Well it was a very busy and exciting term for Victor Scouts

We reopened with a fun night and the rest of term went like this:

Badgers Wood Camp & JOTI

Our first Camp as Victor scouts was awesome and was held the first weekend back.  We spent three nights at Badgers Wood Camp (Noosaville Sea Scouts). 

Over the weekend we had lots of amazing experiences.  There was lots of official investitures: We invested our Penguin Patrol leader Annie, We invested our Assistant Patrol leaders Elliot and Joseph.  Most excitingly we had an amazing linking ceremony and investiture for our two newest scouts – Tash and Livi.  This ceremony was held on Peregian Beach at Sunset.  The Penguin Patrol created a linking gateway.  This gateway has a special flag and the crossbar is special as each new linking scout will put their name and link date onto the timber after their ceremony.  The patrol also carved woggles from some salvaged timber where we camped and used these to carve woggles to present to new members.  Our resourceful District Joey Leader also found some cool penguin stickers to put on them!  We went swimming and fishing, beach games, carving, hiked through Noosa National Park and participated in JOTI which had us using the internet to talk to scouts all over the world!  Camp finished with a traditional leftovers breakfast – a novelty for some of our scouts and swimming at Caloundra.

Crazy Russian Hackers Night

Inspired by the You-Tube collection, the ‘Crazy Russian Hacker’ teaches us all about how to do cool stuff that makes life simpler, or easier or practical.  Penguin patrol tried out a series of different hacks.  These included ‘making candles out of oranges’ and ‘cooking popcorn in a modified soft drink can’.

Spooky Disco

This year we went along to the District Spooky Disco hosted by Tarragindi.  The Venturers and Scouts had lots of great spooky ideas and we had fun too.  Next year (2015) Victor will host the spooky disco so get your thinking caps on!

Backwoods Cooking

This is another term for cooking without utensils.  Food is cooked on an open fire using things like foil and plant leaves to cook.  The scouts learnt how to dig a fit pit correctly, to practice their fire construction skills and fire safety.  This time we cooked chicken and mixed vegetables and also chocolate smores.  Yummy!

Water Safety Target Badge

Every scout at each cord level works on at least one target badge as part of their award work.  Tash, Livi and Alex all earned their Pioneer Water Safety Target Badge this term.  Elliot and Joseph have almost completed their Adventurer Water Safety Target Badge requirements.  Awesome; BRAVO everyone as this was lots of hard work and effort!

Large Construction

Construction is always a part of scouting from small gadgets, to general purpose camping equipment, to awesome large constructions.  The scouts wanted to construct a log swing.  This is an awesome project for a team to work together on and it includes knots and lashings from all award levels (Pioneer – clove hitch, square lashing; Explorer – Figure of 8 lashing, diagonal lashing; Adventurer- Japanese & Filipino lashings (which can substitute for square and diagonal)) along with a painters hitch.  Having a mini model helps a bit to work out all the pieces you need and what needs to get tied where.  Of course the best part of making such a construction is that at the end of it you get to play on it! We heard (at the Bunnings BBQ) from a local family who are too young for scouts yet that they saw the swing and thought that it was brilliant!  The scouts were keen to leave it up for the cubs to play with but safety and security were other considerations.  Not to worry the District All Sections Camp in 2015 will be a large-scale construction camp for the scout section so I’m sure there will be more of this to come.

Visiting the cubs for Water fun night

The scouts went to visit the cubs and join in their water activities night. Elliot and Joseph were able to talk to the cubs about pool water safety (including why you shouldn’t pee in the pool) and what to do in an emergency.  Then the scouts split up and joined in each sixer group to play some great games Kaa had organised and then a massive water fight.  It was a great night and we will be trying to plan at least one cub/scout activity every term.

Christmas Woodworking

On our last night for the term the scouts learnt about woodworking by drawing, cutting, painting and assembling a timber Christmas tree each.  It was fantastic to have Raven (Assistant District Commissioner) and Hawkeye (Group Leader) along to help out.  We also had a couple of cubs (Declan & Nathan) from another group come along to do a link night to see if they might join Victor scouts in the new year.

Massive Achievement Celebrations to finish the year: Komodo’s Woodbadge and Anastasia’s ASM

We finished the year off in style with the presentation of Komodo’s Woodbadge and Anastasia’s Australian scout Medallion.

Woodbadge

The Woodbadge is the culmination of formal and required leadership training for any scout leader.  It involves many hours of paperwork and several weekends away learning much about scouting.  It is a fantastic achievement and one to be proud of.

Joining us to celebrate these achievements were Kiwi (Bill Whitestyles, DC), Raven (Warren Hope, ADC), Baghera (Leaza, Joey Scouts), (Bruce, Joey Scouts/Activities Branch Team) and Emu (Emmi Thomas, District Joey Leader) with apologies from Pieter Van der Kamp (Regional Commissioner).  It was a pretty impressive parade too as almost all these leaders also belong to the Gilwell Troop (the name of the group of leaders who have completed all training).

In our group this means that we now how three woodbadge qualified leaders with our other three leaders well on their way to also completing this training.  Something to remember though – this is the formal training, all our leaders have lots of other training and skills too, gathered throughout their life be it in or outside of the movement too.

Australian Scout Medallion

Anastasia (Annie) has been in the scouting movement since she was nearly 9.  She started as a cub where she earned all boomerangs and her Grey Wolf award.  Since she has been in scouts she has worked hard and learnt lots of different things to achieve the ASM.  The scout section is the only section where scouts have to regularly demonstrate and teach many of the skills they learn.  As a result not every scout will actually achieve the highest award level.  To earn the ASM a scout must earn Pioneer then Explorer and then Adventurer Cords, attend leadership training and run a camp on their own.  Each cord level requires a journey to be completed.  At Adventurer level this is a 3 day, 30km journey where the scout has to plan and meticulously prepare every element of the journey, gather a group of scouts to go on the journey and write a reflective report that has to be approved at district.  If anyone would like to see this report there is a copy available in the den.  By progressively developing skills over 4 years Anastasia was able to successfully complete the award.  We remember too that no scout can ever achieve any award alone.  It is a joint effort between the scout, their patrol, troop, leaders and parents.  It was lovely to have Justine come and help Annie celebrate as they had been in the same patrol for six months.  This achievement is even harder earned as Annie has completed it having been in two different groups and three different troops due to changes in times and other family commitments.  She has also been a patrol leader for Platypus and Penguin patrols in this time since she was 12 (which is quite young to become a PL).  Annie is currently linking to Venturers and we hope she will continue in the movement and earn her Queen Scout Award.  Hopefully in the future we will have our own Venturer leader and be able to open a Venturer unit at Victor Scouts too.  BRAVO Annie!