1st Caringbah Scouts

WOW, what an excellent Boree Regatta 2009 we had!

We headed to the delightful green lawns of Bonna Point, Kurnell for a weekend of water and land activities FUN with over 400 members from around the South Metropolitan Region.

Photos are available below (remember to enlarge the photo (click on 4 arrows) and then “show info”):

The highlights were deemed to be the rafting, the late curfew (for the scouts) and the opportunity to catch up with old and new scouting friends from around the Region. It was excellent to see so many of our scouts socialising with other groups.

We had a ball and our Scouts, Cubs and Joey’s did us proud with very good participation and doing their best. We broke our own previous record of 7 trophies (in 2007) by taking out 9 of the 18 trophies up for grabs. How amazing is that! And the Joey’s also did us proud with 5 first places. The cubs also starred with 10 first place certificates and the scouts scored 28 first places – a great achievement by all. With the depth of skills we have across all ages, it looks like we should continue gaining some good results in years to come.

The trophies 1st Caringbah gained were:
Cubs Ensign Shield – Boree Land events Aggregate score – Winners
Cubs Boree Regatta Gunnamatta Shield - Raft Construction and Decoration – Winners
Cubs Billie Green Trophy – Knotting Relay – Ronan H – Winner in 41 seconds
Scouts/Guides Kurranulla Shield – Boree Land events Aggregate score – Winners
Scouts Boree Shield – Boree Land events Aggregate score – Winners
Scouts Wanda Shield – Canoe All Ages – Winners
Scouts Burraneer Shield – Kayak All Ages – Winners
Scouts Port Hacking Trophy – Biathlon All Ages – Winners
Scouts Keith Holle Trophy – Knotting Relay – Jessica J – Winner in 28 seconds

This competition has been especially designed to develop the Joey, Cubs and Scouts skills across a whole spectrum of areas including teamwork, knotting, construction, canoeing, kayaking, sailing, fire lighting, cooking, camp craft and lateral thinking. From the trophies listed above, it’s great to see our youth members have these skills in spade loads and we know we still have a lot to learn too!

A HUGE thanks go to so many of our Joey, Cub and Scout leaders and parents who went beyond the call of duty to prepare, set up and pack up the camp and all the equipment needed for this event. There are way to many names (and I am too scared to miss someone out) to mention you all!

Hopefully Croc’s, Dingo’s and Bagheera’s voices will be back to normal ready for Scouts on Thursday!

Baggy

Duncan led a patrol of 6 scouts over 30km through the Royal National Park over the long weekend in an incredibly wet weekend!  There was more rain on the Saturday night than had fallen over the whole of August and September this year and our scouts lived to tell the tale.  Robert, Shaun, Trish, Ryan and Kara all did incredibly well to keep going in some very trying conditions.  Plus they became “temporarily unsure of their position” for a while and managed to do some bush bashing to independently get themselves back on track.  BRAVO one and all.

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Chris B led and navigated a patrol over 30km through the Royal National Park in the last weekend of Sep to complete his green cord journey.  The intrepid patrol were Jake M, Aaron, Kyle and Cameron B.  They managed to weather the dust storms, gale force winds and keep clear of a HUGE brown snake (it took Jake a few hours to recover from that one ) to arrive safely at Heathcote and Camp Coutts each night.

BRAVO scouts and we look forward to seeing you all achieve your green and blue cords with some comprehensive well thought out logs.

We attended the Police Centre in Zetland where we were shown a presentation on the roles of the Rescue Squad.  Did you know the Rescue Squad is also responsible for attending bomb incidents and as such we were shown how the bomb disposal robot works and can even walk up stairs!! Number 5 is alive!

We then were shown all the equipment on the rescue truck with a little too much interest being given to the body bags by the Scouts.

Salty

On Sunday the 27th of September 2009, Jessica J led 10 other scouts to help the global and local communities by running a second hand clothing stall at the monthly Caringbah Markets for her Scout Medallion Project. All money raised went go towards bringing a scout from Vanuata and funding our own scouts to go to the Australian Jamborree in January 2010. All the leftover clothes were donated to Vinnies who happily accepted the clothes to on sell.

This was no mean feat as gale force 40knot plus winds cranked through that day. BRAVO Jess and all the scouts who helped such worthy causes.

So you know……

The Australian Scout Medallion is the highest award in the Scout Section. It is considered the pinnacle of Scouting at this stage. To earn the Australian Scout Medallion a Scout must:

Participate in a Scout Leadership Course at any time after completion of the Pioneer Badge;
Demonstrate an active leadership role in Scouting;
Achieve the Adventurer Cord

Our over 12 years old scouts joined 1st Oyster Bay Scouts to enjoy some shooting at the Sutherland Small Bore Rifle Club and we had a great time.

We were taught the key parts of range safety, how to shoot, sight and correct our grouping placement.  We shot from 2 different body positions, “prone” which is when you lie on your front and bench which is when you sit on a seat at a small table (much easier but higher score expectation).

Most of us got to fire off 25 rounds of ammunition while a lucky few got to shoot 50 rounds.

And the top positions were as follows:

Scout Prone Shoot                    Scout Bench Shoot

1st Alex        153pts                         1st Hamish          192.3pts

2nd Cam B    151pts                          2nd Jonathan    192.1pts

3rd Jordan     150pts                          3rd Aaron           189.7pts

4th Jessica    147pts                     4th Jarrad           185.1pts

5th Kara        143pts                          5th Owen            147pts

Adult Prone Shoot                     Adult Bench Shoot

1st Stuart      177pts                          1st Emma        197.5pts

2nd Rod        176pts                          2nd Emannuel  193.9pts

3rd Baggy      173pts                          3rd Ranga        191pts

THANKS goes to the Sutherland Small Bore Club for loaning us their rifles and more importantly for giving us half a day of their time to share their great sport.

