Yet another great weekend at Hopehill, this year we were blessed with some great weather over the weekend, for the Scouts and Explorers to undertake the events over the weekend.
We had 35 young person’s attending this year with lots of 1st timer scouts and explorers eager to find out what WinterCamp is all about, with the learning of new skills and for the older ones having a refresher to ensure they are equipped and ready to tackle Hillcraft in the lake district or any camps that are arranged by their groups. This year was a strange one for everyone as we haven’t done a large scale camp like this since before Covid hit us in 2020
Friday evening this year the scouts and explorers they had to complete a new challenge this year with creating a route card from the map that was on the floor of the main hall, all of the scouts and explorers enjoyed this new activity as they could get involved with the map by walking over the map to get the information, (look out next year for a new twist on this).
On Saturday the Scouts and Explorers they were divided into teams and went off around the 9 bases situated around Hopehill to learn or get a refresher on the activity that the District Leadership team on the bases had set out.
The bases are 1st Aid / Emergencies, Fitness, Safety on steep ground, Stoves, Food, Shopping, Equipment, Campcraft, Navigation.
Saturday evening the scouts and explorers had a fun evening run by Network, where they had to complete a number of challenges within mixed teams of parts that they had learnt throughout the day, the evening finished with a new program that has never been shown at Hopehill before with James Treadwell starting off the chant of have Thomas the Tank engine as the evening entertainment for them to relax and watch.
Sunday sees all the winter campers doing a micro Navigation course setup by Network, it was great fun seeing the scouts and explorers running around Hopehill to find the little boxes to get the stamps for their sheet.
This year we had a little competition running to see who was the best scout and explorer and which team gained the most points over at the bases on Saturday.
The results are as follows.
Best Scout
Joint 1st Cameron Denham (Istead Rise) and Scarlet Reeves (5th Northfleet)
Joint 3rd Freya Cronin (1st Northfleet) and Stan Vincent (C&V)
Best Explorer
Joint 1st Ben Woodgate (Kipling) and Josh Rayfield (Kipling)
Joint 3rd Callum Fooks (Sputnik) and Abi Walker (Kipling)
Best Team over the weekend was team D
Cameron Denham (Istead Rise), Freya Cronin (1st Northfleet),
Lukas Ziba (Windmill Hill), Morgan wade (Kipling)
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those leaders that gave up their weekend to make this event possible, I couldn't have done it without all of you.
Please look out for Winter Camp 2022, it is open to all Troops / Units for all Scouts and Explorers, this event can be used by the troops / units as a camp for the scouts / explorers to gain extra knowledge, also leaders can attend the event if you would like to learn or refresh any of your skills.
Darren Stanford
ADC Scouts