1st Chipping Sodbury Scout Group

This year’s Summer Camp took place in Dartmoor.  We left Chipping Sodbury on Saturday 29^th May with the prospect of a good week of weather. With some funny incidents on the way down our merry little convoy wound its way south arriving at about 11.00am, just when the heavens opened.

The setting up of the site went surprisingly smoothly.  The patrols worked very well together and the tents practically flew up.  The patrols were in line side by side in front of the forest which was hilly to say the least.  The leaders were camped in the adjacent field. Each patrol had two tents and one dinning shelter to erect and these went up quite well on their first attempt! Except for a few little pole errors, they managed to get some form of shelter. By the time the site was set up it was time for tea, they were given the ingredients and were told to build a fire and cook for themselves and two leaders.

The next day was spent doing pioneering, three patrols doing this whilst the other patrol on their 24-hour hike. They each made a catapult using poles, rope and an inner tractor tyre. Let’s just say that some were more successfully than others. The afternoon was spent making an aerial runway; it involved making a tripod and a monkey climbing up a rather tall tree. With some trial runs and some dirty bums (from scraping across the mound in the middle) we finally managed to get the right tension to run straight down. On the evening some were shooting, as others enjoyed playing with fire as many of the Scouts enjoy.

On the third day I was helping Paul Warner with the canoeing at the reservoir, we had two groups, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each session was successful with the majority getting wet but they didn’t mind, they enjoyed it.

Tuesday was the trip to Plymouth and fishing. With a few rough chops out at sea they managed to catch a few large fish for supper that evening. The sea air had obviously got to some Scouts as they fell asleep on the return leg of the journey.

This was the day where Paul W and I had to take out a patrol to their 24-hour expedition. They had to walk onto the Moor and then camp, cook breakfast and return in the morning. Nice to see them returning with a song that echoed around the whole site!

After some re-arranging of the programme, the climbing was done on the Thursday, with every patrol visiting the rock face for a climb and abseil. Everyone did their best and that’s all that we could have asked for. As long as they tried their best and enjoyed it, that’s all that mattered.  Whilst this was happening Paul had the other two patrols for canoeing.

On the last full day at camp we had a bit of fun, everyone rotated between the shooting and archery. We had several eggs that were yet to be used and we thought, well why not shoot them. For the archery we had some flour bombs attached to the board. Everyone had three shots to pop as many as possible. Whilst this was happening Nick was in the kitchen cooking tea for the evening, chicken curry and chips. I think some may have found this a little hot for their liking but anyhoo a good day had by all!

As the light started to fall, a couple of the leaders were organising a campfire for the evening. Everyone sat around the fire and sang the traditional songs with a few jokes to conclude. With a few bursts of flame the evening drew to a close and the Scouts went to bed. The leaders stayed up for a few hours longer with Chris eventually cooking some bacon butties at 2am!

Soon it dawned on us, clear up day! Everything was packed and the final wash proceeded. Once again Mugs showed them how it should be done. As this was happening the Explorers cooked us some burgers for lunch before finally setting off for Chipping Sodbury.

Hopefully all the Scouts enjoyed their time in Dartmoor, I know the leaders did.  I'd like to thank all the leaders for their help and support during the camp and the Scouts for being so well behaved.