn’t the only one taking photos during the weekend so there will be even move. Please keep an eye on the main pages for a bigger photo library. Even this will be a selection – if you would like to see even more please ask me!

Finally, here we all are… (this one’s clicky if you want to see a bigger picture)

Saturday 5^th May – 9pm

I’ve hidden myself away in the office for an hour to …

Well, that was two hours ago and I managed to write 11 words before being disturbed to give out tonight’s medication and settle the Scouts to bed. Now it’s nearly 11pm and I think it’s close on bed time! The Cubs, Scouts and Explorers are all safely tucked up in bed and the leaders safely tucked up around the indoor camp fire sharing a cup of tea or two.

We’ve had a wonderful day, and everybody has really enjoyed themselves again. This morning we arrived and the children setup their tents and camping areas.

Things are a little bit crowded in the tents as we’ve got so many campers, however this also means that they are warmer at night! It’s a bit chilly, but once wrapped snugly in a sleeping bag it’s fine. This afternoon everybody split off into their activity groups and enjoyed such things as archery, air rifle shooting, backwoods cooking, Olympics and go kart races. The Explorers have also setup an assault course for the Cubs and Scouts to run tomorrow.

Friday 4^th May – 6pm

After a logn day of hard work by a party of leaders and some volunteer parents the camp site now looks smart, clean and tidy. It won’t last long! The mess tents are up, some of the activities are ready, water bowser filled and the food has arrived. The leaders sleeping city has been erected, along with its own palace and a wide variety of other weird and wonderful abodes. At the moment the Tuesday Cub Leader (Gorilla), assisted admirably by Paul (Beavers) and Neville (Thursday Scouts) are providing the entertainment. Gorilla has bought a new tent, and in the last 45 minutes they’ve managed to just about get the poles in… so much for leaders knowing how to camp! In other areas around the camp site Tom (Thursday Scouts) is being propelled around th camp site at high speed, putting the finishing touches to his activity for tomorrow. Propulsion is being provided by Mark (Monday Cubs) and Dan (Thursday Scouts), who don’t get very far before having to stop for another mouthful of camp “tea”.

Once again I think we are ready to have the masses descend upon us! At least, if we aren’t ready now we never will be. See you all tomorrow!

Old notes

It’s started! After about 6 months of planning, loads of meetings, frantic phone calls and lengthy emails, camp has formally started. At least I mean that I have the camp site keys in my very grubby paw and the first load of kit has been delivered to the site. This evening I drove to the camp site to collect the site key and dropped off the water bowser and some boxes of “stuff” that has been cluttering up my living room for the last week or so. The bowser is used to get the large quantity of water that we will need to the right places without having to run hoses everywhere or to carry containers of water all over the site. It’s used mainly at summer camp when we don’t have taps, but will be very useful this weekend as well. It has its own trailer so took a separate trip to get it to camp.

The weather for the weekend is looking good through until at least Sunday evening, and we’re all praying hard that the dry spell will stay until we have finished and packed up. It will be a fantastic weekend whatever the weather does, and a bit of sunshine will make it so much better. It would be very nice if we don’t have a huge pile of wet tents to dry though – we had that after summer camp last year and it took 2 months!

During the last week the leaders have been frantically finalising everything. We now have 118 young people coming to camp, and 34 leaders looking after them. There is another team of parents and supporters coming to help as well. We have registered nationally as a centenary camp, and are therefore part of the world-wide centenary celebrations that are taking place this year.

A reminder to all campers of the essential details:

Cubs, Scouts and Explorers leave by coach from the Sulis Club at 9am sharp on Saturday morning.

Beavers leave from the Scout HQ at noon sharp on SUNDAY. Yes, I know it says Saturday on the letter. It’s not the only mistake I made, but we can deal with the other one!

You must collect your child from the camp site at noon on Monday. We will not be providing transport home. If you fancy hanging around and helping to pack up I’m confident we can find you an hour’s work to do!

Any questions – please email me. I will be checking my email occasionally during Thursday and Friday and can reply to any queries or concerns. Please feel free to email during camp as well, however if you have a serious concern or need to make urgent contact with us please use the home contacts provided.

Last Updated: Wednesday 25^th April 2007