Silver DofE Training on Dartmoor

In September, I took part in DofE Silver training on Dartmoor.
The weekend comprised of some orienteering, walking between vixen tor and great mis tor before being rained off the moor.

The 22nd World Scout Jamboree

Starting on the 24th July 2011, I attended the 22nd World Scout Jamboree in Sweden - a gathering of 40,000 scouts from almost every country in the world. I documented a day to day record of what we did on my specific jamboree blog which is available here

Gilwell 24 2011

On the 8th July we went as a surprise the Gilwell 24 as part of the jamboree build up. This full write up can be read on my jamboree blog here

28th Bath (Bathampton) Troop Camp 2011 - 'Rempstone Camp'

Monday
We drove down to Rempstone (an area near to Corfe castle in Dorset) after the Avon Jamboree. As we drove into the field the rain started to stop and we set up the two mess tents after picking a spot for them to go.
When the rest of the scouts arrived, we pitched first our patrol tents, and then went to put up our dinning shelters but found that we had forgotten to pack them. We then all had fish and chips before going on a wide game where we found another scout group 'ambushed' one of the scouts and asked them where they were from. We then went back to the campsite and went to bed.

Tuesday
We woke up and had a communal breakfast. Simon's dad then brought the dinning shelters down and we put them up near our patrol tents. We then set up our individual patrol areas, which involved, building gadgets, roping off the area, setting up a fire area and collecting wood.
After lunch, we went into corfe village and did a quiz (which my patrol (Merlin's) won.) We then cooked dinner and after a short a wide game, and planning the 'top gear challenge' for the next morning, and then went to bed.

Wednesday
We woke and had a cold breakfast before preparing for the 'top gear challenge'. For this we were given a photo (a statue of Baden Powell which is at Poole harbor.) We had to identify it - luckily someone in my patrol knew where it was straight away - and then plan a route to get there.
As soon as we had done this we set off. Our plan was to walk to approximately where our troop camp was last year and get the bus from there to Poole bus station. From there we would walk to the harbor and hopefully get there in time. We got there early and waited until the time, when us and Tom's patrol reached it at exactly the right time, meaning we had beaten Ashley's patrol (who initially had gone to the wrong place.)
We then went back camp and did some more work on our sites while we waited for the leaders to return.
That evening we had a Caribbean party and dinner cooked by the leader when we all dressed up in Hawaiian shirts, ate from a BBQ and played fair games like coconut shy. After that we went to bed.

Thursday
We were allowed a lye in after the party but after that, we had to make breakfast and plan our route for the expedition. I was put in charge of 'the lions' (20 miles) - there were also the tigers and wolves which both go slightly less far.
The hike took us around the heath and along studland beach (including the nudist part which is not mentioned on the OS maps! We met the other patrols at 'Jerry point' which was a spot where we could see Brownsea island and cooked our ration pack meals on trangia's
We then walked to 'burnbake' campsite which was where the lions were staying on our own for the night. We made a small fire and were able to have showers before going to bed.

Friday
The next morning, we got up and backed down our tents before having another shower (just because we could.) I then bought a pastry for breakfast. We then all walked back to our main campsite. We spent most of the day doing more work on our sites as well as archery and completing various badges (especially outdoor challenge/outdoor challenge plus) etc... That evening we cooked an assessed meal and did a wide game before the scouts pitched ponchos to sleep in as part of the badges. Me and Tom were allowed to sleep in Simon and James's hammocks.

Saturday
The next morning I woke up to a whistle being blow loudly. I quickly got up and went over to wear everyone was doing the flag (and laughing at me.) Apparently in the time I'd been asleep whilst everyone else had got up, taken down their ponchos, eaten breakfast and taken down a mess tent.
I quickly had by breakfast and packed up what I needed before we went to 'tower park' and splash down water park. We spend about two hours there before going to Tesco where we bought food for 'patrol leaders pleasure' - where we chose what to cook for dinner and be assessed on that evening.
After this, we drove to sandbanks where we made small rafts, set fire to them, and let them out to sea.
After that we came back to the site and cooked our evening 'patrol leader pleasure'meal. Afterwards we had a large camp fire which was so big the scar on the grass can be seen on Google maps... and went to bed.
Sunday
The next morning we took all the tents down as quickly as we could after breakfast and packed up the trailer just as it was beginning to rain. We were then told the results (The Kestrels came first followed closely by my patrol - the Merlin's, and the a lot further third, the eagles). We then got into the cars and drove back to Bath.

the 28th websites post on camp is available here: http://www.bathamptonscouts.org/2011/06/troop_camp_2011/

Avon Jamboree 2011

On the 27th to 30th May was Avon county scouts "4 seasons Avon Jamboree" which took place between Friday and Monday.

I arrived, after queuing in traffic for over an hour, at the campsite at about 5:30 on the Friday where me and Tom, who was travelling with me met Simon who is our troop leader who directed us up to the explorer sub camp where we met Kimbo and set up our tents. We then met up with Alex who is one of the young leaders with my scout troop.

Gradually more people arrived and set up their tents in our small patch of land and then me and Alex went and visited the 28th, our troop, who all looked very board and called us traitors.

When we got back we were issued wristbands and harlequin neckers and were told that we would be preforming at the opening ceremony the next morning so, after choosing the two songs that we would play, "all the small things" and "i'm yours", we went to the explorer sub camp mess tent, set up our instruments, loaded the words onto our phones, and sang and played! Whilst we played, various people from around the site who could hear us came in including Hannah and James who are also leaders at our troop and became camp photographers and various video's were projected onto the tent roof.

We then got the words for the songs printed out so that everyone could learn them and I had my dinner before visiting the now extremely board 28th and going to bed. We were also told by Kevin that our JTV video (see previous post) was taken by the UK contingent to the all leaders weekend in Sweden and was shown to every adult going to the Jamboree including the king of Sweden, who is also the head of international scouting, who liked it so much that he's asked for us to make another one.

The next morning we had a quick cooked breakfast before taking all the instruments down to the main tent with the stage in and setting up there. I set up Kevin's video camera to record the performance so that we could add it into our next JTV video. The other scouts were then allowed into the large tent and the opening ceremony went on with Peter Carnegie (camp chief), Dan Wood (the new county commissioner) and Wayne Bulpitt (UK chief commissioner) speaking and "JamboGlee" preforming brilliantly (while I recorded).