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Well, what an excellent time we had.  We dodged the wombats as we headed out to the Old Ford Campsite in the Blue Mountains on the Friday night.  Then we hiked along the 6 foot track following the Cox’s River,  (seeing an Echidna, a red bellied black snake, 3 brown snakes) until we reached the famous Bowtell’s Bridge where we had a fantastic cool dip before crossing this precarious wire/cable bridge.

We headed passed a HUGE goanna on the way to the beautifully remote Cox’s River Campsite where we pitched our tents before cooking up a storm ready for the night exercises of “capture the flag” and “spot lighting” – great fun.

On the Sunday we hiked further up the 6 foot track whilst Baggy progressively picked us all up and dropped us off with some “ninja 4 wheel driving”.  We cracked through some campcraft badgework before all heading to the Jenolan Caves to enjoy lunch, watch 3 water monitors defend their territory and then enjoy some caving in the “Plug Hole Adventure”.  This was excellent fun and involved us abseiling down into the cave before we then worked our way 110 meters down into the depths of the caves.  Some of those holes were very tight for some of our leaders!

BRAVO to Sonik for organising this camp for his Scout Medallion Leadership project.  We look forward to the next camp.

So you know……

The Australian Scout Medallion is the highest award in the Scout Section. It is considered the pinnacle of Scouting at this stage. To earn the Australian Scout Medallion a Scout must:

1. Participate in a Scout Leadership Course at any time after completion of the Pioneer Badge;
2. Demonstrate an active leadership role in Scouting;
3. Achieve the Adventurer Cord

11 of our scouts competed against 70 Venturers, Scouts and Cubs from the South Metropolitan Region in the Mill Creek Valley at Menai.

Rogaining is basically orienteering as a team, map reading and walking/running around a course collecting points at different checkpoints.

It was a very very tough course with a lot of bush bashing and some teams struggling to find any of the checkpoints!  All our scouts did their best and that’s exactly what we wanted.  2 of our scouts did extremely well; Robert and Jake J managed to gain 2nd place overall which is quite some achievement as 12 year olds – BRAVO lads.

Jake M’s team came in a very respectable 8th and Vivien, Darcie, Bridget was our first team without any adult observer in 11th followed closely by Cam B, Alex, Jordan and Chris, again with no adult observer.

The full results can be viewed here

Plus a HUGE BRAVO goes out to Barra for organising this great event, plus Judy and Beela for helping with the organising.  Last thanks goes to Snowy for putting the course out – that would have been a BIG task.

Photos to come soon.

To help the global community and as his Scout Medallion project, Duncan Clark organised and led 15 members of 1st Caringbah Scouts in raising funds and completing a 40 hr famine in aid of starving kids around the world (through World Vision).

Below are some photos of the Scouts during the famine and the celebrationary breakfast to mark the end of it.  Wouldn’t it be great if people around the world could choose to end their famines as easily as we did.

The Scouts and a Leader were only allowed to drink water and juice for 40hrs plus suck on a barley sugar sweet occasionally to keep the energy levels up.  Duncan also organised a sleepover at our hall to keep those on the famine focussed, have some FUN and also help prepare for the fair.

BRAVO Duncan and the Scouts who all helped raise $1000 for World Vision.

So you know……

The Australian Scout Medallion is the highest award in the Scout Section. It is considered the pinnacle of Scouting at this stage. To earn the Australian Scout Medallion a Scout must:

• Participate in a Scout Leadership Course at any time after completion of the Pioneer Badge;
• Demonstrate an active leadership role in Scouting;
• Achieve the Adventurer Cord.

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What an excellent fair it was.  A HUGE BRAVO goes to Cathy Beauchamp and the whole parents committee for organising such a great day.  We managed to raise a wopping $5000 towards our group and Jamboree fundraising – happy days.

Check out the photos below:

1^st Caringbah Scout Group would like to thank the following companies for their generous support:

- Peter Baker ———– Optical

- Smart Bags —— for donating 200 shopping bags.

- Rockdale Office Furniture ———Table hire

- Babies Galore ——— $1oo, $50 voucher

- Best Fresh Caringbah ——- all the salad for the wraps

- Kennards Hire Taren Point — Toilet hire

- St George Printing —- printing of letter box flyers.

- Jesters Fancy Dress —- Clown costume

- Jesters Party Hire —–100 Balloons

- Home & gift Warehouse — Ladies and Gents Watch set

- Eckersley’s Art & craft —- Face paint & screen Printing Paint

- Bali karma Taren Point —- Mosaic Bali Bowl

- Caringbah Station Pharmacy —–3x bath & beauty gift packs

- Health information Pharmacy —– Bath & beauty pack

- Mercato Design ——— Candle

- Port Hacking Newsagent —–5 x $20 vouchers.

- Masterfoods ————– Tomato sauce,bbq sauce & mustard.

- The luggage house ——-2 cabin bags , 3 back packs

- Caringbah South Pharmacy—— sleeping bag.

- Batu Bali Shop ——Statue

- K B Toys ——- Toys

- Frock Clothing & Accessories ——– Handbag

- Clark Rubber ————-4 Cricket bat sets

- Bova Pharmacy.

STALL SPONSORS

- Beauchamp metal $250 for drinks.