308 Days to go: Braidwood Regatta

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. 

Three's a crowd ?

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...

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 .

My eggs were pretty good

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.

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. 

Building the frame

Painting 

Testing our construction

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.

In it to win it !

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.

One base was performing CPR on Annie the dummy

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'. 

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 ...

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 !

Kit for the cool kidz

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.   

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.

The Flamin' Cranes

With our Pitstop girls

Mid boat race

Our boat was falling apart

Taking the lead

Stuart collecting our boat parts

The Salmon Rollerz were similarly fated in their race, with their boat splitting into two halfway through the race.

The Salmon Rollerz

The leaders where slightly more successful, winning the best design in their group and coming third (I think) in their race.

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.

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.

337 Days to Go: Friendship Bracelets and Update

Hello Everybody 

Long time no see in terms of blog posts , but I'm back and ready to update you on the most recent Jamboree related goings on ! 

First of all .... LESS THAN A YEAR TO JAPAN ! 

This time next year the 23rd World Scout Jamboree will be over and myself and the 30,000 other participants would have returned from, hopefully, the most exciting couple of weeks ever ! The countdown has begun and the pressure is on to raise our funds and organise our Unit .

Secondly, group fundraising for Chiltern North is going well and should hopefully be complete by Christmas. Recently, a couple of members of the group ( Amber, Hadley and Matthew) did bag packing at the Co-op in Hazlemere and raised an incredible £857.79 ! Thank you to anyone who happened to be at the Co-op on Friday , your generosity is much appreciated.

A successful day bag packing 

Our quiz night is fast approaching and we are hoping to raise a large portion of our funds through this event.

We should be running the Santa float at Christmas as well as multiple Bag packing dates in the next couple of months .

My personal fundraising has slowed down over the holidays, but I have been busy making friendship bracelets to raise money. If you'd like to support me , they are £1.50 and I can make them in other colours if requested, available from September.

Adjustable Size 

Multi-Coloured , Dark Blue, Sky Blue 

That's all for now, sorry for the long break, I was in Italy on summer expedition with explorers at the start of the Holidays and have been busy boating since then.

Have a good rest of summer ! 

Thanks for reading :)

393 Days to go : June Weekend

Hello everybody

Last weekend, I met up with Unit 8 for the 3rd time, for a weekend camp at Braidwood, near Chesham. Unlike the last camp we had,  it was hot and sunny the whole time and I can safely say it was one of the best meetings we've had so far. The whole weekend was pretty relaxed and the weather helped us all get used to the climate in Japan , although it will be much much hotter and more humid out there. This is what we got up to...

When we are out in Japan, we will be in patrols of 9, with a Patrol Leader and Assistant Patrol Leader, their job is to keep everyone together when we are moving around. Since the last camp, the leaders decided these patrols and we were placed in them for the setting up of our dining shelters and for most of  the weekends' activities. Once in our patrols we had to come up with a patrol name and decorate Tee-shirts for us to wear ready for the afternoons' rounders and ultimate frisbee matches. My patrol was aptly names the 'Ginger Ninjas' due to 2 of us being of a more orange shade of hair colour.

Decorating our patrol shirts

I drew 8 of these Ninjas ! 

Ginger Ninjas 

Having done this, we were presented with 'Japan in a box' by Paul Rawlings, part of the organising team. One each for the 75 UK units, had been sent over from Japan a couple of months a go to help spread news of the Jamboree to people not involved in it. In the box there was a collection of traditional Japanese items, such as masks, koi fish kites and 'happy jackets', as well as a huge pack of sheets with ideas for games and activities to be used if running an evening for a beaver, cub or scout troop.

 In our patrols, we had to come up with a plan for an evening session for a group of beavers, cubs or scouts aimed at introducing the idea of the Jamboree and inspiring the culture of Japan. Our patrol's plan included crab football with a blow up globe, oragami waterballoons and move-the-malteaser-with-chopsticks.