After the opening ceremony, we helped set the main tent up as the craft tent and took all the instruments back to the explorer area to lock them away and then went down to the main filed for the activities. These included Zorbing, obstacle course, ice skating, scuba diving, shooting, archery, canooeing, inflatables and many, many more. We did the activities until 13:00 when we went up for lunch where we had a talk from Rex who started scouting in Avon but now works with Swedish scouts and is one of the top organizers for the Swedish jamboree and told us about the jamboree, the site, previous Swedish jamborees and loads more interesting and useful information.We then did more activities (that afternoon it was our priority (we got to skip the cue on all the most popular activities)) before dinner which was at about 6. We then surprised Kathryn by giving her presents and a cake seeing it was her birthday the week before which she loved. After this we went down to the main field where there was a carnival. The carnival was quite funny, especially when Kate and Dan went into the stocks to have wet sponges thrown at them. We then briefly visited the 28th and the explorer sub-camp before going back down to see the fireworks in the main field (which were very impressive ones). Afterwards there was a explorer only silent disco in the main tent. This is where everyone gets a pair of headphones and can choose to listen to one of two different DJ's and switch between them throughout the night. This was great and wen't on until midnight when we were escorted back to our tents by armed leaders wearing intense high vis jackets to make sure we didn't wake up the scouts, cubs and beavers. When I got back to my tent I found Josh already in there and instead of tidying his stuff away, he's decided to lie on top of it all.

The next morning I got up at around 8:00 and had breakfast. Kate and Emily auditioned for the "Avon's got talent" competition. We then did the activities again until just before lunch when some of us spoke to Dan Wood (county commissioner), Steve Smith (deputy county commissioner) and Gorden Weston (south west regional commissioner), before having lunch. In the afternoon we did more of the activities including the climbing wall.

The explorers then all met in the main activities field where we were told that we could go on most of the activities for an extra two hours after they were meant to close.
We did this and then went up to the explorer
area for dinner. Kate, Emily and Dan had all got through to the final of Avon's got talent so after dinner I grabbed the video camera and found a good spot on a chair at the very back on the raised platform for the lighting desk where I got a great view of all the acts. I spoke to James (a leader from the 28th) who was taking photos of it at the back whilst Simon was one of the judges. Kate played the saxophone, Dan did the diabalo and Kate and Emily sang - they were all really good. The judges went away to work out the final three and when they came back they were all cheered onto the stage with the exception of Simon who was booed off (partially encouraged be me) the final three were; a cub who played the flute, another explorer who sang 'defying gravity' and Kate with her saxophone. The winner was then decided with the audience cheering and a decibel meter (or a cheap i phone app used by the guy standing next top me to be more precise) and was the girl who sang 'defying gravity'.
We then went back to the explorer area for a bit and wandered around the site (we also visited the 28th again) We then went down to the main tent where we joined in with the end of the main disco before everyone was sent out and we had another explorer silent disco which was awesome fun. We then went back up to the explorer field after it finished at midnight and Me, Kate, Garry, Sam and Harry all went into one tent to play cards and then truth or dare - truth. By the time we finished at about 01:40 we couldn't be bothered to go to our own tents so we all slept in that tent. The next morning we woke up at about 7:00 to find that the tent we were in had leaked badly as well as my tent which Tom and Josh were in (Tom had left his tent due to lack of room because about 10 people tried to sleep in a three man tent) I had a shower and then we had breakfast. We then played an awkward version of Frisbee which involved a tennis ball before a packed away my stuff and put it in Anna's tents so that I could take my tent down. We then did karaoke in the explorer tent and sold some more candyfloss (we'd been selling it all weekend during the activity times and we'd all taken turns in helping) before I said goodbye to everyone, tried to fix Josh's phone in 30 seconds (I failed :() and had to take my kit and lunch along with Tom down to Simon's land-rover ready for us to go off on another camp.

the 28th websites post on camp is available here: http://www.bathamptonscouts.org/2011/06/four-seasons-jamboree-2011/

Ten Tors 2011 - The Event

On the 13th, 14th and 15th of may was the ten tors challenge 2011.
The  teams were picked the week before and everyone who wanted to do it made it onto the 35 team except two people, one who filled a space on our 45 team and another who joined 'sexy school's' 45 team
We arrived at bear flat and departed at about 7:10, we then went to Norton hill school because we were sharing a coach with them and headed off to oakhampton whilst on the way I texted friends who would also be taking part. We had a brief stop at exeter services and then arrived at the army base at around 10:00.
When we arrived we quickly unloaded all out kit from the coach and went through 'tent city' to where the three beechen cliff flags were - looking better than all the others!
There we met Mr Brewer and Mr Stewart, Mr Edy had travelled in the coach with us. We then went quickly to scrutineering where I saw some people I knew. Luckily because we had arrived early the cue wasn't very long and we were seen by one of the scrutineeres quite quickly. When we reached the scruitineer he gave us a full inspection (as were are a double green school, we should only have a reasonably brief scruitineering but our scrutineer made us take everything out of our bags and through it all - he even counted our water purification tablets!)
After we got scruitineering stamped on our route card, we dumped our kit at our 'base' and went to the compulsory briefing where they told us all the basic stuff - don't drop litter, motivation, etc.....
After getting briefing stamped as well we went back to our mess tent and planned our route, this didn't take too long and afterwards we went up to the start line to have a look around.
We then had dinner which comprised of pasta which had been left cooking all day with bolonaise followed by Apple pie and cold, straight out of the can custard. Afterwards we had free time until bed at ten so I spoke to a friend from wsj and another from my primary school before going to bed in anticipation....
The next morning I woke at 4:55 from Rob's alarm clock and we all waited quietly as the sun rose until 5:00 when over the camp tannoy came chariots of fire for us to wake up to. This was then followed by other inspirational music such as, we are the champions, these boots are made for walking, dancing queen? and many more. I then had a the most disgusting egg I have ever eaten in my life, and I've had lots of camp cooking (no offence Mr Stewart). We then got a scary briefing from Mr Brewer and Mr Stewart explaining how failure is not an option. We then went up to the start and the atmosphere was HUGE. We took are place  on the ring of participants and gave our flags to the teachers (we could see all our other teams because our flags were so much bigger and taller than everyone else's). Then as it approached 7:00, there was then a speech from several important people from the army and the ten tors prayer was read. Two huge guns then went off and all hell broke loose. Everyone ran down the hill at once and it was absolute chaos. We quickly got on route and headed to our first tor. The map of our route can be seen below:

On the way to our first tor I stupidly managed to loose one of my gloves within about the first five minutes. We made our way quickly to Oke tor and were the first team on our route to get there. 

