5th May.

The Scouts had a good trip down to Poole. After huge problems

parking the minibus and car, they crossed over to the island

on the ferry. They have set up camp on the original site used

by Baden-Powell one hundred years ago. This is in an excellent site

overlooking the estuary.

6th May.

Simon, Bertie and 8 older Scouts got up to see the sunrise, as Baden-Powell

himself had on his first camp at Brownsea. The general concensus was that

it was not that spectacular after all, especially when cloudy. In fact it was decided

it had been a waste of time!. Sunrise watching was voted as very over-rated and

they all went back to bed.

At 6.30 am they were all up again. They spent the next three and a half hours

cooking breakfast and washing up! Bertie and Simon escaped for a lovely walk on

 the beach.

They are about to set off and explore the island, and a spider web activity

has been booked for this afternoon.

Today the Scouts have explored the island and learnt about the

history of Baden-Powell's experimental camp held there. As usual a visit to

the gift shop was very popular. They have taken part in a problem solving

exercise. Some of the more robust Scouts braved a paddle in the sea. This

afternoon they have been playing games, including a wide game.

Dinner has been cooked, a bit quicker than breakfast, but the washing up

is still a struggle ( maybe they need more practice at home? I might try that one!)

The entire group is missing a campfire to sit round. They just caught sight of

the final moments of a spectacular sunset this evening.

Tomorrow they will be packing up and leaving the site. An estimated time

of arrival will be posted here tomorrow.

7th May.

This morning the Scouts have packed up and left the site. They stopped off

to look at the site for summer camp as it was on the route home.

Due to heavy slow-moving traffic, they are not expecting to get back

until about 6.30 pm.

REFLECTIONS

Apologies for the photos but we obviously need to do some more work in this area. See Photo below.

The weekend was a success and everyone worked really well, considering there were only two Leaders. The Scouts were a credit to Hedgecourt.

We ended up with three patrols decided by the Scouts themselves. The oldest Patrol although started off strongly as you would expect, decided that the weekend was to be totally enjoyed by dragging out the whole washing up experience over several hours. Fine unless you actually want to go somewhere!

All three patrols decided that they shouldn't listen to the Leaders' experience on setting up camp, and chose to site their tents in a variety of positions. Interestingly enough at the end of a windy weekend there were only two tents still standing correctly, what a surprise both the leaders! Still the beauty of Scouting is recognising that Scouts actually learn from their own mistakes rather than listen to advice, so I think everyone left camp wiser and with more knowledge to call on. Possibly positioning your tent on a hill with the doorway facing the sea "so you get a nice view in the morning" wasn't so successful when it was windy and raining from that direction!

The youngest patrol started off requiring the most assistance as was expected ,but actually soon started demonstrating the skills they were fast acquiring, and by the second day were actually the first to cook, eat and clear away - in fact if it hadn't been for them losing some enthusiasm on the last day with this "clearing away" exercise they probably would have won the weekend best patrol. Certainly they have everything to play for at Summer camp.

Then there was our middle age patrol. They were consistently good and quite capable to be left alone to get on with pitching their tents, setting up, cooking and clearing away so they could actually get on with shelter building etc. They only nearly lost direction on the last day when their answer to waking up to a windy wet day, was to say that none of them were hungry! However after some coaxing and help in repositioning their base station under the trees they found that they were suddenly hungry after all ,and you can actually still carry on camping in the wet! So with this obstacle overcome they spurred back into action and were the first to pack up camp earning themselves the honored title of "Top Patrol" ,but in fact only by a few points.

I think everyone agreed the Island is beautiful, worth a re-visit in a couple of years, but the absence of being able to sit around a real campfire ( due to the risk of fire) in the evening was a big minus to the life of scouting, so maybe only a day visit from a campsite on the mainland.

You couldn't help but absorb some of the history of Scouting as you wandered round this Island and understood why Baden-Powell chose this site 100 years ago. Although it was firmly decided that when he wrote about a "sunrise ceremony" at 8am he was really describing a ceremony first thing in the morning rather than one watching sunrise come up. As our older scouts can verify from a first hand experience on this camp, "sunrise watching is very overrated!!"

Bertie and I both enjoyed this camp and the wonderful memories that we will treasure from watching the Scouts develop on this weekend.

Simon