Day 2
After a warm welcome from our Canadian hosts and an early night, we’re straight into a trip to Niagara falls on our big yellow bus.
Donning some rather fetching red ponchos is the way to keep dry, apparently.
Category Archives: Featured
Canada 2017 – Getting there!
Day 1
After 2 years of planning, the big day has arrived!
15 Scouts & Explorers and 5 Leaders set off from Cambridge to…..Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.
Offshore adventures
“We were sailing, we were sailing, home again, ‘cross the sea” (apologies to Rod Stewart!)
Day 1
Assembling early morning for a briefing and issuing of waterproofs & life-jackets, 20 scouts and leaders headed out from Ipswich Haven on a pair of 49-foot Oyster yachts. Passing through the lock, they were soon under the Orwell Bridge and powering down the river towards the North Sea at 6 to 7 knots. The crews were put through their paces by the skippers, raising & lowering sail, helming and sail-trimming.
Lunch, cooked by the scouts in the galley below decks, was served in shifts whilst underway. As the boats steered home towards Shotley Point Marina, there was still time for some play – hanging from the halyards over the water always puts smiles on faces!
Day 2
Sunday saw a fresh pair of crews arrive at Shotley. Perfect sailing conditions were provided – plenty of sunshine and a Force 3-4 breeze. Locking out from the marina, the scouts got their first taste of freedom, with a fast sail up and down the River Stour. A little later, they ventured out past Harwich and the cranes of Felixstowe docks, where the open sea provided slightly bumpier water.
Returning to the Orwell and heading for home, the boats found themselves in a photo-shoot (the strange chap taking photos from another boat turned out to be the GSL’s father). The appearance of the Orwell Bridge signalled the approach of Ipswich and the end of the voyage.
A huge thank you to the skippers and mates of Adventures Offshore for this fantastic introduction to ‘big-boat’ sailing for our novice sea-farers!
High Adventure
Over Easter 5 of our intrepid scouts joined our neighbours in Hertfordshire Scouts for initial mountaineering course (IMC) at Lochearnhead Scout Station in the Scottish Highlands. Eight days of learning to take on some of the UK’s highest, most rugged and most beautiful terrain all based out of possibly the country’s most eccentric scout campsite, a disused railway station on the side of a mountain.
For 3 our scouts it was their first time on the course and indeed in terrain like this. For the other two it was a chance to repeat the course and build on what they learned last year. From the dramatic skyline of the Tarmachan ridge to the remote solitude of Inverlochlarig the scouts learned to navigate, camp and climb some of Scotland’s most spectacular mountains.
The week culminated in a 3 day, 2 night expedition, camping wild in the mountains, a far cry from many of the well kept campsites the scouts are used to on many of our camps.
Final note…. if you see any of our scouts wearing a red and green tartan necker, that is the necker of the Nicholson clan and can be worn by any scout who has stayed at Lochearnhead. Worn with pride by all our scouts who have completed the course 🙂
As a real final note…. as well as our 5 scouts on the course we have two of our young leader explorer scouts there for the week who volunteered to join all the other staff to cook meals, clean toilets, fix things and all the other glamorous jobs that keep events like this happening. A thank you to them and of course all the instructors, staff, organisers and everyone else at Hertfordshire Scouts for having our contingent as their guests for the week!
Probably best to stop typing and let the photos do the talking……
Co-op makes huge donation to the 12th!
A massive THANK YOU to the customers and staff at the Co-op store in Newnham for their support and huge donation of £3,758 to 12th Cambridge!!!
The money was raised via a combination of the Co-op’s membership charity scheme and its donation of all the money charged for carrier bags. Those 5p charges really do add up!
We will use the money to improve our offering of scouting for all in our community. We will start with refurbishment and provision of accessible toilet facilities at our Gilbert Road HQ.
Benefits of the Co-op customer membership include 5% of spending for the member and 1% donated to the local community. More details can be found at www.coop.co.uk/membership
Pioneers!
Back in March Raptor Troop spent a weekend at Tolmers scout camp in Hertfordshire for a couple of days of engineering!
Having been newly trained in how to create all kinds of contraptions from logs and ropes the scouts set about building everything from a newly fitted kitchen to giant catapults and culminating in the bridging of Cuffley Brook. Opinions may vary as to exactly how successful that was…..
In between the building of contraptions the scouts also got to have a go at branding (with at least one patrol leader looking menacingly at her patrol!) and tracking the local badger population.
With spring now upon us there should be plenty more camp to come…..
Cubs Winter Camp 2017
It was the last weekend in January, and what better place to be than Eaton Vale Scout and Guide Activity Centre as part of the 12th Cambridge cub pack. The weather was kind to us and we were able to enjoy crate stacking, high ropes course (pretty challenging!), catapult pioneering and pedal car racing without getting wet at all – and everyone was in fine voice for the campfire. We enjoyed delicious food, courtesy of Mang and Shada, and ample cake thanks to all. Here, with thanks to Shere Khan, are the photos.
Kicking off the year
What better way to blow off the after Christmas cobwebs than to get straight out there and head to camp? So without further ado scouts from Raptor and Wildcat troop headed to Gilwell Park in Epping Forest with 3000 others to take part in a weekend that included rock climbing, tank driving, falling from great heights and lots and lots of mud…… Continue reading
Clip and Climb
When a new climbing center opens in town it seemed almost rude not to go along and give it a try! A lot of weird and wonderful climbing and a lot of fun 🙂
We’re recruiting!
We’re growing! After the success of opening our second scout troop last year we now want to open a second Cub Pack and Beaver Colony as well as reinforce our current sections. And our scouts have a bit of a message for anyone who might be interested…..
If you have a few hours a week to spare and would like to spend it with most awesome bunch of kids on the planet then please get in touch. We’re waiting to hear from YOU!