We had some plans for this evening that we were unable to carry out due to the weather. Trust our luck on a week where 70% of it was sunny. We have now moved that back to next week and instead this week we decided to teach the Scouts a bit about predictive power and foresight and understanding that reading a map isn’t only about the path you are walking on.
Before we gave any kind of map to any of the Scouts we had a quick game to burn off some of that Friday energy. However it was not organised by any of the leaders. If you didn’t know our previous young leader Simi turned 18 a few months ago which means shes no longer a young leader and that we had a space to fill. After a small discussion, we decided to invite Emily back to the troop and her official start was today. Welcome back and welcome to the leadership team!
The game was placed in the hands of both Emily and our current SPL, Evan which gave Skip and Neil time to prepare there stations and brief the other leaders with what was going on.
The troop was then divided in half which each life looking at slightly different skills. Upstairs with Neil involved locating points of interest on the map, identifying what the were and their six figure grid reference. I even learned what an arboretum was and its marked on the map with the same symbol as a garden.
Downstairs with Skip involved looking at the route from next week. Scouts were asked to locate the route using some grid reference and then describe the area around each of the grid references. This should give them another tool to think about when walking the route next week and for the future.
Next weeks walk isn’t about distance but instead about the technicality of the walk. If you look at the photos below you’ll see roughly where we are walking and the area surrounding:
As you can see it is really finicky but that careful map reading can make the walk really quick. We will be bringing various things to play in the field if the Scouts use the skills they have learnt this week and finish really quickly.
To think we only have 6 more meetings until summer. Scary isn’t it?
Next week, we will be hiking. Attached to the email I sent out about this blog update is a copy of Skip’s instructions from his email this week if you missed it.
Until next week,
Ellis
