Tag Archives: camping

Scouts

Hammocking in Hammerwood

The Mill Lane scout troops spent this weekend at Hammerwood Scout Campsite, between East Grinstead and Holtye in West Sussex

With a lightweight camp, we tend not to use any canvas at all, apart from a giant tarp as a mess tent, and hike tents for those that find hammocks a bit intimidating.

We were blessed with an almost completely dry weekend this time, although Wet Wood (the name of the wood the campsite forms part) is never actually dry.

Activities

The camp was a laid-back affair with quite a lot of time for the scouts to do their own thing. We did manage to organise

  • Rope swings
  • Wide games in the dark (no photos, it was dark)
  • Rounders
  • Campfire sketches
Continue reading Hammocking in Hammerwood →
Scouts

Summer Camp 2024 – Wye Valley

This year a joint party from Chapman, Swift and Seal Scout troops camped next to the River Wye, one bridge crossing away from Wales and the Forest of Dean.

We were blessed with a beautiful week in a pretty miserable summer and were able to run two patrols.

During camp we…

  • Pitched camp
  • Wide games
  • Climbed up some really steep hills
  • Explored a cave
  • Found a rope swing
  • Found a geocache
  • Prepared dinner (and breakfast and lunch…)
  • Played with the fire
  • Competed in camp Olympics
  • Natural rock climbing
  • Washed up
  • Orienteering trail
  • Full day MTB ride and hardly fell off at all
  • Canoeing up the river Wye and went for a dip
  • More wide games
  • Prepared and lit fires
  • Hike to Simonds Yat
  • Crossing the River Wye using a rope barge
  • Visit butterfly farm
  • Frisbee
  • Struck camp
  • Helped put all the kit away
Continue reading Summer Camp 2024 – Wye Valley →
Scouts

Christmas Camp at Broadstone Warren

This year’s Christmas Camp was held at Broadstone Warren, just outside Forest Row in East Sussex.

Weather was a lot warmer than last year, but the 16mm of rain made things fairly damp.

After a scout survey, we went for a climbing heavy programme. It included

  • Christmas Quiz – which team of scouts (or leaders) will triumph in a festive quiz. The leaders only get to answer questions that the scouts have missed.
  • Crate stacking – the scouts see how high can get as a stack of milk crates is built under them
  • Abseiling – scouts descend the side of the 12m climbing tower on a rope
  • Tunnels – the scouts explore a multi-room man-made underground tunnel system
  • Leap of faith – scouts climb up to a platform high above the forest floor and see if they can grab hold of a hanging bar several metres in front of them
  • Jacob’s Ladder – scouts climb up a ‘ladder’ of logs, each gap between logs getting further apart
  • Climbing – scouts pick a way up the side of the climbing tower
  • Silent disco – scouts choose to listen to one of three
  • Christmas Carol-fire – a Christmas-themed sing-song round the camp fire
  • Festive campfire sketch – each of the five quiz-teams perform a campfire seasonal skit.

And no camp would be complete without everyone’s favourite activity (apart from complaining about the weather), eating!

This year featuring: Cooked breakfast, porridge, soup, sandwiches, Christmas dinner featuring spit-roast turkey, stuffing, roast potatoes and veggies followed by panettone or Christmas pudding and custard; camp doughnuts, more porridge, spit-roast pork and apple rolls and mince pies

A huge thank you to all the scouts, leaders and parents that helped make camp happen.

If this looks like something you would like to do, then you can join scouting too! As an adult or a young person.

Scouts

Our Scouts at Kent International Jamboree

Last week Scouts from Swift, Chapman troops at the 4th and 9th Sevenoaks Scouts took their summer camp at the Kent International Jamboree (KIJ) at the Kent County Showground in Detling.

What is KIJ

Kent International Jamboree is an activity camp for scouts from around the world in the heart of Kent. With over 3,500 young people from coming together to take part in activities and celebrate scouting.

