|
We have had loads of camps, done up the chappel at bonaly, nicked a kayak trailer, and are in process of doing it up, erm, have also been doing up some sea kayaks at longcraigs, that was so cool, not! We have had the most experienced 4 explorers on Trapperskamp, Lead by mad man miller, with govenor glasgow second in command, navigator randy robbie and kazakstanian john boy as general dogsbody, great job to have btw!
We are plotting an sas style camp for the younger scouts, brutal punishments etc, and this should give us a chance to vent some of the anger bottled up with the dismissal of Nick from the unit, He really shouldnt have been expelled, as a footie player wuld say, f**k off ref! Oh and if anyone knows who the grass is, let me know and i'l beat the s**t out of them!
5th September 2002 - By kayak from from Longcraig to Inch Garvie
 Some time shortly after 7:00 pm, six Explorer Scouts and Leaders launched their kayaks from beside Longcraig pier, near South Queensferry. The start of the expedition was delayed by our having to rescue the rescue boat, manned by Clive and Stuart, the Cabin Boy. At last we set off, heading into wind and waves, course set for the island of Inch Garvie, on which stands the middle pier of the Forth Bridge.
 The spray heaped upon us as we pitched into the relentless waves and soon some of the kayaks had started to flood. But we were neither downhearted nor deterred by this misfortune. The rough waters east of the island were made even more bumpy by the conflicting tidal currents but the intrepid explorers came through this into the lee of the island just as the red sun was disappearing behind a cloud on the horizon.
The name 'Inch Garvie' is probably originally of Gaelic derivation, meaning 'rough island'. It certainly is! We landed and hauled the kayaks ashore on to the limpet and barnacle encrusted basalt. Weed clung to the rocks and hid the gaps and crevices, likely home to crabs and other lurking horrors. We clambered over the rocks and soon reached the Second World War gun emplacement. Regretfully, we had brought no flag to place here, so we poked around for a while and, after a vain attempt to creep off and maroon one of our number, set off back to Longcraig.
 The water was not nearly as bumpy as we headed back, so we played around a bit. We practiced canoeing skills, we rafted up and tried to use the paddles as sails, we surfed on the remaining swell and we came back to Longcraig as the light was failing. Once the safety boat was brought in and bodies and kayaks were hosed down, we tucked into the barbecue that Martin had kindly incinerated for us.
Thanks to Bruce and Clive from Longcraig Scout Centre and to Paul for taking the pictures.
Planning meeting
This was our first full meeting. Six Explorer Scouts turned up. We started off by Alan introducing the Unit to Explorer Scouting. We then discussed programme ideas with Martin leading a brainstorming session. Then the Explorers were sent out into Morningside in two groups to answer some local knowledge questions. We met together at the church again back for refreshments, followed by a session where we elected ourselves on to four committees: 'Programme Planning', 'Summer Expedition Planning', 'Finance and Resources' (Finance And Resources Committee of Explorers - FARCE) and 'Communications and Publicity'.
Bonaly meeting
We started off by pitching a couple of tents belonging to the 25th and 103rd Scout Groups. We seemed to be doing this in the middle of a Brownie wide game and the air was filled with the sound of little girls screaming... very loudly! Then we tried out a couple of different stoves, a gas one from the 25th and a Trangia belonging to the 103rd. Martin set us the task of boiling a pint of water on each. The Trangia team did well but were pipped to the post by the gas team. This experimenting with expedition equipment was followed by a session in Bonaly's new scramble room. We chased each other around the room but the whole thing was much more tiring than we had imagined.
Night hike and Border Bothy night
It was the autumn Equinox and there was a full moon. See expedition report for more details
Megabowl
We all met at Megabowl at 7:00 pm, except for Richard, who had foolishly checked with the web site to see what time we were supposed to arrive. Alan promised to try to keep it up to date in future! As we already had a lane of six, Alan and Martin had to double up. This was bad news for Martin. Richard took over Alan's lane, which was good news for Alan. There were several good scores during the evening, including a good few spares and one or two strikes. When it was all over, we wandered off into the evening, all having got to know each other a little better.
