Remember - no scouts on 23 October as we are heading off into the Black Mountains to survive... ...and the following week is half term, so I won't see some of you until our annual celebration of the defeat of the plotters and triumph of parliamentary democracy, on 7 Nov.
A big thank you to Andy and Gaynor for training up the rest of the troop whilst I was off with the Rifle Team. We should be well prepared for our survival camp now, and will put the backwoods cooking skills into practice in the mountains (or else starve!!!) (hope Andy did a good job training you!)
Here's some more receipes from South Africa. Hey -scouts are the same all around the world!
Here's 68 photos of us at the National Scout Air Rifle Competition! - Alarming eh?
It was great! We didn't win, but we did ok and got several good individual placings.There's a great atmosphere at big competitions and scout camps and the NSARC is both the biggest shooting competition in the UK, and the second largest scout camp after the national jamboree so quite a special experience.
Evie was our top rifle marksman coming 14th in her class, and Matt and Ben were speedy at Biathlon coming 13th and 15th (and l came 10th in the senior class!). Chris was 17th in the the vintage rifle class and Ben came 24th in pistol from a huge class. Dan and George did well in biathlon too, coming middle of the field, and George was super speedy but then so out of breath he missed the standing shots - all good experience and leaves them well positioned for 'most improved' trophy next year...(their strategy all along!)
There were upwards of 700 shooters at the championship and most classes had large fields of contestants so well done everyone -especially Evie and Ben in the main rifle and pistol events.
The were 107 scout and explorer groups at Bisley, and Boreatton Troop came 18th for rifle and 23rd for pistol - hurrah!. Our next opportunity is the inter-county shoot in Spring... perhaps we can form the basis of a Shropshire squad?
Ok I walked actually - ha ha! It was a splendid autumnal hike to start the new season - nice easy walk, with a great bog to jump in as a bonus... smaller scouts managed to sink to the top of their thighs if they jumped to the middle of the puddley bit - "great!" says Phil who has to drive in 'the whale' every day to work... Here's some pics as usual - a bit grotty as they are phone pics 'cos I left the camera at home (its all about getting a different lot of kit together at the start of a new season so I was bound to leave something behind...)
Autumn light!
Bunny, bunny,bunny, bunny.... "...now where are we...?" - sometimes reading the map is tricky and you just can't figure out where you are...
Well done to the team that completed their cylo-veg! It proved to be one of my optimistic evenings so not everyone finished but I hope you'll complete them at home - I tried to make sure all the kits went home with all the bits needed to complete them. Actually, it was a good job we didn't all get to the end as there is an embarressing typo on the handout wiring guide - the picture and the detailed sheet are fine but the resistor wiring locations were wrong on the protoboard guide (ahem!) I've attached the correct version below. I hope that you can see that electronics can be quite easy (hey - we made cylon eyes in about an hour!) and you can do lots with a few standard IC chips. When I was scout sized I knew all the theory parts but could never actually make any of the cool stuff I wanted to, but my friend had the right book and could... Nowadays now there are lots of great internet sites with good projects. http://www.evilmadscientist.com/ and http://www.makezine.com/ are great and the theory can be checked out on http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/index.htm (which is on my favourites so I can check I don't put any errors in my instruction pages (oops!)). If you check out projects there you'll find lots use the bits that you have - a few resistors and capacitors (you can get more from maplins for a few p), the 555 Timer chip and the 4017 Counter chip, and you have signal diodes and LEDs and a pototyping board (really useful!)! If you make a couple more things you'll have mostly earned your electronics badge...
OK I'm running behind a bit... As well as the usual form you need to get the Rider Registration form to me asap. The price for the camp will be £45 and I will limit numbers to 14 scouts unless a parent wants to come and join us (in which case we could take a couple more). Reserve your place by cheque for camp fees and subs (if you haven't already paid). Here are the forms:
Thought I'd post a couple of pics to show what the robotics and air rifle teams are up to...
The robotics involves a mix of engineering design, object oriented programming, environmental research, and (the bit we are best at) mucking about with Lego.
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The air rifles team is focused on looking cool and menacing ...
... and pink?
... oh, and shooting small targets very accurately!
Well done Eco-team - you did a good job on the hedge, and got a lot done! We are going to link up with Home Farm and do regular environmental work with them, and so I can give the Environment Award to those that join in. We'll do some more hedge maintenance next term and see how the hedge we cleared the supports from is improving - it should promote more bottom growth and make a better low level habitat so we should see that all coming along by spring.
Nice for hedgehogs! Here's a free mini-game as a reward!
and here's some more pics of us in action (and inaction!)...
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Roboreateers will meet here today 3:00-4:30 and marksmen 5:00-6:00. Matt Anwell must have thought you did well on the farm because he's going to come along and give some coaching to the rifles team - Thanks Matt!
Next meeting is weird halloween stuff in the hut, at normal times for a change!
We'll either be above the clouds, in the clouds, or have clouds landing on our heads (its Wales) on 12 October.
A nice start to the new season's hikes... If you are 12 or over and enjoy hiking, let me know and come along! Make sure you read the kit list below, and sign a consent from (you can find it in the useful forms)
The county fun day was fun - lots going on, but the allure of the forbidden fruit meant that the most popular activity was pretending to be a cub so as to get on the bouncy castle!!! (take your scout shirt off and act like a nine year old - bit of a challenge pretending to be as mature as a nine year old but they mostly got away with it...).
Otherwise, the sun shone, we mucked about with fire, cooked sossies, built egg racers, complained about how rubbish the rifles were compared to ours, hung out with explorers from Gobowen we'd met on the SSGMG camp... what more do you want from a fun day.
Oh we won the egg race too - Hurrah! (actually the competition wasn't too stiff and one of our racers managed 5th without even having a rubber band or moving at all)
The only downside is that the ADC Activities is going to visit our troop night to present the trophy (ulp!) - can you pretend to be a well disciplined scout troop for one evening???
