Abbeyside Scout Unit Notes 23rd April 2007

4th Waterford Unit
St Joseph’s
Abbeyside
Scouting Ireland

Cub Pack and Scout Troop Notes

23/04/2007

Cub Pack News
If there is anyone who may be interested in joining the Cubs have an adult call along to the meeting and talk to one of the Leaders. The Cub age is from 8 years to 10½ /11 years. The normal meeting is on a Saturday Night from seven to eight.

Cub Pack Meeting
Jordan was the one to start the meeting with the saying of the Cub Scout Prayer and was helped by the rest of the Cub Scout Pack. Cub Scout Section Leader Gearoid did ‘Roll Call’ before moving out to the field for ‘North, South, East, West’ this is a game played quite a bit by both sections the Scout Troop and the Cub Scout Pack, it is designed to have the Scouts and Cub Scouts be able to find points of the compass quickly.

Back in the Scout Hall and each Cub was asked to do a poster for the upcoming ‘Alzheimer’s Tea Morning’ on Thursday 3rd May. This will be the 25th year that the Tea Morning is held. This will be in the Scout Den on that morning. The Cubs will be finishing off their posters, so keep an eye around the village for their efforts, this is also the last part of their Artist Challenge Badge, well done to all the Cubs. This also is a part of their Bronze Arrow as well.

Each of the Cub Scouts were given an updated notice about the upcoming ‘Waterford Scout County Cub Scout Fun Day’. The Fun Day was to be on Sunday 29th April 2007 but due to Waterford doing so well in the hurling it has been changed to Sunday May 13th 2007 in De La Salle School Sports Field, Waterford City. This is a ‘Fancy Dress’ day out and the theme for Abbeyside Cub Scout Pack is the ‘Wild West’ so both Cubs and Leaders will be dressed up. The day starts at 10.00 am and will finish between 15.00 pm and 15.30 pm. Each Cub Scout will need to have a Packed Lunch, and any Food they may want during the day, Rain Gear, and of Course that ‘Wild West’ outfit. We cannot wait to see what the Leaders in their ‘Wild West’ gear. It has all the signs of a great day’s fun.

The Cubs were also given an updated ‘Unit Membership Form’ to be returned to the Leaders as soon as possible, all parents/guardians are asked to read this form fully and they have any questions the Leaders will be only to happy to help you out.

The meeting finished with Jordan saying the Cub Scout Prayer. All Cubs were told that next weeks meeting is also Mufti, this means no Uniform but all Cubs must have their neckerchief and woggle.

Scout Troop News
If there is anyone who may be interested in joining the Scouts have an adult call along to the meeting and talk to one of the Leaders. The Scout age is from 10½ years to 15/16 years. The normal meeting is on a Saturday Night from eight to nine.

Scout Troop Meeting
This week the meeting started with some of the Scouts saying the Scout Prayer. This then started the rest of the Scout Troop to revising the Scout Prayer. Michael did the ‘Roll-Call’, as the patrols went over the Scout Prayer.

Everyone was asked if they enjoyed the County Challenge Weekend, the general response was yes once they had recovered.

Eamonn then started doing the first part of the ‘General Aviation’ Merit Badge this is one of the Air Activities Merit Badges. Eamonn covered the basic knowledge of the principles of Helicopters and how they are controlled. During next weeks meeting each Scout will be making a flying model.

A game of ‘Head N’ Harp’ was then organised by Michael with the final two people being PL Aaron and PL Tom, Aaron won after a few close runs.

Next weeks meeting will start at seven and is mufti. All Scouts should bring a coat, as we will be going for a walk.

The meeting ended with the Scout Prayer. The PL’s were reminded that Abbeyside are on crew next weekend.

The Scout Prayer
Dearest Jesus,
Teach me to be generous,
Teach me to love and serve You as You deservest;
To Give and not to count the cost;
To fight and not to heed the wounds;
To toil and not to seek for rest;
To labour and to look for no reward
Save that of knowing that I do Your Holy Will.
Amen.

Venture Group Meeting
The Venture Group started their meeting at around seven and talk of plans to do their first hike next Saturday in the Knockmealdown Mountains, Sandy has told us this will be a nice easy stroll and should not put anyone under too much pressure. A list of gear to be brought by everyone was given out, which is the usual basis hike gear, warm clothes, hike boots, rain gear, hat, gloves and food. It was then out to the field to go over some navigation with compasses. We look forward to hearing how they all got on.

Annual Camp 2007
The venue for this years’ Annual Scout Camp is Arklow Sea Scout Centre, Arklow, Co. Wicklow. The dates for Annual Camp are from Sunday 22nd July 2007 to Sunday 29th July 2007. Any Scout whishing to pay money off can do so on a weekly basis at the meeting.