Moving On I
We went along to Braid Church where Calum and Euen were moving on from the 25th Troop. They were presented with their Moving On Awards by Cathy, after which Catriona, the GSL, presented the Scouts to Alan. The Unit then ran a game for the Troop, loosely based around the carton characters Yogi Bear, Mowgli,
Bart Simpson, Fred Flintstone, Tom (of Jerry fame) and Aladdin. The tasks involved singing songs, making stone-age car and a mouse trap for Jerry. The Eagles won, with 62.5 points.
Moving On II
Having had such a successful evening at Braid Church, we all trooped along to Cluny Centre on the Friday for Richard's Moving On. James presented him with his Award and Alan welcomed him into the Unit. We ran the same game and this time the Hawks won, with 63 points.
Investiture
We held this meeting in the Session Room of Braid Church. Rebecca and Jennifer were presented with their Scout Membership Badges. After they had made their promise, the remainder of the Unit, including the Leaders, re-affirmed theirs. We talked about further programme ideas and then had an activity based around the Scout Law. A few other 'laws' were discussed. Take a look at them here!
International Evening
We met in the Session Room of Braid Church, each of three groups representing different nationalities. The Explorer Scouts had chosen Thailand and Italy, while the Leaders had Australia. Each group were expected to appear in the costume of their chosen country, give a short presentation, give us some music and introduce us to a few useful phrases. The Australians were well decked out with shorts and hats with dangling corks. One of the Italians was sporting a toga, but otherwise the attire was pretty mundane (more effort required here, guys!). We then tucked into a spread of Aussie barbi-tucker, Thai snacks and pizza before going along to the small hall for a session of Thai kick-boxing (ouch!), Sicilian card games and Aussie-rules handball!
Camping and walking in Perthshire
This was our October expedition. See expedition report for more details.
Indoor games evening
We were ousted from the Session Room of Braid Church and had to make do with the old Ladies Room. Once divided into three teams, we were given a number of tasks to do by Martin. Alan ran a D-I-Y game of Pictionary and we had to negotiate an obstacle course with a balloon kept in the air by means of a hair drier.
Skiing at Hillend We didn't have quite enough people to get a group ticket and we were restricted to the main slope because Thursday is race training. Some of us found muscles that we had forgotten existed and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Roll on the winter when we can do this for real up-north!
Cookery Competition On a stormy night, when the Car Park of Bonaly was in danger of flooding the 'Beefy's Best Botham Burger' Competition took place in the Baronial Hall. The Explorers were split into teams of Jennifer and Rebecca, Richard and Mikael with Calum choosing the wildcard entry of Alan. Would this be a choice he would end up regretting?
With Chief Chef Haggart overlooking proceedings the cooks went about producing their masterpieces. Recipes were a closely guarded secret in case that 'je ne sais quoi' provided that winning formula. With time counting down and the clock ticking the pressure began to tell with last minute preparations taking place. Ding!
And so to the marking, all Burger were of the highest quality and would do any restaurant proud. Each burger has been named as follows: Richard and Mikael - Hell Burger; Jennifer and Rebbecca - Can't cook Won't Cook; Calum and Alan - Barry's Big Beefy Bonaly Baronial Burger
After tidying up the contestants awaited with baited breath for the results and finally after much soul searching they were announced:
3. Jennifer and Rebecca
2. Calum and Alan (the gamble didn't pay off, Calum)
1. Richard and Mikael
Programme and progress review The meeting was held at Braid Church in the Session Room. The three committees met and talked about the programme for next term, the summer expedition to Loch Ness and the Great Glen and the finance and resources of the Unit. Alan gave us a quick game where half of us were blindfolded and were led through a series of tasks by the others. We talked about how it felt not to be able to see and what it felt like to be depended upon.
