Scout Meeting 2nd April 2015

We had finished our Backwoods program so we were on a “down” week before starting our next Program Cycle. We decided to hold a Superstars Night. We came up with 8 activities and each patrol picked a Champion to represent them at each one. The winner got 10 points for their patrol while second got 5 and third got 3. The activities were:

1. Basketball Hoops

2. Bench Hops

3. Push Ups

4. Coin Catch

5. Running

6. Bench Under Overs

7. Skipping

8. Table Bouldering

First up was Finn for the Jaguar patrol who scored an impressive 12 baskets is in a minute including 10 in a row. Ella and Luke were no match for him. 10 points to the Jaguar. Ella said she couldn’t score because she was too close. Excuses, excuses.

Next up were the bench hops. Over an back counted as one hop and they had a minute to get as many as they could. It’s not as easy as it sounds as Jack from the Cobra Patrol and Emma from the Jaguar scored 23, but Aisling from the Raven Patrol was the winner with 24.

Pure Strength is required for the Push Ups. Poor Adam could not even do 1. He’s going to have to live with that for a long time. Jack was up again for the Cobras and he knocked out an impressive 23 in a minute. Ella managed 8. Unfortunately we didn’t have a full compliment of scouts tonight so some scouts had to do more than one activity.

The Smaller the better for the Bench Under Over so Anthony, Selina, and James gave it a go. Anthony looked good with 12 and James was slow with 8, but Selina was like a slippery eel getting under the bench and took the victory with 15.

Next up was the excitement of the Coin Catch. Each Champion had to balance a stack of coins on their elbow, and then try to catch it cleanly with the same hand it was balanced on.Each champion had 3 attempts to get as many as they could. Jaes from the Jaguar patrol went first and on his third attempt scored a measly 3. However, Ciara and Carolyn could not catch any so James won with 3.

Table Bouldering means getting around the table starting from the top and going under neath it and getting back on top, without touching the ground. Anthony got 75% of the way but couldn’t manage to get back on top. James from the Ravens couldn’t hold on at all when under the table so only got 25% of the way. Luke got 80% of the way and managed to get a hand back on top. Ciaran showed us all how it was done.

The second last event was running up and down the hall. It was very close with Roisin scoring 21. Hannah 21.5 and Aisling scoring 22 with .03 of a second remaining.

The final even was skipping. The rope was very long so members of the patrol held it while their patrol member skipped. Finn scored 40 and Hannah, fresh from her running, and Ciara both scored 44.

This meant that the Ravens finished on 43, the Jaguars on 44, and the Cobras on 52. I’d say that we will come back to this format again for an evening as it was great fun.

We had time for the Patrols to have a quick brainstorm and come up with ideas for activities they wanted to do an overnight trip away. Everything for Archery to Ice Skating was mentioned and we made a list and whittled it down to a few items. We are going to see if we can find a place that we can do the activities and stay over for a night during the May bank Holiday weekend.

Before we finished the meeting, Alan had to go home as he had left letters about Summer Camp that we wanted to give out at home. We are looking for deposits to confirm numbers so that we can start to book activities and tickets for travel arrangements. It will be on us before we know it, so we had better get cracking.

After the meeting, we met briefly with the PLs and APLs to discuss arrangements for our upcoming Camp at Larch hill this weekend. They were going to be visiting the Fingal Scout County Shield and participating in a few activities. Exciting times ahead for us all.