Winter Scouting

Generally, I don’t mind winter. Yeah it’s a bit cold sometimes (especially these last few days!) but you get those amazing crisp clear winter days – like the ones we had when we had our QSA expedition practice just after New Year – and sometimes some good snow. Living in Derby with the Peak District only a short distance away means there is plenty of opportunity to just dash outside and make the most of it.

Crazy Cold

Like two weekends ago, when we held our Fourth Annual Lynx Network and Friends Crazy Cold Winter Camp at the wonderful Scout campsite of Gradbach. Yep, the third time in a month that we’ve been up there! This time it was for our annual back to basics, mid-winter camp, which is always great fun. Ironically, although we call it the "Crazy Cold" camp, it wasn't actually that cold. We should have done it this week in the snow - although I suspect Gradbach may have been cut off from civilisation!

We were fortunate this year in that we all had better tents and the poles we took for the main tent we cooked and stored food in were for the right outer, and they were all there – unlike the last two years! Everyone was arriving at different times on the Friday night, so we didn’t do a lot then but on Saturday we headed into Buxton after the customary “Heart Attack On A Plate” breakfast – consisting of bacon, sausage, beans, black pudding, egg and bread. The camp always tends to be a nice relaxing one and we don’t rush around doing too much, but this time Martin brought along his shiny new mountain board which most of us had a go on.

We do eat well though and being the official Lynx Network “Experimental Campfire Chef” I like to try out new things each time we go. Last year I tried doing Yorkshire puds, but failed spectacularly… The main meal on Saturday night is always cooked on an open fire and we stuck to the traditional foil bag stew and fire-baked potatoes. But after discovering just how good baked salmon tastes when we did a BBQ last summer, we decided to do some salmon as well – absolutely fantastic! I’d also heard about cardboard box ovens (yes, really) so looked up the design on the internet a few days beforehand. Basically, it consisted of a large box, lined with foil and wire coat hangers bent and poked through the sides to make a rack. At the bottom we placed a biscuit tin full of embers from the main fire and in went a pizza! I think everyone was a tad dubious – me included – but it worked brilliantly! We’ll definitely be doing that again.

And as if that wasn’t enough, we had baked bananas with chocolate and marshmallows for afters!

Boats on stilts

Anyway, back to what I was saying originally about winter. The one thing that I really don’t like about it is that it means its refit time at Adventures Offshore. Not that I mind refit – I actually quite enjoy it – but it means Ocean and Offshore Scout are out of the water, sat on stilts with the masts lifted out and the insides stripped bare.

So no chance of going sailing!

After last weekend, I’m suffering serious withdrawal symptoms… and can’t wait for the boats to be finished and be put back in the water so I can get out sailing again. The thing I love about sailing – and with Adventures Offshore in particular – is the people I get to meet and take sailing. Being a Scout sail training charity, we take mainly Scouts, Explorers and a few Network but also school groups, youth groups and others. So loads of variety, and seeing the difference that even just two days on board makes to the way they behave and work as a team is really rewarding.

The boats are out more or less every weekend from April to October, plus a couple of months in the summer for the Tall Ships Race – so they always need plenty of TLC and a lick of paint over the winter. As a volunteer mate, in return for getting to sail the boats I help out with maintenance jobs over the winter. This weekend, we were polishing the topsides so we left the boats looking very smart and shiny. Then on Sunday I dismantled a few bits of kit that needed replacing and generally stayed in the warmth whilst it snowed outside!

Have I plugged Adventures Offshore enough yet? There is more info at http://www.adventuresoffshore.co.uk/ and you can see what places are left on weekend trips and also the Tall Ships Race. This year, this fantastic event is taking place out in the Baltic again – I’m on the Gdynia (Poland) to St Petersburg (Russia) leg, which I’m really excited about.

Take a look, its great (ok, I’m biased, but it really is).

Quest re-launch

Also on Sunday, when I got back from Ipswich, I went to the Quest Network re-launch which meant digging the County Network Chairperson hat out of the wardrobe of Scouting hats. This was basically an open evening for potential new members, as they’ve suffered a bit in recent months with members reaching 25 but not many coming in at the bottom. Well, they had loads of recent-ex Explorers turn up and they all seemed to have a good time so hopefully they’ll keep coming back. It just shows how important it is to get those Explorers involved! We all took part in a few team building exercises so that everyone could get to know each other, and then there was a short presentation on what the Network was up to and had planned. All good stuff and it should mean that Quest are back on their feet again.