We turned around quite quickly and went off down into the valley from the tor. We quickly made our way towards Shilstone tor. On the way - despite Mr Brewer warning us not to - we ended up in a huge bog, the one which someone had died in three years before! We got through it as quickly as possible but needless to say, it had slowed us down considerably. We reached Shilstone tor and were just leaving as one of the three helicopters came to land there. We were much quicker on this next leg, and stopped to collect water where we had done in the last training. About 1/3 up the next tor I realized that I had really stupidly, left the map case with all the important stuff in (route card etc...) at the bottom by the stream. I quickly chucked my bag on the floor and ran down to the bottom of the steam and luckily it was still there! I grabbed it and ran back up to the others - that was REALLY stupid of me!!!

We reached our next tor - Watern, quite quickly and were starting to catch up on the time we'd lost in bog. We then went on to Higher White tor, following the wall that runs along there which didn't take too long, although Tom started to get quite bad cramps and had to stop at lower white tor. When we got to the tor, some of us went to the loo while tom asked the army person in charge how to help the cramp, and was told to have some salt. 

We then set off to Great mis tor which was probably the hardest stretch.  It was hard because every few meters, tom would stop and just lie on the floor, stretching out the pain, screaming and shouting at us not to wait for him. The Zebra helicopter left just as we arrived. We stopped briefly but decided best to go as quickly as possible so that tom's cramp didn't start again and so that we could try and get to Staple tor (the tor after next) rather then being stopped at Black tor (our next tor). 

We went down and crossed the road near Princetown. We then followed a track almost all the way to Black tor. When we got there, we met tom and my friend - tom from jamboree We then walked with his group back up the same track until we reached the road. From there we walked down the road and filled up our water next to a small pub. We then went up a steep track until we reached Staple tor. By the time we'd arrived it was too late to go on so both our groups stayed there for the night. I started to cook everyone meals while they put up the tents. We then stuck our bags our bags in the tents and sheltered behind a rock to eat because it was VERY windy. I then had a chat with one of the RAF people (each tor was manned either by people from the army, navy or RAF and Staple tor was RAF) about vegetarian sausage and beans - breakfast. We then went to bed as soon as we had finished.

The next morning we woke up at around four. By half four we had started cooking and our tent was partially down. The other 'tent team' then got up and helped. By about 5:15am we had packed everything up and were sheltering to stay warm. We then did a litter sweep of the whole area before the army would give us our route card back (we got Tom into the front of the queue to get ours), and at exactly 6:00am, the person in charge of the tor blew his whistle and we were off - a slightly less spectacular start than the day before but good all the same. We went across the 'saddle' of a few tors and before long we had reached Lynch tor, where we met one of our 45 teams. We had a brief break here and then went on, firstly along quite a flat area, then down steeply into a valley and out the other side where the grass was so long we became completely disorientated and it took us a while just to work out which of the surrounding tors we were aiming at. Once we'd worked out which tor to head to, it didn't take us long to get to the next tor - Chat tor. We hardly stopped there, before going straight up the not so steep, hill to our 10th tor - Kitty tor. We stopped there for quite a while because we were so happy that we'd got to our tenth. We then left and went down a really steep hill, and up the other side, whilst listening to a mix of Tom's radio, the grating sound from the winder on Tom's radio and a team near us that couldn't stop arguing with each other. We then went along the top and met Mr Stewart at about 11:40am, who congratulated us and gave us a flag to carry. We then walked 'the walk of fame' down into Oakampton camp and completed the challenge and 11:50am!

Avon Scouts - Bear Hunt

On Saturday 7th May was Avon Scouts 'bear hunt'. Simon took some scouts from Bathampton to this and many people from WSJ were also there. At the event we were lucky enough to meet chief scout - Bear Grylls and got him to sign some 'Avonasaurus' merchandise.
You can read more on what I have to say on this on the new Bathampton Scouts website which I have just finished : http://www.bathamptonscouts.org/2011/05/bear-hunt/

DofE - Camp Craft Training

On Wednesday 4th May as part of our Duke of Edinburgh awards preparation we learnt some basic camp craft skills at Hayesfield in preparation for the following weekend of camping. I did not go on the training camp as it was the ten tors event which is much harder.

Ten Tors Training - Dartmoor 3

From 27th to the 29th April was Ten Tors training 'Dartmoor' three. We arrived at the sports barn after school on Wednesday and unpacked all our kit to go through as if doing scrutineering. After this, we went down to the co-op while the 45ers and 55ers did their scrutineering. When we got back we were given our rout cards and went to plan our route. It was mainly going straight from one tor to another as the weather had been good so we didn't need to go around bogs etc... We then went to bed as soon as we could.

The next morning at 4:00am we were woken up by the lights being turned on. We quickly got dressed and packed up all our kit before grabbing a breakfast of a flapjack, some fruit, some flavored water and a pan au chocolat. We then loaded out kit into the trailer (not a horse box this time). And went into our mini bus to eat the remainder of our breakfast and catch some sleep.

