2015 - Here We Go

So we’re back for a new calendar year of scouting in 2015. We have moved to a new meeting hall/room/venue in Balbriggan Educate Together National School. We have a great plan to start our Pioneering Badge work and run a six week program to get stage 2 covered. We also had 2 new members starting with us tonight.

We started off by welcoming everyone back and introducing our new members. It was a very cold and very windy night. Storm Rachel was battering the West Coast, but we headed out for a game of Sharks and Octopuses (Octopi?????). One scout was on (Shark) and had to catch the fish. Once they were caught they turned to Octopuses and could also catch fish but were not allowed to move their feet. The fish had to try to make it from one end to the other without being caught by the shark or octopuses. It worked really well, but it was a bit dark and there were a few bumps and skinned knees.

When we went back inside we explained about Pioneering reviewed the knots that we had learned previously – Reef. Figure 8, Bowline, & Clove Hitch. Then Alan showed everyone how to tie a square lashing. He explained what he was doing and then we showed the scouts some examples of other pioneering projects that they might want to take on. We explained that we will be working on this for the next 6 weeks and that they scouts will be learning plenty more lashings so that they can build gadgets such as Tables and Alter Fires and Dressers while they are on camp to make life more comfortable for themselves.

When we were done, we had Patrol Corners where the Patrols organised patrol meetings. They are to come up with ideas for games and activities that the PLs will bring to the Patrol Leaders Council in 2 weeks time. After that we played a game that we played at our very first meeting in September. Fruit Bowl. It was great craic and Finn ended up as the winner. His arm has just about healed. His cast came off a week ago.

At the end of the meeting we let the scouts know what we have planned for the coming weeks. We will be hiking on 31st January, there is a County event on 14th Feb and we gave notice that Summer Camp will be from 19th to 26th July at a location yet to be determined.

All in it was a great meeting and all of the scouts were happy including our two new members Aisling and Selina who both said they would be back.

Roll on 2015. It’s going to be EPIC!!!!!!!