It got me thinking and it’s a great idea I reckon for all Networks to do once in a while – invite everyone along that you can possibly think of and get them involved.

They’ve got one big job left to do though: they need to make sure they educate the new Questrians in the tradition of superior fancy dress! Before one of the others gets in there to take the trophy… Certainly Lynx have a few ideas for events later this year, we shall see!

The QSA diet

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Did you eat too much over Christmas?

Then try the QSA diet and lose that extra weight in several thousand (not so) easy steps.

All you need to do is a two day, 25 mile hike in full kit in the Peak District on a cold winter weekend just after the start of the New Year.

_______________________________

Yes... whilst most sane people were enjoying lie ins (or recovering from extended hangovers), we were out in the Peak District undertaking a two day practice expedition for the Queen's Scout Award. It was a fairly challenging route and a difficult time of year - temperatures were forecast at no more than 1C for the days and -5C for the nights! We stayed in a YHA camping barn near leek overnight on Jan 1st, before driving the short distance to Leek the following morning to start our hike.


The barn was basic but not bad at all for £6pppn - an old stone barn with a toilet, sinks, raised concrete bunks with gym mats to sleep on and heating. Staying there meant a "lie in" until 7 am, instead of having to get up at some silly hour to get ourselves up to the start point.


So we set off from Leek at about 9, and took a route up the eastern side of Tittesworth Reservoir and up to Hen Cloud and the Roaches - one of my favourite spots. We picked up a few geocaches along the way, including a couple up the top near where we stopped for lunch. Then we continued north towards Gradbach, but extended the route by heading west towards Danebridge and following the river to the campsite. The sunset as we descended from the Roaches was beautiful, but the short days at this time of year did mean that a fair chunk of the route was completed in darkness. This was the same for our previous practice back at the start of December, but we've got some good navigators on the team so this wasn't a problem and it all helps to hone those navigation skills!

It was a long first day and there were a few hiccups at the campsite, but it was a relief to be able to climb into a sleeping bag at the end of it all. It wasn't quite as cold as expected overnight and certainly warmer than the December practice hike which was useful and meant we had a reasonable nights sleep before the second day.

The second day was a much easier route than the first, with fewer climbs. As usual we weren't quite as quick as we need to be getting cleared away and it was almost 1o before we set off back towards Leek. Something we need to work on!

The nice thing about the second day was that from the high starting point we could see the finish point for most of the day. We eventually arrived just as dark fell and were glad to get the rucksacks off our backs.

Another good practice weekend and I think we're most of the way there now in terms of optimising food and kit for the final four-day expedition in March. We're continuing the training with plenty more day hikes and hopefully another overnight practice before then.


Anyway... the point about the "diet" thing at the start is that there are all these diets available - a whole industry - but people just need to get outside more!!! Ok, maybe hiking 25 miles in full kit every weekend isn't necessary, but getting out in the countryside to do a few miles not only keeps you fit but I'm sure most people don't realise just how beautiful certain parts of this country are - and you really don't have to go far to find them. A sunset on a crisp, clear winters day from the Roaches or one of the Edges in the Peak District is a beautiful sight.

Insight 08

Just back from Insight 08... and my brain is fairly overloaded with ideas for Network and Explorers! Basically its the Scout Association's main event for gathering the views of the 18-25 year old members on current issues that we face. It was also a great social and a good chance to meet loads of Network members from all over the place. Great fun and our team (The Chocolate Finger Munchers!) won the quiz that was more than a quiz - but at the cost of various bruises from tables falling over and crawling under chairs. Long story...

Anyway a large part of the weekend was spent in groups debating and discussing all sorts of things. Our group had youth participation, "Scoutcraft" and the perception of young people; plus we talked about communication and the vision for 2018. Way too much was talked about to list here but it was really interesting to hear everyone's views and to have a chance to contribute to the Association's plans for the future.

The most shocking thing though was the discussion about the perception of young people - or rather the video we were shown as an introduction to the debate. If you haven't seen the Barnardo's advert yet, click this link and watch the video - you will be amazed.

http://www.barnardos.org.uk/children_in_trouble_hunting_campaign.htm

I still can't quite get over that - pretty appalling really and its good that Barnardo's are doing something about it. Part of our discussions were about what we - as Scouts - can do to improve the perception of young people, and one of the main points coming out of it was that we should be showing a united front with other organisations working to achieve the same objective. So is it time the Scout Association developed a link with Barnardo's...? And helped support them in their campaign...? Possibly, and hopefully the feedback from Insight will be passed on to the people that matter and sort these things out.