Japan in a box

Trying on happy jackets

After 'Japan in a box' and lunch (which sadly, I didn't get a picture of) we embarked on a highly competitive game of rounders against the opposing patrols followed by a riveting game of ultimate frisbee. The Ginger Ninjas reigned victorious , winning both matches despite many balls-in-stomachs and tumbles to the ground.

In patrols, we then went on to build fires so as to backwoods cook our dinners. I must say, our fire was pretty impressive and allowed us to have cheese stuffed mushrooms, courtesy of my fellow ginger Matt, and peppers and fried burgers.

Despite the general knowledge that backwoods cooking involves wrapping food in tinfoil and placing it directly into the embers of the fire, we mixed things up a bit; George and myself used the metal door mat from outside the girls toilets as a very effective grill. We must have started a trend because I saw far fewer metal door mats around the site from then on...

The Ginger Ninja's fire

Making dinner

Spot the door mat 

We finished the evening with a huge campfire and singing, all in all , it was a fantastic first day.

The more pallets the better 

The next morning began with a lovely thought of the day from Chris, quoting Beyonce at 7am  which really got me going. This was swiftly followed by a breakfast consisting of bacon, eggs, sausages and beans.

Because we were allowed to camp on the site for free, as with the Quarries camp, we had to some site maintenance. This time it was less clearing rocks and more clearing leaves, which I must say was a lot more pleasant and slightly less draining.

Sweeping the leaves

We were then lucky enough to meet a man named Gavin and his adorable daughter May, who lived in Japan for a period of time whilst he was an English teacher. First of all he told us a bit about the key places to visit in Tokyo, the food and drink, and simple cultural etiquette. As well as telling us some really interesting facts about Japanese culture, he dispelled any of our worries about doing home hospitality.

Having one of our leaders as a professional chef means our lunches are often of a fairly high standard, so on Sunday we had delicious burgers and sausages in rolls, cheese pasties, fruit and chocolate bars.

Lunch time

Seeing that Stuart had a volleyball, a Wendover explorer unit had a volleyball net and me being the competitive person I am, in the afternoon, I organised a unit v unit volley ball tournament, which, sadly we lost, but was still great fun. Bearing in mind the scorching temperatures and our very limited practice, the score wasn't too awful.

So to round things off, here is a picture of Charlie the dog wearing a ninja mask.

The weekend was again, so much fun and now we have Patrols, friendships are even stronger. Our next meeting is in July, so my next update will probably be then unless something amazingly exciting happens before then !

Unit 8 

Thanks for reading

Lauren :)

PS. OUR BADGES HAVE ARRIVED ! These are exclusive to Unit 8  so you can't find them anywhere else , if you'd like one, they are £2 + PP, so let me know. This is one of the ways I am fundraising so I'd love any support.

BUY BADGES PLEASE 

PPS. TICKETS FOR THE QUIZ ARE ON SALE ! Tickets for the Chiltern North quiz are available now, they are £11.50 and include a fish and chips dinner. The quiz is on 13th September at Great Missenden Memorial Hall, there will be a raffle and bar. Contact me if you would like some:)

       

418 days to go: Fundraising

Hello Everybody

Recently, writing blog posts has been bottom of my list of priorities because of exams and holidays , but I'm back and, hopefully, better than ever!

This post is just a round up of whats been going on regarding Jamboree in the last couple of months.

463 days to go: Easter Weekend Meeting

Hello Everybody

This weekend was my second meeting with my Jamboree unit and once again I had a fantastic time, have made some amazing memories and new friends! The meeting was a weekend camp at the Quarries campsite in Milton Keynes and although most people already had, this was the first time I had camped with the unit.

Misjudging the time it would take to travel to the site, Jenny and I arrived at 8.30 on Saturday morning, half an hour before we were meant to. But soon everyone congregated, ready to move all the food, tents, equipment and personal kit to our site. It didn't take too long to set up the camp, with everyone getting stuck in and helping put up the mess tent that was supposedly similar to the ones available at the last Jamboree.