Morningside District Explorer Scout Forum The two Morningside District Explorer Scout Units met at Bonaly to get to know each other and talk about joint activities. We then had a Scottish dinner. We'd call it the annual dinner but that's a bit difficult as it was the first one. We finished off the evening with a couple of games - Who wants to be a millionnaire? and The weakest link. Three of the North Face Explorers stayed overnight in the Zodiac Bothy.
Taking drugs and making decisions We all met at Cluny Church and started with a brain-storming session on drugs, medicinal and non-medicinal, legal and illegal, and socially acceptable and non-acceptable use and misuse. We then split into two teams, one representing the marketting division of a new drink that had been shown to be addictive and the other, an action group hoping to ban its introduction into Britain. Each team was given a budget and had to decide upon a course of action.
Incident Hike
Two groups of double-zero trainee agents were dropped into North Korea, ready to Die Another Day. Each group had to estimate the times they would take to reach three checkpoints. The first was on top of a hill code-named Capelaw, where they came upon an agent with a bullet wound in his upper arm. One of the groups failed to find the entry wound, never mind the exit wound! The second checkpoint was code-named Bonaly Reservoir and here they discovered a South Korean agent who was trying to communicate in a wierd hill-dialect that he had been separated from the detachment to which he was assigned. He was expecting a helicopter to come and pick him up and the trainees had to interpret his sounds and sign-language and make the appropriate signals. The third checkpoint was back at Bonaly. One of the teams laid an ambush for the other but somehow fell asleep before they arrived. Calum, Jenna, Rebecca and Jamie were awarded their double-zero certificates. The others were sent back for further training.
Desert Island Disks
We met at Cluny Church. Martin had created three music quizzes, one with artists beginning A - M, one with artists beginning N - Z (including a few with dubious credentials) and one of film themes and musicals. Nobody wanted to be in Alan's team, though they could have used his knowledge of Frank Sinatra singing My Way... but not very much else. The quizzes were broken up by a discussion on what constituted a good pop song and then with writing one of our own. Lyricist Mikael surpassed himself.
Video and pizza
The last meeting of term was held at Richard's house. Richard had this great attic with a computer, pool table and hi-fi. This was a last chance for the founder members of the Unit to get together before the new Scouts move on in January. They have worked well together and Martin and Alan are very pleased with how the Unit has evolved. We all look forward to its growing as more Scouts join us and look forward to welcoming the first of them next term.
Friday 9th January: Moving On Our first meeting of the new term saw a moving on ceremony from the 25th Morningside, when Jamie joined the Unit. We expect other Scouts from the 60th and 103rd to join us later in the month. The ceremony over, the Unit was split into three teams and sent out into Morningside to solve a number of clues, each giving them a few words that they had to put into a grid. Anyone wanting to try this (filling in the grid, not the wandering around Morningside) should look in the Puzzles Page. After it was all over and Richard and Mikael had won the late Christmas present, Martin and Alan talked with the Unit about the programme for the Spring term.
Thursday 16th January: Border and Highland bothies The first part of the evening was spent discussing future programme ideas and hearing from Calum about the Jamboree in Thailand. We were then joined by David Dixon, a leading light in both the Border Bothies and the Mountain Bothies Associations. David rigged up his trusty slide projector and treated us to fifty minutes of slides on the rebuilding of two bothies, White Laggan in Dumfries-shire and Sourlies at the head of Loch Nevis. The slides told the story of the dedicated people who put in so much effort to rebuild old farming properties as comfortable shelters. When it was all over, we looked for some of the Highland bothies on OS maps and planned possible future expeditions. Thanks to David for giving up his time to come along and infect us with his enthusiasm.
Friday 24th January: Moving On from the 103rd and 60th We met at Cluny for a moving on ceremony from 103rd Morningside, when Niall and Nicholas joined the Unit. The Explorer Scouts then ran a quick game for the Troop, a game that they just began to understand when it was almost over! Then up to Buckstone to the 60th Morningside, when Michael joined the Unit. After this we ran an activity, Cartoon Character Quest. This is the same activity that we had already run for the 25th and 103rd last term. It is reproduced here in case any other Explorer Units would like to borrow it!
