Scouts Winter Camp – Broadstone Warren
Truly blessed with brilliant weather, 17 Scouts and 4 fearless leaders armed only with sunglasses and factor 50, bestrode the wonderful forest and heathland at Broadstone Warren for our annual winter camp.
Occupying the luxurious Broadstone Lodge once more, we were truly astounded that the Yoickling Herberts who normally keep everyone awake till 3am on Saturday morning, were all soundlessy dreaming in the land of nod before 11pm; unheard of in the recent annals of 3rd West Wickham Scouts’ history: this may have something to do with plenty of wide games of Lighthouse and Jailbreak in the moonlit woodland before bedtime.
There was also a healthy crop of instruments brought with the Scouts for the weekend, and luckily for Adam, he was able to borrow my saxophone, as he, unfortunately, forgot his.
Saturday followed the time-honoured tradition of trying to fix the pedal carts, and not only did revisit the two most important Laws of Mechanics, we also got very good at putting chains back onto cog-wheels (Laws re-stated below as a handy reminder):
- If it is supposed to move, but doesn’t, apply WD40
- If it moves when it shouldn’t, apply Duct Tape!
Scouts and Leaders alike again enjoyed the highly satisfying “Thunk” of throwing an axe and embedding it successfully into the wooden target. Other activities over the weekend were Abseiling, Air Rifles, Pot-Holing (not nearly muddy enough this year), Orienteering (or messing about in the streams & puddles) and the usual Tree-Gibboning.
Lot’s of Scouts requested to go to bed early on Saturday night as they had crammed so much in, and we were blessed with a second full night’s sleep; truly astounded, for the second time on one camp!
Full marks to the triplets for bringing the music sheets so that we could all learn Little Black Things to the tune of Clementine, Hey Ma, I Want To Go Home, featuring Adam on saxophone, and everybody on the Crazy Moose song. Wide Games, Twister, Board Games and also helped to keep everyone entertained.
No spaghetti was harmed in the making of this year’s camp, and the food was even more tasty and nourishing, helped by Jen doing an emergency run to get a pepper mill! Everyone without exception helped with Preparation and Cleaning away.
Looking forward to the next camp already,
Jen, Doug Geoff & Steve