Our campsite

 

After a short break and arranging ourselves into 4 patrols, as we will have when we go to Japan, the day properly began. Arts and crafts was first on the agenda and we were given 3 creative projects to complete before lunch. My group began making dream catchers, and the fact I haven't done arts and crafts for about 5 years is evident when looking at my final creation, which looks more like a fish than a dream catcher. . .

My unfortunate looking dream catcher

Having embarrassed myself enough making the dream catcher, I moved on to origami. I was actually really impressed with my two paper models, a lotus flower and peace crane. If you remember from my first post, I mentioned my road kill goose version of the traditional crane, this time it was a lot lot better . The wings even flapped !

Origami lotus and peace crane

Despite my success making origami, it all went down hill when I attempted to make a wind chime. The less said about it the better.

It doesn't even chime 

After a cuppa soup for lunch, the unit was required to help out with some work on the site. We had to collect rocks to support the embankments in the car park, so formed a long chain and with beautiful renditions of Disney songs performed by Lydia and Chris, managed to move a decent sized pile of  rocks from one end of the site to the other.

Slave labour ?

I've always loved a bit of pioneering, so making and racing A-Frames was right up my street. At scouts, square lashings were my specialty, and I'd like to think that they were what helped my team win the highly competitive A- Frame race.

A-Frame Racing

A group then went to prepare and make dinner whilst the rest of us used the A-frames to construct a real sized version of the gateway we hope to make for our site in Japan. Turns out making a fortress with towers and walkways is a lot easier said than done but our finished version did the job and we had a laugh building it.

I'm on the frame at the back doing one of my famous square lashings 

After my very Japanese dinner of chilli con carne, we sat round the campfire while the girl guides sung and danced to multiple, very repetitive, but entertaining campfire songs. It made me realise how few I actually knew aside from "I love the flowers, I love the daffodils". Our leader, Stu , also received a late birthday present from the unit consisting of a lovely pair of girl guiding wellies !

 

In order to condition us to the routine of the Jamboree, we had to be up by 6.00 am on Sunday morning ready to start the day.  I was part of the cooking group and due to the vast amount of bacon and not very hot gas stoves it took us over an hour to get breakfast cooked. However, the combination of cold, tiredness and camp conditions meant the breakfast went down a storm with all the food disappearing.    

It tasted better than it looks !

Another craft activity was on the cards for Sunday morning but luckily it involved lashings and rope so the final product was not too bad !

My Crucifix creation

Having taken the tents down and disassembled the gateway, we began our Easter themed activities. The first of which was the egg toss. In pairs we had to pass an egg to each other unaware of whether it was hard boiled or not, until we dropped it. Ours landed on the grass after only a couple of passes , and the mystery was solved . . .

Evidently not hard boiled

 We finished the weekend off with an egg and scavenger hunt around the campsite with a Jamboree twist. Each of the chocolate eggs had a Japanese city name on and we had the challenge of matching them to the appropriate letter on a map of Japan. We also had to find something beginning with every letter of the alphabet from around the site and the woods by it. Using our excellent biology knowledge , we even found something beginning with X , the xylem of a plant ! We also had a quick game of Frisbee in which I managed to hit someone dead in the nose, sorry Adam but I've already had my face hit by flying objects . . . 

Frisbee time

  

As a unit, we decided on our final logo for our badge designs. We still haven't come up with a name but at least we've made progress on the identity front.

Our Badge design

So, with our pockets full of chocolate eggs and the smell of campfire smoke in our hair, the weekend ended. This weekend we have built a gateway , broken eggs and become even closer as a unit as well as having so much fun and working as a team. I can see us becoming even better friends when we are organised into patrols with PL's and APL's at our next meeting in June.

Unit 8 

Off topic now, but I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has read my blog and shown an interest in what I'm doing, I reached 500 views the other day which is really exciting as I thought no one would actually want to read it. If you have any questions or suggestions about what future blog posts should be about, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom, I'd love to hear from you ! 

Thanks for reading 

Lauren :)