Happy New Year
Welcome back to scouting for the new year of 2016. We were missing Fiona tonight as she was at a wedding in Scotland and Thomas could not make it either due to a leg injury, but Alan, Brendan, and Ciaran were joined by Fiona Leontis from the Beaver team to help out on the night.
After we recited our charter it was time for uniform inspection. We do this every first Thursday of the month. For the most part, the uniforms were very good. Some scouts wanted to show off their new clobber that Santa brought and some just plane forgot to wear their uniform…… ahem…. Ciara O Reilly.
The PLs and APLs were to organise the first game of the meeting and Adam stepped forward to let everyone know that it was going to be a patrol challenge. They had to use 4 chairs to get their whole patrol across the hall without touching the floor. The Cobra patrol was less than enthusiastic about this, because when they tried it previously, they didn’t do very well. However, tonight they did and managed to complete three passages of the hall before the Raven Patrol had even managed one. They were quite chuffed with themselves.
Following the #HugFest that was the challenge, we broke into groups to work on our Adventure Skills. The scouts had decided in December which skill they wanted to work on. Alan took biggest group for Backwoods. Ciaran took 2 groups for Emergencies and Air. Brendan took 2 groups for Hillwalking and Pioneering. Fiona had wanted to learn more about maps and compasses so she joined in with the Hill walking group. We wanted to spend a good bit of time at this so we worked hard for 45 mins. When Brendan called 1 minute left, Alan pointed at the clock on the wall and said that we had another half an hour. It was then pointed out to him that the clock had stopped a while ago. Good thing we weren’t all looking at the same clock. Assignments were handed out to be completed for next week and the program worked really well.
To finish off the meeting, Ciaran had another challenge for the patrols. They each were given a sheet with about 30 different quick challenges on it and they had 5 minutes to get as many done as possible.
After the meeting, the PLs and APLs had a quick word with the leaders to let them know their progress on the proposed night away in February. It seems that Glendalough Hostel is booked out. We can’t take a train there, and the bus companies are not interested in replying. The leaders asked the scouts to try again and see what alternatives they could come up with for next week.