In the mean time, we'll be carrying on doing our bit!

DYB DOB, over and out!

Geocaching (minus the GPS) and teabags

Coming up with new ideas for the Network programme is often a challenge. There are the usual ones we come up with - the climbing, sailing, various camps that take place each year, the now-traditional Teddy Bear's picnic & rounders... But in the last week alone we've tried 2 brand new ideas...


Geocaching


We'd been on about this one for quite a while, but none of us had a GPS set. For those that don't know what it is, basically its a treasure hunt using GPS. You download the coordinates of the "caches" from the internet, punch them into your GPS set and then off you go to hunt for the cache - which is normally a small watertight container of some sort, with a logbook to record your visit and items to swap. There are also sometimes clues which you have to decode to help you find it.


For our first ever geocaching session the GPS failed to work most of the time... so we ended up using a map! It still worked though and it was really good fun - quite a good test of our navigation skills too. The first cache we went to was near Rowsley in the Peak District - a little film capsule with a logbook. The next two were at the nearby Hermit's Cave and Robin Hoods' Stride - the latter was quite a difficult one to find, until Andy stuck his foot down the hole the container was hidden in!

By this point it was just starting to get dark and had started raining again, so we headed off to the pub at Rowsley for some dinner - before paying a visit to Youlgreave to locate our final cache of the evening.


We swapped some interesting stuff - we found a couple of DVDs, a tape of bird sounds (which we played in the car on the way home!), a small plastic lizard and a book entitled "How to fossilize your hamster" (another future Network programme idea?!?). In return, we left behind some a few Scout badges, a Peak 2005 necker and a few other bits and pieces. We also picked up a "travel bug", which we now have to log on the internet and move to another geocache.


All in all, pretty good fun and we'll be doing it again soon! (This time hopefully with GPS!) We might even use it as an inter-Network challenge night and compete against each other to see who can visit the greatest number of caches within a set time... something for the next programme.


Cheese and wine night (or rather, tea and biscuit night!)

As a Network we've managed to get ourselves a bit of a reputation for drinking tea... It is an essential part of any of our camps, sailing trips ("tea on the hour, every hour, whilst underway!") and planning meetings.


In our last programme, we had pencilled in a cheese and wine night - but we ended up cancelling for various reasons, including cost and the fact that a number of people would be driving (or just don't like wine!). So when it was suggested for our new programme, we changed it to a "biscuit and tea" night instead!


Sarah and Tim had been out to buy four different brands of tea and a load of biscuits (including my favourite by far, gingernuts). Sat round a table, we then had to guess the brand, rate each out of 5 and evaluate the taste of each, before the results were revealed at the end.


I suppose I'm probably not allowed to mention specific brand names here but I can reveal that a certain variety named after the county from which it originates was rated top of the bunch by far; just two points off the maximum rating. This was followed by another well known brand with a slightly lower rating. The last two were rather tasteless and miles behind, but interestingly were both store-branded varieties - one being the "normal" variety, and the other being the "economy" variety from the same store. And guess which was rated higher? Surprisingly, the economy version!




Oh the fun we have at Network... yet more proof that Scouting isn't just knot tying and silly campfire songs?


Next week, its Ultimate frisbee in the dark - glowsticks galore!

2 hours a week?!?

Well since my last post its been a rather busy month of Scouting! A lot of time has been taken up with preparations for our forthcoming Network Alton Towers Camp at the end of October, a camp at Gradbach last weekend with our Explorers and a Network recruitment stand at the Derby Uni Freshers Fair.

In the last few weeks we've also received a donation of £2,500 towards the refurbishment of our Network HQ, the Derby South Scout Activity Centre (http://lynxnetwork.co.uk/news.htm#Donation_towards_the_Activity_Centre and http://www.ukmediacentre.pwc.com/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=2860&NewsAreaID=2). This is great news and we've already started work on various improvements.