Thursday 30th January: Group Faith Award: what are chapels for? Bill Brockie was our guest at this meeting, which was the first stage in our Group Faith Award, working with the EASIE team in rebuilding Bonaly's chapel. He led us in a discussion on chapels and churches and made us think about how one might be designed from scratch. It seemed important to us that a chapel should allow for communal celebration as well as individual reflection and meditation. We had a go at building models of possible chapels and churches from card, paper and straw. He then talked to us about labyrinths and how these had been used in various religious sites over the centuries. Click here for more details on the whole project
Wednesday 5th February: Try Scuba diving We met at Cluny and were transported down to Jewel & Esk Valley College, where we were given fins, masks, diving jackets and air tanks. After a safety briefing, we were divided into two groups and each had a go at swimming along and breathing underwater. The group not under instruction were allowed to play around with snorkels, masks and fins. Alan sat on the bottom for the whole evening and practiced submarine levitation. Click here for more information on the Edinburgh Scout and Guide Sub-aqua Club
Thursday 13th February: Investiture and planning review The first part of the evening saw the investiture of Michael, Niall, Nicholas and Jamie into the Unit. This was followed by a game where we all wrote our own tombstones... and then had a friend write them for us... some friends! We then split into groups to talk about who wanted to sit on which committees, ideas for the programme and other plans for the future. We finished with a tiddlywinks competition, which was won by Jamie, Nick and Martin who invoked a variety of somewhat dubious tactics.
Thursday 27th February: Dragon-slaying in the Hermitage The game was based around a Welsh theme as St David's Day was coming up. One team were attackers and the other defenders, both trying to gain as many Golden Eggs as possible while avoiding the Red Dragon. After a game of some stealth, some skill and a little physicality, the Defenders emerged triumphant.
Thursday 6th March: Cooking evening at Bonaly We met at Bonaly a little late for St David's Day, but still with Welsh music singing in our ears. We split into four teams, the first preparing Cawl Cennin, a leek broth, and the second Selsig Morgannwg, vegetarian cheese sausages from Glamorgan. Unfortunately, the only vegetarian amongst us was a vegan! Two teams cooked the desserts: Picau ar y maen (Welsh Cakes) and Teisen Reis Grieddell (Rice Griddle Cakes). The groups were scored on preparation, edibility and presentation and the winners were... The recipes can be seen here.
Thursday 13th March: Looking at Photography We were visited this evening by Bob Alexander, an elder of Cluny Church, who introduced himself, brought us best wishes from the Kirk Session and then sat back to enjoy the evening. Alan first provided us with a picture quiz - eleven photographs of various objects from strange angles: look at them here. He then let us look at, play about with and in some cases dismantle a number of old still and ciné cameras. We then talked about what photography was for and used a collection of photographs of the Unit to make posters advertising the North Face Unit. Lastly, we talked about portraits, examined a number of baby portraits of the Unit and took pictures of each other. Their portraits can be seen here
 Sunday 16th March: Curling Eight Explorer Scouts and leaders met at Gogar Curling Club. Our instructor, Alasdair, gave us some advice and safety rules and then took us down on to the rink. Team captains Calum and Richard allocated vice-captains and the order of play and we set to, the yellow team winning hansomely over the reds. Unfortunately this curling rink will be pulled down to make way for the Royal Bank of Scotland, so we shall have to go somewhere else if and when we do this again.
Thursday 20th March: Night navigation practice We met at Cluny and walked to Blackford Hill where we split into four groups. The first thing that we did was to practice pacing out 100 metres, first along the flat, then uphill and downhill. Each group then took a compass and a head torch and were set out on a series of bearings. The winners were Calum, Jenna and Becky, who managed to give us a correct direction for the wind and estimate of distance between one point and the top of Blackford Hill.