After a brief stop at Exeter services, we went straight to Okehampton army base and unloaded our kit. We then went to the gate where the event would start. Our team where the last to be allowed to leave, we had staggered starts, but were still the first to reach our first tor - Row tor before the two teams that left before us (our other 35 team and the 35 team from Mr Brewer's, sisters school (castle school)), even though I did almost step on a discarded grenade.
We then powered on (seriously with Tom leading us) to Oke tor. When we reached the top we saw our other 35 team crossing the river at the bottom as we left to our next tor but didn't see them reach the top our come down the other side, we were later told that one of them had fallen in the river and they had had to wait 30 mins for him to get changed. We then went on to Sharpitor where we met Mr Brewer's sister and her colleague followed by Watern tor, Quintins man and the Sittaford tor where we met Mr Brewer and Mr Mason. We then went on to a large rive crossing where we met Mr Stewart and his dogs, followed by Higher white tor where we met Mr Brewer's sister again followed by Beardown tors where we met Mr Brewer's sister (the Brewer family say that they have mastered the ability of apparition). We then went down through a farm and along the road from two bridges to Princetown. We then made use of the toilets in the town (but they stunk so much we would almost have been better off waiting till we camped. We then continued along the road until we turned off at Black tor where we were first to arrive for the night. We then set up our tents, collected some water, lit our trangia and cooked our ration meals while the other teams trickled in. We then set up our tents and cooked our dinner on the trangia's. The teachers then came to check on us and when the left we skillfully avoided the pile of skin that Josh had peeled off his feet before going to bed.

The next morning we got up at around 4:00am and quickly took down the tents and cooked our meals on the trangia's before the teachers arrived and after checking we were all good, our team were dismissed first. We then went from Black tor, to South Hessary tor. From there we followed 'the yellow brick motorway' down to higher hartor and then up Eylesbarrow tor where we met Mr Brewer's sister and her colleague again. We then went down into a very steep valley and up the other side to down tor. We then went along to Cramber tor followed by Black tor where we had camped.
Mr Brewer then phoned us and told us that because we were going so quickly, instead of going straight to Leedon tor we went to Sharpitor first. We then went to the road at the bottom of Sharpitor where we met Mr Brewer, Stewart and Mason and they told us we were doing very well. We then continued up to Leedon tor. We were then planning to go straight across to North Hessary tor but Joel Flint and his friend blew their whistle from the bottom of the tor. We presumed they were calling us when actually they were calling the other 35 team who had just reached Leeden tor. We then walked together up to the huge mast on the top of North Hessary tor where we met Mr Brewer, Stewart and Mason again. We then walked down into princetown with Mr Brewer to the mini buses where we sat, ate and drank while we waited for the other teams. While we were we spoke about who wanted to be on the team for the actual event. Cobi said that he didn't want to which left 8 people going for 6 places.

A week later we were told the final 35 teams for the event which consisted of; Me, Tom, Rob, Ollie, Tom and Josh. Adam and Marcus who didn't get in then went with different 45 teams and also took part.

Below is what Mr Stewart wrote for the school about the training and the up coming event:
"TEN TORS CHALLENGE FOR BEECHEN CLIFF

This  weekend 24 Beechen Cliff  pupils  will take on the

challenge that is Ten Tors. This event requires the teams

of six to navigate across Dartmoor and be self­sufficient

for two days,  whatever the weather.  These pupils  have

been training since January  spending 3 weekends  on

Dartmoor and a long day in the Black Mountains, Wales,

to practice and refine their skills.  Year 10 pupils will be

attempting 35 miles, Year 11 will walk  45 miles  and 6

Year 12 pupils  will attempt  the 55 mile event. They  will

gather along with 2400 other youngsters on Okehampton

Camp this  Friday.  The place becomes  a tent city  as

organisations set  up their base camps.  The buzz  starts

and the atmosphere will build along with the anticipation.

Teams  undergo kit  checks,  route planning and briefings

before the adventure begins.

The teams will start at 7:00am Saturday and aim to finish

before 5:00pm Sunday  afternoon.  If successful  then

bronze,  silver and gold medals  will be allocated

accordingly. If they  finish outside 5:00pm then to quote

Ann Robinson they  will ‘leave with nothing’.  The stakes

are high.

Ten Tors  is  one of  the most  challenging events

youngsters  at  this  age can attempt, both mentally  and

physically.  It  is  held  in high regard by  employers  and

Universities  alike and Beechen Cliff has  a proud record

with the event.  Every  year the finish is  well attended by

parents  and spectators  as  well  as  making local  and

national news.

You can follow  the progress  of our teams  by  visiting the Ten Tors  website at

http://events.exeter.ac.uk/tentors/ and following the links. We wish all our teams  well and hope to report

success next week. Regardless the experience will be unforgettable!!

Mr Brewer, Mr Stewart, Mr Edy, Mrs Denning, Mr Mason."

DofE - First Aid Training

On Wednesday 27th April as part of our Duke of Edinburgh awards preparation we learnt some basic first aid in the beechen cliff hall with the school nurse. Amongst other things with learnt how to put someone in the recovery position, how to treat burns and about breaks, sprains and twists

Patrol Camp 2011

From the 8th to the 10th April was our annual 'Patrol Camp'. This is held every year as preparation for the week long 'Troop Camp' which happens later in the year.

I arrived about 1 hour late because my work experience (see last post) didn't finish until half an hour past the start of camp, and joined my Patrol. They had already put up the patrol tent so I helped put up the (new) dinning shelter, we then gathered all our personal and patrol kit and put it to the relevant tents. Afterwards we all went into the mess tent for hot drinks and we got a intimidating talk from Simon before we went to bed.

The next morning we had a continental breakfast (croissants with jam and cereal) and spent to morning setting up our patrol sites (gadgets, roped off, making sure tents are put up correctly and neatly etc...) and each patrol had a slot on rotation doing archery. We then stopped for a brief lunch of sausage rolls, crisps, fruit and cake. In the afternoon we all worked towards our outdoor challenge badge (or outdoor challenge plus for those, like me, who had already completed it). I learn't some first aid with James and helped some of the younger scouts complete some of the things that they needed to do. By the end of it I realized that the only thing I needed to do to complete the plus badge was to sleep out in a bivi/poncho shelter so me, Tom and Alex convinced Simon to let us sleep in one that night. We then cooked an assessed dinner on our patrol fires which went quite well.

For our evening activity, Me, Tom and Alex walked to Nunny castle (a reasonably local ruin) where we hid and waited for the rest of the scouts to arrive with the leaders. Simon had a radio as did we so we were given 5 minutes warning before they arrived. The scouts mission was to throw five glow sticks into the castle, what they didn't realize is that we would be throwing them back out. Much as this was a good idea it was somewhat shortened when after about 30 seconds all the glow sticks ended up in the moat.