Gradbach was great last weekend. We've been numerous times as Network but this was the first time we'd taken our Explorers along. We split them into two groups, with each taking turns to walk to the nearby Roaches for some rock climbing and building bridges over the river over the two days. The weather was absolutely fantastic. We cooked over an open fire Saturday night - the Lynx Network speciality "Foil Bag Stew" with baked potatoes, followed by baked apples and bananas with chocolate!

Freshers today was a big success for us I think. We were there representing the county Network as a whole, and collected over 60 names and contact details - as well as handing out several hundred lollipops & sweets with stickers attached and business cards. So all in all, a great day for raising the profile of Network and hopefully we'll get a number of new members from it. And we got plenty of freebies, including at least half a dozen visits to the stalls offering free pizza!!!

Also in the last week I've been sorting out our new County Scout Network Treasurer and helping with car parking at the Scouting in a Bag day at Pride Park. Time for a rest I think! At least this week is looking marginally quieter... at the moment.

Norway

I still can’t believe I said it: “I wish we had a sat nav”. Anyone that knows me reasonably well knows that I have a severe dislike of car sat navs, and would much rather use a paper map. But having spent three hours driving round Newcastle city centre and suburbs trying to find the drop off point for our hire car I’d had enough! And that was after we’d stopped off at a newsagent to buy a street map, having given up entirely on the completely useless directions downloaded from the website of a certain very well known driving organisation…

So I think Sarah was slightly shocked at the comment. Then there was the fiasco of the Metro journey back to North Shields; then the walk from the Metro station back to the boat – but that’s a story for another day. But we made it in the end and managed to avoid killing each other with the stress too; the whole thing got so ridiculous that we couldn’t help but laugh at everything that seemed to be going wrong.

The reason we were in Newcastle in the first place is that we were due to sail to Norway, to deliver Ocean Scout to Bergen in time to take part in the Tall Ships Race. After the journey up from Derby, Sarah and I were returning the hire car back to the base, whilst Martin and Tim, the other two Lynx Network members on board, sorted out our food the coming week. Waiting for us back at the boat was a full roast dinner, which was a nice treat after the nightmare journey and a good opportunity to meet the rest of the crew that would be sailing with us. There were ten crew in total – a mix of individuals from the Newcastle area, along with the three Lynx Network members. Then there was myself from Lynx as second mate, Grace from the Ocean Youth Trust North East as first mate and Derek from Essex as skipper.

Dinner was followed by the usual safety briefing and an early night, before we set off the following morning at about 4am so that we could make best use of the daylight, allowing the crew to familiarise themselves with the boat before it got dark. Sails were hoisted and a course of 045 set for Norway. Derek, Grace and I took charge of a watch each; running on an alternating three hours on, three hours off, three hours standby pattern. Soon we had all settled into the routine, spending our time on watch navigating, completing the log and steering and generally watching the world go by. And drinking the “occasional” cup of tea, sometimes accompanied by a ginger nut biscuit. I used to think this was a sailing thing – drinking copious amounts of tea – but having sailed with other people I think it is just an Adventures Offshore thing! At least the navigation was easier than driving round Newcastle!

Most of the time whilst on passage there wasn’t an awful lot to look at, although one morning on the 0300-0600 watch we did witness a spectacular sunrise and the occasional pod of dolphins was spotted. There was very little shipping about and there were a couple of oil rigs just visible in the distance. But I always find sailing like this a great experience – as you really have to work together to get everything done, and you get to know the rest of the crew really well.

After about three days we spotted land in the haze on the horizon; then as the day progressed more became visible and we could make out the rugged Norwegian coastline, with mountains piled up high in the distance. We were headed for a small town called Tananger, which is the other side of a headland to the city of Stavanger. We arrived in blazing sunshine and later found out that it was the hottest day on record! Not quite what we expected considering we were further north than the top of Scotland and the area’s reputation for rain.

The next two days were spent exploring the town, harbour and rocky coastline on foot and in the dinghy. We witnessed two amazing sunsets and relaxed on a small hill overlooking the harbour entrance eating fresh blackberries.

Our sister ship, Offshore Scout, was on its way over from Ipswich and due to the lack of wind and the extra 100 miles or so was quite a way behind us. But once we had made contact and found out they had just arrived in Stavanger, we arranged to meet up for the passage north through the fjords to Bergen. We had a cracking sail up to meet them and even managed to catch some fresh mackerel for lunch.