Friday 28th March: Moving on and Hashing We met at Watsons and lined up at one end of the gym while the 9th Morningside Troop formed a horseshoe at the other end. Kenn introduced us to the six Scouts that were leaving the Troop and each patrol leader shook hands with his Patrol and handed over responsibility to his APL. They were welcomed to the Unit by Alan and Martin, after which the Troop then formed two lines on either side of the door and cheered them (and us) as we left. Alan then took Stuart and Calum as two 'hares' to lay a trail of flour around Colinton and after an initial training session from Martin, the 'hounds' took off in hot hash-house-harrying pursuit.
Thursday 24th April: Investiture and planning meeting
We met at Cluny Centre and the evening started with six Scouts from the 9th (George Watsons College) Morningside Troop being invested into the North Face Explorer Unit. There was some discussion on the programme for the coming term and then broke into three groups. Each group was then given a pile of materials from which they had to design a teddy bear, prepare a prototype and plan a production schedule. Marks were given for teamwork, communication, planning and creativity, which Mikael's team won by a narrow margin.
Thursday 1st May: Try climbing - an evening at Alien Rock 2
We met at Alien Rock 2 in West Bowling Green Street. This is a bouldering, rather than climbing, centre so we didn't need any ropes, harnesses or other paraphernalia. We did need our wits about us, however! It was a good session and we'd like to go back.
Thursday 8th May: Group Faith Award: working on the chapel at Bonaly We met at Bonaly and set to work on the site of the chapel. Three main work parties started on the weeding of the central area, the de-mossing of the stones around the alter and moving dead wood from above the chapel. By the end of an hour or so, we had made a big difference and we all trooped along to the camp fire area for the close of the meeting. Click here for more details on the whole project.
Thursday 15th May: A Night on the Town We all set off from Cluny Centre well before 7:45 pm, which was the deadline set. There were a number of culturally related questions for which we we had to find out answers in time for President Putin's visit to the City. The questions are given in the Quiz page if you want to test your cultural knowledge of Edinburgh! Jenna's team came back first and had scored higher marks than their opposition, but when the latter had 50 points deducted for being two minutes late, it was a walkover.
Thursday 29th May: An evening at LaserQuest
We all met at LaserQuest, in their new premises just off Dalry Road. The scene was set in an underground fantasy-land with a bit of graveyard thrown in for good measure. We had two games, during which Martin took on an Arnold Schwarzernegger persona but in spite of his aggressive strategy, Jenna was top gun!
Thursday 5th June: Try kayaking We had a good turnout at Longcraig and had a fine evening kayaking. We played a number of kayak games including catch-ball. A few of us volunteered to run up and down the decks of rafted-up kayaks, some of us somersaulting off the end. There was at least one unanticipated capsize but at the end, we all jumped into the sea anyway. The quote of the evening was from one of the newer Explorers... "I just can't believe you saw my hair like that!"
13th - 15th June: Lochaber adventure camp at Insh We all left from Edinburgh bound for Spean Bridge. We arrived and, after a little confusion, found out where we were to set up camp. There was a late night movie which could be viewed outside the tent as well as inside. The following morning, we had flag break and then all left for Gairlochy for a number of activity bases. These included kayaking, backwoods cooking, fishing and abseiling. There was the opportunity to abseil forwards (commando-style) as well as conventionally. The following day we split into three activity teams, somehow managing to stay together as a Unit this time. We tried shooting, archery and the Lochaber Challenge, which consisted of a hastily constructed assault course and a river-crossing exercise. This kept us going for a while and many of us got rather wet. The camp finished with a flag-break and presentation of badges for everyone.
Thursday 19th June: Mountain biking in the Pentlands There were only five of us at Bonaly, Explorers. Martin gave us our instructions and emergency information. The three Explorers had expected to be accompanied by the leaders but we were suddenly off on our own. The route took us down Bonaly Road to Woodhall Road. We cycled up a wee road to Easter Kinloch, our check point. We then cycled up the road and along by Clubbiedean and Torduff Reservoirs and back to Bonaly. Meanwhile, Alan and Martin had started up the barbecue and as they had luckily expected a larger turnout, there was more than enough food to go around.