Me, Tom and Alex then went off ahead again and arrived back at the campsite quite soon where we put on the hot water and had a doughnut. When the leaders and the rest of the scouts got back we went and set up our poncho shelter which was luxuriously constructed of five ponchos before getting our mats and sleeping bags and going to bed.

The next morning we got up and Tom and Alex were told to take down the shelter while I went to help my patrol cook our assessed (full English) breakfast. After breakfast we had the main inspection which went quite well. We then went down to the river and built mini rafts (we did this on troop camp in 2008 and it was a great success) after we  had built them we set fire to them and floated them down the river. My one and Tom and Alex's ones got the furthest. We then walked back up to the campsite and took down the patrol sites, tents etc... and started to loads up the trailer. We then had a break for lunch and tried out James hammock which he had set up. We then took down the main mess tent and finished loading up the trailer and the cars.

We then had the final flag and went home.

Work Experience at Enlightened Lighting

 

From the 3rd to the 8th of April was work experience week at Beechen Cliff. I went to work at Enlightened Lighting Ltd which hire out lighting, sound systems, cables etc... for large shows, concerts, productions etc...

MONDAY
On Monday, I arrived and Andrew, my boss, quickly showed me around. I then went out in the van with Geri in the van to pick up a load of kit from Bristol temple meads  because the lorry that was meant to be taking in had broken down. I then went out in the van to collect some lights from the pavilion. I then tested cables for the afternoon.

TUESDAY
Josh (the warehouse manager gave me a more in depth tour of the warehouse. I then prepared some orders with him. I then tested cables for the afternoon again

WEDNESDAY
Went out in the van with Geri to cirencester. Then I cleaned and tested fresnel lamps.

THURSDAY
Drove with Geri to Weston-super mare to pick up some lights, went to St Brendan's college, went to bath spa uni and cleaned more fresnel lamps.

FRIDAY
Went to a school in van with Geri which was quite along way away, went to bath uni, went to deliver and set-up a private disco before saying goodbye to everyone, getting my paper work signed and then I got a lift to KES - which is right by my house, as they had broken a light there.

All in all it was an enjoyable week and I learnt a lot, especial in the specific technical terms of the industry

School Production - Around The World in 80 Days

On the 29th and the 30th March, Beechen Cliff preforming arts society did around the world in 80 days. I helped set up the lighting, sound etc... and on the nights I was ASM (assistant stage manager (stage left))

The play was a brilliant success and I hope to be involved again next year

Dragnet Camp 2011

On the 18th - 20th March, we had our annual "operation dragnet", which is when we camp over a weekend with the focus being the Saturday, On the Saturday, the PL's/Senior Scouts/Young Leaders, leave their patrols. The Patrols - normally led by their APL's, spend the day hiking using army ration packs whereas the others "hunter patrol" go around in full combats and hunt the patrols by either taking their lives (cotton wrapped around their wrists) or preferably taking the nicer items from their ration packs.

We arrived on Friday evening and set up our tents which was pretty quick considering most of the scouts hadn't pitched a tent since last may!

We then went into the hut at the site (Briaslands) where we split up into our patrols, I was in the hunter patrol which consisted of: Me, codename :NEXUS (because I'm a techy) Tom, codename :TOMAHAWK (speaks for itself) Finn, codename :FINNBAR (again, speaks for itself) Alex, codename :HARDNUT (because he got hit by car and the car broke not him!) Simon, codename :PAPA BEAR and Simon's Land rover, codename :THE PIG.

After deciding the all important code names, we looked at the route - the "normal" patrols were not allowed to see this until the morning and were currently packing their day bags.

After we had planned some of the places where we would intercept them we also packed our day bags and set up all the equipment ready for breakfast on Sunday before going to bed.

On Saturday morning we had breakfast from our ration packs and after sorting out the radios etc...the first patrol - the hawks set out....in the wrong direction so our first job as hunter patrol was to find them and set them right. All the radios had already stopped working so although we could speak to the leaders via Alex's mobile phone we couldn't speak to any of the patrols. After going down the road for quite a while we were picked up by Simon in "the pig" and were dropped off at the top of a closed road, we quickly made our way down on foot - without the leaders, and wen't a little way along the footpath the patrols would be coming along although we had already mist two.

The two patrols that were left - Merlins and Kestrels were successfully intercepted and had lives taken off them. We were then driven in the pig passed wick to a section of four fields which no patrols had passed through yet and set up our first ambush in the area, first we looked around the area and then hid behind a tree and intercepted the first patrol which was the hawks - the patrol that had gone the wrong way at the start, this time we decided to take food, sweets etc.. instead of the their lives so we could ambush them again later.

The next patrol, the kestrels, came through in a similar fashion.

We then reorganized our strategy for the next patrol, I moved to the other side of the road to see them coming and the others changed fields to an easier place to ambush from, unfortunately because the next patrol - the eagles - had got lost and came from the wrong direction and therefore saw us before we saw them, despite this small hiccup we successfully ambushed them and sent them on there way. By this time it was 1:00pm and therefore the last patrol, the merlin's, would have to set up a poncho and trangia for lunch, so we chose one of the middle fields and cooked our lunch as well whilst 'dancing' to some epic music. The leaders then dropped by  briefly and then left us to pack up get into positions for the final patrol. We then ambushed them very successfully much to my APL's annoy-ens (it was my patrol). We were about to leave when we realized that Finn had lost one of his radio's so we had to spend ages looking for it, eventually we decided that one of the Merlin's (my patrol) had stolen it and got in James's car. James dropped us by the A46, we then went along some fields in the opposite direction to which the patrols should have been coming in towards st. Catherine's. We found a perfect field and set up a perfect ambush but 1 hour later and the patrols still hadn't come, so we were sent up to charmy down airfield to look for them before being told that they had got so lost that they were miles away. We then went through some farms (and barbed wire fences!) to reach James again. We then drove to Upton Cheyney where we ambushed (or walked into and took them by slightly more surprise then they took us by) the Eagles. We then walked up the path and hid deep into a hedge. It was all going very well until we realized that the eagles were the last patrol. We then went back to the campsite before being sent out to find the Merlin's with James. They were hopelessly lost and kept telling us over and over that they were stuck in a barbed wire compound. It wasn't helped by the fact that they could only speak over the radio in two second intervals because their battery was dying. I then had the idea of contacting them via the radio that they took from Finn earlier and managed to get them to turn it on and from that determined roughly where they were.When we arrived we went over to a nearby cow shed where we presumed they were, were we found they farmer who unlocked all the land for us where we found them. Most of the patrol then went back in James' car but because there wasn't enough room, me, Tom, Alex and Matthias walked. We were almost back when James came to pick us for the rest of the way back. When we got back we went up to the campfire for fish and chips which were very nice except the chip shop had got the order wrong and there wasn't any for James. We spoke quite late and went to bed at about 11:00. 

