Hello Everybody
This weekend I went to the annual Braidwood Regatta with Unit 8 and once again it was a fantastic weekend.
Having done some research, I've discovered that most people prefer looking at pictures on my blog than reading, so enjoy !
Most of us arrived on Friday evening and attempted to put our tents up, in the dark, in a very small area.
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| Three's a crowd ? |
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| The mess tent from the Sweden Jamboree |
We also got given our Unit 8 personalised hoodies ! For some reason, when I ordered mine I decided to get a medium, which was definitely the wrong idea, it practically drowns me...
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| It's almost a dress |
After the horrendous thunder and lighting storm on Friday, we were all a bit sleepy on Saturday morning, but a hearty breakfast of eggs and bacon rolls woke us up .
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| My eggs were pretty good |
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| Life does not get any better |
We all wore our brand new hoodies for flag break and were lucky enough to meet the Chief Commissioner of England, Tim Kidd. After a quick photo, the event was opened and the 2014 Braidwood Regatta began.
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| Chief Commissioner of England- Tim Kidd |
For those of you that are unfamiliar, as I was at first, with what the Braidwood Regatta is, let me explain.
Basically, teams of cubs, scouts, explorers, Network and leaders, build bottomless boats out of cardboard, wood, bamboo and other light materials and race them around a course. The fastest team in each category wins !
Unit 8 entered three boats into the race, and we began building them on Saturday morning.
My group decided on the well known (?) pentagon boat design, with the hope we wouldn't have to turn the actual boat round corners, just turn the runners.
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| Building the frame |
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| Painting |
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| Testing our construction |
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| Promoting the Jamboree |
We named our team 'The Flying Cranes' to stick with the Japanese theme and the other team built a sushi inspired boat, calling themselves the Salmon Rollerz.
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| In it to win it ! |
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| The Salmon Rollerz |
In the afternoon, we went out in groups to do the incident hike (not to be confused with an Indecent Hike). This meant we followed a plotted route round the local area doing small tasks along the way , earning points which, combined with our time, would contribute to our over all ranking.
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| One base was performing CPR on Annie the dummy |
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| We tried . . . |
Once we returned to the campsite, we were handed the task to build the campfire for the beavers to sing round after their 'Pirate Party'.
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| The fire did get better ! |
In the evening, after a delicious dinner of curry, fajitas, stir fry and spag bol, we went to the explorer party. It started off great and we were all having a really fun time until there was a small incident involving pushing, falling off chairs, drinks spilling and sound systems turning off. Lets just say memories were made ...
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| Partaaaaay |
On Sunday morning we carried on building our boats and started looking at the catalogue containing the kit we will be getting ready for Japan, it was all very exciting !
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| Kit for the cool kidz |
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| Round our ever present campfire |
For lunch we had sushi, which is fast becoming one of my favorite foods, and a huge amount of banana cake.
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| Another food shot :/ |
Then it was time for the much anticipated race! My team won our race, but sadly didn't qualify for the finals, which was probably just as well because we nearly completely destroyed our boat round the course. Regardless of the outcome, we had so much fun hurtling round the field.
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| The Flamin' Cranes |
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| With our Pitstop girls |
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| Mid boat race |
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| Our boat was falling apart |
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| Taking the lead |
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| Stuart collecting our boat parts |
The Salmon Rollerz were similarly fated in their race, with their boat splitting into two halfway through the race.
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| The Salmon Rollerz |
The leaders where slightly more successful, winning the best design in their group and coming third (I think) in their race.
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| Oragami man and his mates |
After striking camp, there wasn't much more to do than say our farewells, and start looking forward to our next meeting in October.
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| A Sea of Blue |
As I say every time, I had such a great time with the unit and cant wait to see everyone again. As a unit we have decided that Braidwood Regatta next year will be our first reunion after Jamboree which is even more exciting as it means less than a year until we go !
Thanks for reading :)
Lauren
P.S Our Quiz last weekend went very well. Thank you to everyone who came or supported us, we made an excellent £1400 from the evening ! We are still fund raising but we only have another £3500 to go, any help would be much appreciated.