Sunday 22nd June: District Explorers afternoon on the Water and Barbecue We met at Longcraig, three Explorers from the North Face, together with ten from the South Morningside Unit. There was the chance to try kayaking as well as sailing and windsurfing, which meant more or less just getting wet. The afternoon's water sport was followed by a barbecue. .
Thursday 26th June: Preparing for the summer expedition We met at Cluny Centre and we sorted stuff out in the loft. It didn't take us very long to get all the equipment stacked at the top of the step ladder ready to be loaded into the van on Saturday. Alan gave us a few encouraging words and we all went home.
Thursday 4th September: Investiture and planning meeting This was our first meeting of the new term. We started off with the investiture of three new members of the Unit, Craig, Louise and Sarah. Alan then talked about the committees and we had a self-election, where everyone put down their interest. We then played a couple of short games while Alan sifted through the forms: everyone wanted to join the Expedition Committee so some people then had to vote themselves off. We finished off with a game devised by Mikael: we all had to find our way to the middle of a spider's web on the floor without touching any of the thread... blindfold but guided by our team.
Thursday 11th September: Morningside Mystery Meeting Alan sent us out into Morningside to solve a fiendishly difficult problem with letters formed by street names. One team managed to come up with the letter 'A', but Alan decided that no-one had put enough effort on to merit a prize. We shall have to try harder in future.
Thursday 18th September: Games and Quiz night The Unit was split into four teams, two to play each other at 'What's in the Bag' and two to play each other at a series of challenges posed by Martin. These were based on the games played in the TV programme 'Friends like these'. The final tie-breaker was a game of Jenga, which degenrated into a toppling of the Tower of Babel.
Thursday 25th September: Annual Review This was our first annual review, to which all parents and friends were invited as well as representatives from Morningside District, May Burrows and Brian Moretta. Alan started off by giving us a brief synopsis of the year and this was followed by three one-minute presentations showing the range of activities carried out in the last three terms. Term Three's sketch, starring and directed by Stewart, is being nominated for an Oscar. Martin gave a quick review of the financial situation, which was followed by a presentation by David Tibbs and Kev Mitchell on the Seven Summits Project. We finished with refreshments and chat.
26th - 28th September: In the beginning...
A weekend at Fordell Firs to officially launch Explorer Scouting in Scotland may have been a year late as far as we were concerned, but eight of our Explorers went anyway! There were a range of activities on offer including archery and Salsa dancing, kayaking and blokarting (though there was no wind blo-ing), hill-walking and quad-biking (though the activity tickets for this were in rather short supply). The Saturday night featured a meal and a late-night disco. Most of our Explorers spent Sunday recovering. |
Click here
to see pictures |
Thursday 2nd October: You Only Live Twice - incident hike in the Pentlands
The Explorers found themselves in three groups of failed secret agents. All had botched up their last missions, which meant that they should have been ëdisposedí off, but due to a shortage of secret agents in the country they have been given a second chance. They had to compete against the other groups to see who would be given a second chance. Only one group could succeed. The losing Groups were to be made to ëdisappearí at the end.
The tasks inlcuded finding the location of a bomb in Scotland (map reading), a covert operation to reach the next base without being spotted (stealth) and code breaking to find the combination a timer on an atomic bomb (general nouse). Only one group got to live twice... and even they were lucky...
10th - 11th October: District Camp and Forum
Only a few of the North Face Unit and a few of the South Morningside Unit came to this camp, but the rest missed out! Three of us and four from the South Morningside Unit spent Friday night on a wide game followed by bad jokes and stories around the camp fire. Saturday morning consisted of challenges, including a game involving cheesy wotsits and skooshy cream, making ballistas and using them to fire eggs at each other, and seeing who could throw an egg the highest to the ground without it breaking.
Lunch was cooked backwoods including preparing a 'wood pigeon' and the event was wrapped up with a final couple of challenges.