The next morning we cooked breakfast in patrols on gas and ate (full English). We then did archery and the blind fold trail before going to lunch. We then took down our tents and loaded up our kit before leaving at 4:30

Ten Tors Training in The Black Mountains

 
On the 13th March, everyone doing ten tors met at school at 7:00am, ready to go down to abergavenny and the black mountains. The drive wasn't too bad and after dropping the 45 & 55mile teams at a car park, we (35miles) were dropped at the bottem on the Black mountain with Max (one of Mr Stewart's two dogs)

Max, Mr Stewart's Dog

Climbing the Black Mountain

The two teams decided to go as one as there was no real point in splitting up, so with me taking Max, we went up. It took us about 30mins - 1hr to get to the top and on the way we encountered wild horses. When we reached the top, we met Mr Brewer (& his dad), who told us that we should split up, our team went off first towards table top mountain (which was actually down hill because it was a smaller mountain than Black mountain  .
Once we reached table top mountain, us, the other 35 team, the 45 team and Mr Stewart who were all going the same way walked together. We went down the side of table top, then through a farm, along a lane, through another farm where we realised that the farmer had fenced off the way out with barbed wire - so that meant over the barbed wire fence - yes the two dog as well!

We than ran down to the end of the field - literately as Max was pulling me over. When we reached the bottom of the field there was a road, so we stopped to orientate ourselves so that we knew which way to go, the 45's worked it out first and headed off but the rest of us wanted to check first. The 45's then returned saying that they were wrong and it was the other way but we worked out that they were right the first time after they had already gone off in the wrong direction. The rest of us went the right direction until we reached a  pub where we found the other teachers.

The view from the viewpoint

Mr Brewer told us that we had to go off on our own again so my team headed off first along the road with me navigating. We turned up another road and along a footpath which, after going two farms, ended up at a view point from which you could see all the way back to Bath, Mr Brewer was there and told us that when we reached the end point - the hospital, to be careful not to sit on any hypodermic needles. We walked quickly down the road and eventually reached a housing estate which we went through until we reached the hospitals and the mini buses.



 The 55 team were already there, the other 35 team arrived about 15 minutes later and the 45 team arrived about 30 minutes after them. We then took the mini buses back to Bath

Mere - Mr Stewart's other dog sat on Tom for the journey home

DofE - Cotswold Way Walk

On Saturday 12th March, we had our first Duke of Edinburgh event away from Bath.

We arrived at Stonehouse, King stanley (half an hour early) and then split up into our teams. My team consisted of: Me - BCS, Joe - BCS, George - BCS, Max - BCS, Emily - HGS and Jess - HGS.

The walk was pretty easy and was very basic navigating (although we were one of only two out of seven groups who did not get lost once). The walk was pretty boring most of the time but it did help everyone to get all the basic skills needed. Probebly the best bit was about halfway through when Jess shouted for George to SHUT UP!

We arrived at the finish in Wotton-under-Edge, exactly on time - 4pm, ready for a Ten Tors hike the next day!

DofE - Orienteering at Bath University

On Thursday 10th March, I had my first DofE activity which was orienteering at Bath university.
We started at the gym at beechen cliff and then walked to the university.
Once at the university we did some work at finding out the size of our steps for future reference
We then used the national trust orienteering course which was very easy

Bath Half 2011

Last Sunday, Me, Tom and Simon helped out at the Bath half marathon. I met Simon is the staff tent where all the volunteers were given a briefing. We were all then given a top which said "Bath Half 2011 event team" on.

We were running the lost children and the lost property in the information tents, we left soon after tom had arrived. We then spent most of the day talking, eating and drinking whilst sorting out peoples various queries.

Tom left at about half past 2 and me and Simon helped to take everything down and took several crates of goody bags and water with us for scouts in the future   

Glenny Wood Activity Day

Last weekend was our activity day at Glenny wood that you can read about here: http://ethanjambo.blogspot.com/2011/03/glenny-wood-activity-day.html

Bathampton Scouts visit to PGL Liddington 2011

This weekend was Bathampton Scouts annual visit to an adventure center. This year, for the first time, we went to the brand new PGL center in Liddington, outside Swindon.

We arrived, after fighting our way through the rush hour traffic, at the center at 5:30pm on Friday. We quickly put our kit in our rooms and met Kain, our groups instructor for the weekend. We then went down for a early dinner of which I chose Tuna pasta bake, chips and waffles in toffee sauce. We then went back up to our rooms and got appropriate kit on ready for a wide game called "ambush", were one team hid and had to ambush a hunting patrol before the hunters found them. This turned out to be quite interesting, especially the radio conversation between my patrol (Merlin's with Kain) and Ashley's patrol (Eagles with Simon and Hannah) in which there were a lot of lies given such as Hannah being halfway up a eucalyptus tree. We were confused even further after seeing two people who looked just like Simon and Hannah walking in the wrong direction. In the end we decided that it was a draw and at 10pm we went to our rooms for lights out at 10:30pm

The next morning, we woke up at 7:00am ready for inspection at 7:40am, which went well. We then went down for a breakfast of veggie sausages, scrambled eggs, baked beans and toast (there was also "normal" sausages and bacon) at 8:00am. We then went to our dedicated classroom for around minutes because we were early, Kain got giant twister for us.