A group of Patrol Leaders and Leaders headed to Arklow on Sunday morning to have a final look at the Campsite and the area around it. Patrol Leaders Tom Aird, Joe Conway, and Aaron Fraher travelled with Leaders Michael Organ, Kieran Harty, Gearoid Fraher, Brian ‘Muller’ Mulvihill and Brendan Kiersey. Plans are in full swing for this years Camp and as always it will be an activity packed few days.

Twenty-Five Years
Well done to Jenny and the Girl Guides who celebrated 25 years in action. Celebrations were held on Saturday as part of a daylong activity in Mount Melleray Scout Centre. Best of luck for the next 25 years. A special badge has also been produced to mark the occasion.

Full Uniform
Full Uniform is Black Polished Shoes/Boots, Navy/Black Socks, Uniform Trousers, Uniform Jumper (Cubs), Uniform Shirt (Scouts), Group Neckerchief, Woggle, Lanyard (Scouts), Whistle (Scouts), Badges, Group Cap, Uniform Jacket (Scouts). Any Scout or Cub in the Unit longer than six weeks should have this Uniform. Scouting Ireland is a Uniformed Organisation.

Blogspot
If you have a picture that you would like to have added to the blog get in touch with Brendan. www.abbeyside.blogspot.com .You can keep up to date with any events down at the Scout Den as well as other pictures.


Waterford Scout County Challenge Weekend
As we said in last weeks notes two Patrols from Abbeyside attended the County Challenge Weekend here is the report from PL Aaron Fraher.

We left the den at around 6 o' clock on friday, with all our gear (well except for Kevin Brazel), that we would need for the weekend. We arrived at 7:30 and were registered in about 10mins. Our team name was ''Pirates of the Crimean''. After we registered we pitched our tents and they were pitched by about 8:15. We then moved our gear inside the tents. After we sorted our gear we had to put up a flagpole. We used 2 poles, tied them together, and stuck them into the ground between our patrols 2 tents. For a flag we used our neckerchiefs, which we tied together and to the flagpole. After we had put up the flag we had a gear inspection to check if we all had the proper gear for the weekend. We went back to the tent after and started unrolling our sleeping bags. At about 10:30 the PL's were called, to be told about who would be going where, regarding a compass course we would be doing. The compass course involved taking bearings and using pacing, to arrive at a certain point. For each correct answer we got a piece of map, which would make up the map for Saturdays activities. We managed to get all the pieces. We then went back to the tent to cook supper on our shiny new trianges, which for our patrol was some bread and 5 sausages each. After everyone had eaten we went to sleep. We were woken on Saturday at about 8 o'clock to an extremely foggy morning. I heard a lot of Kevin Brazel saying ''do we SERIOSLY, have to hike up in this''. I kept him in suspense until I was forced to tell him we were getting a bus. We all had some breakfast around 8:30, of which everyone brought there own (except Kevin Brazel, as you already guessed), but Gearóid was there to bail him out. At around 9 o'clock we took down the tent and the amount of intelligence observed was unsurpassed. The 4 people in our second tent took down their tent with the tent bag inside the tent, and quickly stole ours when we weren’t looking. After that we loaded our gear into a van and boarded a bus to go to the drop off point. The idea of Saturday was to complete bases and to get clues to find where we would be camping on the mountain.

The bases were as follows:
A: first aid
B: communications
C: map & compass work
D: cooking
E: environment
F: shelter building.

We must have walked about 16 kilometres in total during all of Saturday, during which some fun shortcuts were found. On Saturday, the Coastguard SAR(Search And Rescue) Sikorsky S-61 Sea King helicopter, call sign ''rescue 117'' or ''alpha romeo'', did a flyby at about 75ft over the first aid base. Everyone enjoyed this. After we had completed all the bases we proceeded to Lough Mohra where we would camp for the night. It was a hard walk to get to it but it was worth it. We were one of the last patrols to arrive at the site at around 7:30pm, but we still managed to find a good camping spot near and facing the lake. For dinner i had Pre-prepared chicken curry for seven and also 4 packs of savoury chicken flavour rice. Everyone enjoyed the meal as it was nice, warm, and the first decent meal we'd had all day! Me, Chris and Dylan cooked the food. After the meal we washed up and just lazed around until the campfire at 11:00. Each patrol had to do a sketch and we decided to do the song ''There are no bananas in the sky'' (don't ask). We then had our pot noodle around 12:00, which was welcomed by all. We got to bed around 12:40. I was woken up at 4am by Kevin shouting and roaring about the tent. I then noticed the almost gale force wind hitting the tent. It had knocked off 3 Guys so the tent was blowing in on us, the loops to keep the sides down had ripped clean off, and the poles were bending. While all the time Chris was in a coma. Kevin and I got no sleep from 4-6am. When it was time to get up Sunday (8:30) we had a quick breakfast and took down the tents. We then took our gear and put it into then van to be brought back to Rathgormack, while we walked down the mountain to get a bus. When we got back we had a go at the climbing wall and also had a mass before heading home at 2 o'clock.

Aaron Fraher, PL Tiger Patrol.

Scribe.