Our next port of call was Haugesund, a slightly larger town, where we had trouble finding somewhere to moor the boat for the night as it was so busy. We moved on the next day and found a pleasant little bay just a few miles south of Bergen as the crow flies. The village, if you can call it that, was called Hakonshella and consisted of a handful of houses with spectacular views built on the side of the surrounding hills. We went for a swim and rowed the dinghy across the bay to a small island to watch the sun set over the fjord leading up to Bergen. This was possibly the most beautiful and peaceful spot I have ever visited – a status which several previous and subsequent Norwegian locations fought for.

Arriving in Bergen the following day we were greeted by curious locals wondering why we were there – apparently a whole week early for the Tall Ships Race. The reason for this was that whilst the rest of the fleet were on their way down from Maloy in northern Norway following the first race, Adventures Offshore had decided to run a Norwegian Fjords Cruise in the intervening week instead.

Bergen was the first opportunity we’d had to see some real Norwegian shops and bars, only then did it become apparent just how expensive the country is! After a day of exploring the city, the delivery crew bid their farewells and the crew for the second week – the Fjords Cruise – arrived. I was lucky enough to be able to stay on board for both parts.

We set off the following day and travelled only a relatively short distance to a marina a few miles to the south of Bergen at Hjellestad. On the way, however, we made the most of the opportunity for a practice sail with the new crew – most of whom had never sailed before.

The next few days were spent mostly motoring around, as what little wind there was in the fjords tended to be straight up or straight down – not ideal for sailing at all. We did, however, visit some amazing places. First stop was Rosendal, which was a small town in the Hardangerfjord overlooked by a number of mountains – one of which we attempted to climb the following morning. We didn’t get to the top, but there were some fantastic views to be had. That afternoon we departed Rosendal and went for a swim and paddle in the dinghy out in the fjord, before continuing a few miles east deeper into the fjord to Sunndal, passing a spectacular waterfall on the way. Sunndal itself consisted of nothing more than a tiny marina, small campsite and a fish farm but was a beautiful spot overlooked by more mountains and a glacier – which we climbed up to the following day.

After the few days inshore, we decided to take the boat out for a spin offshore and ended up having a cracking sail – with plenty of sail changes and wet foredeck action in the increasing winds. This was the first experience of “proper sailing” for the crew, and they all seemed to love it.

That night we headed into Fitjar, where we were welcomed by the locals and told about a large regional Scout camp that was happening that week just down the road. So we went to say hello, and spent some time wandering around the site admiring the camping and pioneering skills of the Norwegian Scouts. I must say that some of their pioneered gateways, bridges and camp shelters were far better than anything I have ever seen attempted over here!

Over the next couple of days we slowly made our way back up to Bergen, stopping off at Hjellestad for another night before playing around with our cruising chute amongst the rest of the arriving Tall Ships fleet just outside Bergen. Entering the harbour itself we were greeted by a band playing the national anthem – which was really quite special – and swarms of tourists with their cameras eager to have a chat and come on board before we’d even finished tying up the boat!

That night skipper Mark and first mate Roger headed off to the Captain’s dinner, whilst I took a couple of the older crew to a party on the Swedish naval training boat, Falken. Here we met a number of trainees from Falken and other boats; swapping stories and tales from our journeys to Bergen.

I was sad to leave “home” – my small bunk on board Ocean Scout – as it meant I would be leaving behind the fantastic atmosphere that is the Tall Ships Race and the wonderful people I had met.

Next year the Tall Ships Races return to the Baltic and I’ve got my eyes on one of the legs into or out of St Petersburg in Russia. For anyone that likes travelling, meeting people and has a sense of adventure, I would highly recommend the Tall Ships Race experience. No sailing experience is necessary, and every year it amazes me how many people there are there that have never stepped on board a boat previously but end up loving the experience and vowing to do it again. Full details of the event can be found at http://www.sailtraininginternational.org/, whilst Adventures Offshore – one of two Scout sail training charities that will be taking part – can be found online at http://www.adventuresoffshore.co.uk/

Hello from Norway

Just a quick one... I'm sat in the Tall Ships Race crew centre in Bergen, Norway, after two weeks sailing on Ocean Scout. An amazing trip - the first week was the delivery here from Newcastle, then the second was simply cruising round the Norwegian coast.

Had an amazing time - beautiful scenery, great company and some really good sailing. flying home at about 8 this evening, but I really don't want to leave. I suppose all good things have to come to an end at some point! Watch this space for photos and a proper account when I get back.