We then went into the courtyard to meet our instructors, My patrol were doing abseiling first with Simon and Alex, and Ashley's patrol were doing areoball. We went off to the abseiling tower with our instructor - Andy, who tried and failed to get us to sing on the way.
Simon went first followed by Alex and then me down the abseiling tower. This was quite difficult due to the fact that the side of the tower was extremely wet, it had been raining all night, and was very slippery, Tom virtually slid down the entire tower. Unfortunately, the last person to go down the tower was very scared and therefore took quite a long time which meant that everyone only got one go :(

The abseiling tower

After our hour and a half of abseiling we then swapped with the Eagles and went onto areoball. In areoball there are four people on a trampoline which is divided into four. The outer netting of the trampoline has holes in it which the person opposite has to shoot the ball through - its a lot more fun than it sounds!
After swapping around a few times we had a grand final, Simon and Katie vs Me and Alex. Simon scored three points against me and Katie scored zero against Alex, Alex scored three against Katie and I scored seven against Simon making me and Alex the winners!

areoball

We then went inside to get changed for lunch at 12:15pm, I had a cheese slice but there was also traditional Cornish pasties and sausage rolls. We then got our kit for the next two activities our of our rooms and Kain managed to find a table tennis table to keep us entertained seeing that we were early again.

We went back out to the courtyard and met our instructor for Jacobs ladder. In Jacobs ladder your, and your team of two other people, have to climb as high as you can up a giant ladder made out of logs for rungs. Me, Tom and Ben made in to rung 5 with our arms over rung 6, we also got to belay the other teams, I was belaying Simon which I think scared him a bit!

Jacobs Ladder

We then swapped over with the other team (without taking off our harnesses to save time) and went to do climbing. Everyone (including me which absolutely amazed me) made it to the top of the climbing wall (except the person who was scared on abseiling), although I did take quite a long time and fell off a lot too. Alex on the other hand, who goes to climbing club at BCS, got up to the top in just 45seconds and Simon in just 1min 12secs! We then did some bouldering (seeing how well you can hold on to the climbing wall) and the person who didn't get to the top (and who Simon promised to make a patrol leader if they won because he was so confident they wouldn't) won!

The climbing wall (we used the right hand side)

We then took off our harnesses and got changed out of our outdoor cloths for a dinner of breaded haddock and new potatoes, with a pudding of either waffles (which I had) or some sort of sponge cake.
We then went into our room and played some more twister before Kain took us to the tuck shop. Afterwards, the leaders gave the prize to the room that won inspection which was the girls room.
Everyone then went to the evening activity which was a disco for everyone on site. After being cornered by some scary guides, me and Alex decided that we'd rather do some cheese and wine tasting with the leaders (without the wine of course). When we got back the disco had almost finished and we found that the rest of the scouts had made a early escape just after us to the room with the table tennis.

We were then asked by Kain about various things that PGL could do to improve as part of our feedback. The leaders then decided to go to "the library" so I organised a indoor wide game of sardines from about 8:45 - 9:00pm - Kain also gave me the keys to the rooms which the leaders had asked for. After that, everyone went into the rooms that we were sleeping in until 10:00pm when I said they had to go back into their own rooms. Then at 10:30pm, as I was telling everyone to turn their lights out the leaders returned from "the library" and I went to bed.

The next morning we got up and were ready for 7:40am inspection again except for one of the rooms, when Simon went in to get them to hurry up, he found that they were still asleep - they automatically came last in inspection, We then went down to breakfast again and I had veggie sausages, hash browns (actually there was only one :( ) , spaghetti and toast.
We then got our kit on and went to the courtyard where we played splat whilst waiting for our instructor (Simon was first out every time)
Our instructor (Nicky) then arrived to take us to milk crates - where you stack (you guessed it) milk crates, to make the tallest tower possible. The people that aren't on the top of the tower are either belaying or passing the crates up and generally helping to build the tower. Me and Tom got up to a stack on 13 milk crates although a one point (I had Simon belaying for me), he yanked the rope so that I had to stand on my tiptoes and completely lost my sense of balance.
After we had cleared away the fallen milk crates we were praised by Nicky about how well we were at getting our harnesses on without help and generally making her not needed :)

We the swapped with the other group to do archery with another instructor called Emma, we played lots of games including, the pizza game and the cutlery game. We also played a game of penalty, archery style which Simon (the archery instructor) lost!


We then were taken back to the courtyard to meet Kain (who was late because he had cut his leg). We then got changed and had a lunch of Pizza and chips with a tomato soup which had way to many herbs in.

We then packed up everything that we wouldn't need for the rest of the afternoon and went downstairs for our next activity - fencing, which was great fun although it was boiling hot and the downstairs windows didn't open. I drew with Simon and Alex although the best bit was slapping Simon across the face with my glove to challenge him to a duel.

 We then swapped over and went to our last activity - Zip wire. When we arrived we were told to get our harnesses on immediately and as quickly as possible by the other group, while we did this we were told by the instructors that there was a record for the amount of goes in an afternoon session (3 hours) that a group got. The record was 97 and we were trying to beat it. The other group (in their 1hr 30min session) had got 48 goes (6 each), so we would have to have 50 goes (6 each and two people have 7) to beat the record. We soon had a swift operation and order, taking the rope back to the tower and having a personal pit team when you came to the end of the wire (we were going so fast that just before my 4th go my harness fell off but luckily there was time to fix it!) In the end, because it was only fair that we all got the same amount of goes, we got 7 goes each! Smashing the record up to 104 (I was 103)!

We then went back to meet Kain and spread the good news to the other patrol. We quickly put our uniforms on because we were a but late and were told that my room had won inspection and got a large bag of maltesers for winning. We then were dismissed, and went home.

Ten Tors Training - Dartmoor 1

This weekend was the first proper ten tors training which took place on the south moor of Dartmoor. We arrived at school (B4 geography room) at 7:00 and after putting our phone numbers into a spread sheet we were given our route cards and planned our routes. We did this, listened to Mr Brewer and said hello to Mr Stewards dogs, Max and Mere, until 9:00 when the sports barn was free for us to move into. 

Once we'd moved in, we checked our kit, adjusted our bag straps, and divided up group kit. We then decided unanimously that my roll mat was harder than the wooden floor, and went to bed.

At 4:00am we were woken up and quickly packed up our kit and ate a breakfast of pan au chocolat, flap jack, fruit, fruit juice and strawberry and kiwi flavored water. We then all put our bags in the horse box (makeshift trailer) and boarded the mini-buses, for most of journey from school until Exeter services, I slept.