Thursday 16th October: Wide Game in the Hermitage
Fifteen Scouts turned up and went up to the Hermitage for a wide game. Teams were challenged to solve clues to collect missing x-files and take the completed collection to the cigarrette smoking man. The winners were someone...
Thursday 30th October: Investiture and Scouting Quiz
The evening started with Jeremy, Sarah and John being invested into the Unit, bring our numbers up to twenty. The Unit then split themselves into four teams for a quiz on things Scouting. Click here to have a go! All the teams surprised their leaders in how well they did, the winners being Calum's Cronies. After this, we ajourned to the Hall, where we continued the theme, working in the same teams as relays, the winner was the first to sit on the correct chair TRUE or FALSE for a number of statements such as 'Baden Powell was the first Scout to gain a Tenderfoot Badge'. These were interspersed with simple relay races. The winners of this phase was Calum's Cronies again, this time followed very closely by The Girls.
Thursday 6th November: Tri-dimensional meeting
The Unit was split into three groups for this evening. The first went along to Longcraig with Alan and Caroline. Here they met Ian, who told them all about the sea-kayaks. After a hazardous exercise lowering them on to the floor, we inspected them for damage and set to work removing duck tape (a heartless task) and sanding and filling cracks in the fibreglass. The second group went to Kyle's house with Martin and under the light of arc lamps, started work on scraping and sanding the rust from the kayak trailer. Kyle's mum then invited the workers inside for juice and biscuits. The third group met at Cluny Centre with Mikael and started planning a meeting with Cubs working on the International Friendship Group Award.
Thursday 13th November: Skiing at Hillend
Thirteen of us (Sarah was the thirteenth) met at Hillend for an evening on the slopes. Some took traditional skis, others took blades and three brave souls opted for snowboards. Two of these stayed on the nursery slope with a few of the beginner skiers and the rest took to the eastern run as the main slope was closed for race training. Some of those who haven't skied for a while and some who hadn't previously skied at all are now planning on taking lessons!
Thursday 27th November: Unit meeting at Cluny Centre
The meeting started off with Campbell's investiture into the Unit. Martin then divided us into four teams and gave us a music quiz with a Christmas edge.
Thursday 4th December: Scout Post and Cub International Night
The Unit was split into two groups, one sorting Christmas Cards for Scout Post and the other helping the 103rd Cubs .
Thursday 11th December: District Megabowl Evening
Fifteen of us met with twelve of the South Morningside Unit and took over five lanes at Fountainbridge Megabowl. Brian succeeded in showing everyone else up, so we are glad that he is moving on to be Area Commissioner for Explorer Scouts, which will give us all more of a chance next year. This was part of a nationwide Explorer Scout bowling competition.
Thursday 18th December: Social event(s)
The Unit was given the chance of organising their own social events for this evening. Reports are due back from the various groups. The leaders went round to Alan's house for dinner beside the Christmas Tree. We decided that this was a good tradition to start, though who cooked dinner next year was left open!
Thursday 15th January: Investiture and mentoring meeting
Our first meeting of the new term started with the investiture of Lorna and Claire, who are now fully-fledged North Face Explorers. We then split into four groups, played a mad game and then remained in those groups to discuss progress through the Duke of Edinburgh's and Chief Scouts Awards. Alan then gave us a load of junk from which we had to build a structure that would keep a marble rolling for the longest time. This was won by Louise, Michael, Niall and Sarah, who earned themselves an edible prize.
Thursday 22nd January: Tri-dimensional meeting
This was the second meeting of this kind, when we split into three working parties. The first party, with Martin, went down to Longcraig and met Ian Harrower who introduced them to sea kayaks and set them to work repairing them, helping to complete the work started in November. The second party, with Alan, met at Kyle's house and set to work removing rust from the kayak trailer, including a coating that had developed since the previous attempt. Again there was no time to put on any primer (Alan said he would go back the next day to do this). The third group met, with Mikael and Caroline, to work out a programme for Cubs as part of the International Friendship Award. They also each gave brief presentations of an international nature.
|
