Winter Camp 2007 February, Boxford Spinny.
Friday-On the 16th February 2007 a group of 14 Sea scouts, 7 boys and 7 girls, met at the Scout Hut in Sudbury for the Winter Camp. They where put into patrols for the weekend which was all boys in one patrol and all the girls in the other patrol. They were they given Hi Vis vest so they could be seen when walking on the road together with the following items a map, a compass, a route card and a radio. They were now ready for the hike from Little Waldingfield to Boxford which should have taken 2 hours. The van was loaded with personal kit and camping kit and the first team was ready to be taken to the start point for the hike. The Boys were taken out first to start the hike at 19:00 and about 30 minutes later the girls started, both teams started the hike well, with Boys getting to Boxford around 22:00, however the girls did get lost near Edwardstone church but the leaders found them and put them back on course. While the girls were finishing the hike the boys had already put up the mess tent and were working on their own tent. The girls eventually got the campsite at 23:00 where they had to pitch up their own tents and overtook the boys in putting up their tents. The tents were eventually finished shortly after midnight in the early hours of Saturday morning, then it was time for a cup of hot chocolate and off to bed around 01:00.
Saturday- The Sea Scouts had the option of not getting up until 08:00 but they chose to get at 07:00, the first thing the Sea Scouts had to do was have a wash and make sure their tent was tidy, then is was time for Breakfast which included a cooked breakfast. The Sea Scouts were being continually monitored and scores given for many different aspects of their camping and other skills. Once breakfast was cooked the leaders went round to mark what the Sea Scouts had cooked, by the time the Breakfast over is was about 10:45. The next activity which sea scouts would be marked was how tidy their tent was and also how it has been pitched.
The days activities started and first up was fire lighting and boiling a can of water This task included get fire making material like little sticks and trying to light fire without help and with 1 match, if the sea scouts had more than 1 match and help from a helper the team would start loosing points. The Assault Course had a number of objects including two tunnels, a tyre and a scramble net where the Sea Scouts had to carry a water container filled with water around the course in the quickest time, the quickest team around the course would get more points.
The last challenge of the morning for both teams was a first aid incident where the team had to deal with a casualty who had a broken bottle stick out her arm, the team who dealt with the situation well got the most points.
A quick stop for soup for lunch and the afternoon activities began which were Orienteering and Knife and Axe. Orienteering was set up by the Explorers around the campsite and the Sea Scouts had the found their way around by using a compass which took them to letters which made up a name famous in Scouting. The helpers Rich and Nick Powell taught the other team how to use Knife and Axe and started to get a bit of fire wood ready for the fires in the evening.
Before they started cooking their evening meal all the Sea Scouts had to change tents as the first night the Girls slept in hiking tents and the boys slept in a Patrol tent. At 17:00 the Sea Scouts started to get ready for cooking on open fires which included getting green sticks and peeling the bark off. The two teams cooked on separate fires cooking Orange eggs, Chicken kebabs and Chocolate bananas again being marked on how well they did. By around 21:30 both teams had both finished their dinner and all wanted to play a wide game, the game consisted of the boys playing against the girls defending a light hidden but also trying to get the other teams light to win with the leaders & helpers trying to catch all the Sea Scouts. After two games where the boys both won we decided to have a game where the leaders had to defend to light and the Sea Scouts had to get the light back to base without been caught, eventually the Sea scouts got the light. It was then back to camp for a cup of hot chocolate and of to bed at 01:00.
Sunday- The Sea scouts were hard to wake up but all were up at about 07:30, they all had a wash and started cooking breakfast which was again a cooked breakfast, after breakfast there was tent inspection and the Sea Scouts packed all there personal kit away. The leaders and helpers decided to change the itinerary in the morning and play the utensils game where items from the kitchen like a frying pan, gas bottle and a measuring jug were hidden around the campsite for both the boys and girls to find them and score points for their own team, for example if they had found a measuring jug and got back to their base they would have scored 10 points for their team. Both teams had a go of playing defending and attacking then the Sea Scouts wanted to play against the leaders where the points the leaders got were split up fairly between the boys and girls teams.
Lunch was soup again only this time a different flavour. After lunch both teams took their own tents down and the girls helped to take the mess tent down. Shortly before 15:00 everything was packed in the Van and everyone was ready to leave for the short journey back to Sudbury where everyone got stuck in to tidy away the camping kit and where the winning team got the trophy.
The Winning was the Girls Patrol scoring 90 points, the Boys Patrol scored 82.