When we reached Exeter it was just before 7:00am, I bought some red salmon and cucumber sandwiches from M&S for lunch on Saturday and Sunday. We then set off it the minibuses towards our start point...princetown.

As we drove across the north moor towards princetown and amazing sunrise came up over the moor.

When we reached princetown, everyone got there waterproofs on and gaiters (except me because I don't have any) and almost immediately set off towards our teams first tor: North Hessary tor (below and left)

The start in Princetown (bottom right)
to North Hessary tor (top left)

When we were climbing it, the tor was so misty that we didn't see the giant mast on the top of it until we were about five meters away from it 

The transmitter on
North Hessary tor

We then went from North Hessary tor to Rundlestone the B3357 and followed it left (west) until Yellowmeade farm junction were we reached a stream and a junction where some of us filled up our water bottles, we then went diagonally across a stretch of the moor to king's tor, successfully practicing to use a compass bearing, where we met Mr Mason and had a short break

North Hessary tor (middle left) to Ruddlestone (top right)
to Yellowmeade junction (top middle) to Kings tor (bottom left)  

We then went south along a bridleway to Leeden tor where we met Mr Brewer and Mr Stewart who wanted to check that we ALL knew where we were (which we all did). We then went down the other side of Leeden  tor and crossed the B3212 to go up to the top of Sharpitor where we again met Mr Mason. We then went back down Sharpitor the same way as we had come up and followed the B3212 right (north east) until we reached Black tor. At the top of Black tor we had another rest and ate some food for our lunch before going down the other side, crossing an annoyingly wide river/bog and then ascended hart tor

Leeden tor (top left) to Sharpitor (bottom left) to Black tor (top middle) to Heart tor (top right)

 At the top of Heart tor we met the other team from BCS doing 35 miles and decided to walk with them to the next tor, South Hessary tor, which, after walking through some seriously boggy terrain and massively regretting being the only one without gaiters, we arrived at it to find Mr Brewer and Mr Stewart who told us that we had to split back up into two teams. We rested at South Hessary tor for a bit while Mr Brewer explained to us how that the whole of Dartmoor used to be on a tectonic plate boundary and used to be a mountain range like the alps and had be eroded down to how it is today. 

The Devonport leat

Our team were the first to be ready so we left before the other 35 mile team and went south along the well build public footpath that Mr Brewer continuously referred to as being "a motorway". Because of the path being a lot easier to walk on than the moor we went exceptionally quickly for quite a long stretch and caught up on any time we had lost in the bogs between Heart tor and South Hessary tor. About halfway along the path we saw Mr Brewer going the other way which was strange because we had only just seen him about 10-15 minutes before, he claimed he had aperated :)  We walked with Mr Brewer, whilst discussing who would win in a fight between Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort - we didn't reach a conclusion. We then reached Nun's cross and the end of "the motorway" where we met Mr Mason who we left along with Mr Brewer heading north west. We had been advised by Mr Brewer to find and follow the Devonport leat back to Black tor where we were camping for the night, unfortunately, we found a section which came off the leat first which confused us a bit, luckily after finding the proper leat and meeting the other team again, we all followed the leat back to Black tor, just before we arrived we filled up our water bottles from the leat and climbed the side of the tor about half way up, until we found the flat ground which we would be camping on.

Black tor (top left) to Heart tor (top middle) to South Hessary tor (top right)
along "the motorway" to Nun's cross (bottom right) following the leat to the flat field on Black tor (bottom left) 

Not wanting to have to pitch our tents in the dark, we quickly pitched them, put our stuff inside, and lit our trangia to boil the water for our ration packs. At about that time, the teachers turned up and checked that everything was running smoothly before leaving us to eat our dinner. At around 6:00pm, just after it got dark, we decided to go to bed to get the optimum amount of sleep ready for the next day.

At about 9:00pm it started to rain, which wasn't a problem. At around 10:00pm the wind really picked up which was more so. At 11:00pm we woke up to find that one of the guy ropes on the outside had been ripped out of the ground by the wind and Josh who was in my tent, went out and fixed it, At about 1:00am we woke up to find that one side of the tent had effectively collapsed onto the third person in our tent, Ollie, making him quite wet! Me and Josh moved ourselves so that Ollie was no longer submerged and attempted to get to sleep again. At 5:30am the alarm on my phone went off and we all got up and started to get ready for walking at 7:30am. We soon realized how wet everything on the inside was, due to the extreme wind, and put our waterproofs on (I found a puddle had materialized all around my coat) we quickly packed away all our personal kit and met with the other 35 mile team to decide that due to the weather we would act as one big group. 

First we put all the bags in one of the other tents and started to take down ours which was a lot harder that it sounds when it is half 5 in the morning, dark, the wind powerful enough to blow you over (I was almost blown over twice), and with rain constantly pelting it down. After we had packed away the first tent we moved all the bags again and started to pack away the tent that bags had been in (I don't have a clue why we did it in this order). After we had finished this we were about to start putting down the third of our four tents when the teachers arrived back saying not to.

We were then told that we were in a severe weather warning and because of this were not able to do the second days walking, but our teachers, deciding as always not to take the soft option, said that we could walk back to Princetown instead of taking the mini buses. 

We then quickly packed away the other two tents and were split back into our original two teams. My team was ready first so we set off along the B3212 towards Princetown. 

For the whole of that walk the weather didn't stop and I was blown into the opposite side of the road twice, luckily it wasn't very busy. 

It didn't take us very long to reach the reassuring sign which said: 

Although it wasn't snowing :)

We quickly made our way through Princetown to the inn where the teachers were staying and the minibuses.

We then drove to Exeter service station, where we gave all the school kit we had been carrying (tents and trangia's)  back, before relaxing inside for about 15 minuets

We then went on the 2 hour drive back to Bath where we unpacked all the kit and finally went home...

      

     

coming up...

This weekend i'm going to Dartmoor for ten tors training with school, I will post about it next time. Unfortunately this means missing a WSJ camp at woodhouse park this weekend - I will try to get someone else to update by blog of WSJ stuff (http://www.ethanjambo.blogspot.com), the weekend after that is PGL with Bathampton scouts followed by half term, followed by another jamboree camp as well as the school play (around the world in 80days - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=182281675136788) and lots of exams, so I should have plenty to write about in the not so distant future.
Until next time...
Ethan