A Jamboree is an opportunity and an experience like no other. Most Scouts and Guides get to experience many different forms of nights away experiences but a Jamboree, whether it’s a local, national or international Jamboree is the kind of camp that will live with them forever.

Continue reading Our Scouts at Kent International Jamboree →
Scouts

Scouts Camp at Hamlet Wood

Our planned microlighting session during camp unfortunately had to be cancelled. After a quick reassessment of our weekend, we decided to relocate the camp to Hamlet Wood scout campsite near Maidstone.

The camp was a patrol camp, with scouts doing just about all the catering for the whole weekend, including cooking for leaders!

We tried a somewhat different menu for a change.

  • Supper: Sausage-in-a-bun, hot chocolate
  • Breakfast: Full English (choice of egg, beans, mushrooms, bacon, sausage, toast/eggy-bread)
  • Lunch: Chicken or haloumi fajitas followed by campfire doughnuts
  • Dinner: Spaghetti, tomato sauce and meatballs and pineapple fritters for desert
  • Sunday Breakfast: Breakfast burritos
  • Eleven o’clock snack: Smores

We did manage to squeeze some activities in-between the cooking and eating – we threw tomahawks, ran a catapult shooting gallery (only tin cans and chickpeas were hurt) and ran some wide games.

We have masses of photos and videos – there are a sample below but you can view them all in the shared album

Continue reading Scouts Camp at Hamlet Wood →
Scouts

May Camp at Hammerwood

The scout troops spend the weekend camping at Hammerwood Scout Camp, on the edge of the Ashdown Forest near East Grinstead.

It was a back-to-basics camp with the scouts cooking all their own meals over wood fires.

Menu for the weekend was

  • Hotdogs & hot chocolate for supper after pitching camp
  • Cooked breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms and toast
  • Tea/coffee/squash, fruit or a biscuit for for mid morning snack
  • Do-it-yourself wraps for lunch + fruit tart
  • Tea/coffee/squash, fruit or a biscuit for mid afternoon snack
  • Chicken and vegetable curry and rice for dinner followed by sponge puddings and custard
  • Hot chocolate for supper
  • Choice of eggy bread / omelette and cereal for breakfast
  • For end-of-striking camp snack the scouts made Smores using enormous (‘EPIC Huge’) marshmallows

The scouts managed a good number of activities into the weekend when they weren’t cooking.

  • The brushed up their archery skills
  • They set tracking trails for the other teams to follow
  • They all had chance to perfect their axe and saw skills
  • They tried their hand at whittling – either tent pegs or cutlery
  • They also managed to play quite a few wide games – without injuries!
Scouts

Scouts Christmas Camp at Waylands

Both scout troops have been away on Christmas Camp, which was held at Waylands Scout Camp nr South Street.

Spit roast turkey at Christmas Camp + scouts

We tried out two battery powered spit-roasts which we fitted to our altar fires for the first time.  We gave them a work out with Turkey for the Christmas dinner on Saturday and roast pork in a bun on Sunday.

Apart from eating we managed to fit in some seasonal activities

  • Mug pong
  • Treasure hunt
  • Rope swing making
  • Reindeer making
  • Christmas tree making
  • Woggle making
  • Christmas Carol-fire
  • Mini pantomimes
  • Christmas Quiz
  • Silent disco
  • Secret Santa
Scout hike tents at dawn with red sky
Scouts playing (not beer) pong
Chilly scouts at dawn with red sunrise and tents in the background
Scouts on a rope swing
Scout leader with a billy of potatoes
Scouts making reindeer out of logs

We also managed to invest two new scouts! but we forgot to take photos

Scouts

Skills Camp at Hamlet Wood

Our scouts have been off camping at Hamlet Wood scout campsite near Maidstone.

The camp was aimed at giving young scouts a first taste of scouting and cooking for themselves.

Despite some fairly variable weather, the scouts did a good job, no-one starved and they went home mostly dry!

Believe it or not, we only managed to take one photo, and it actually looks quite nice