Building

We were planning to build treehouses on Friday night, but the weather had other plans. The rain was bucketing down by the time our meeting began and there was no way we would be working outside. Instead, Pippa (Crocodiles' PL) ran some pioneering activities inside.

The girls built and braced a pair of tripods. Then they learned how to use a bowline and rolling hitch to fasten themselves securely to the tripods before climbing up onto the bracings. With more time, we could have transformed our tripods into a tower, but with all the knotting practice, and the power cut that meant we were working by gaslight, that didn't happen.

Instead, Pippa and Lynx taught the troop how to tie a Cat's Paw, a rather unusual knot used with pulleys. We don't know where the name comes from, but if any of our readers do, we'd love to know!

At the same time, two of our senior scouts were on Backwoods Camp. In that rain, it must have been chilly. The girls earned their Backwoods Interest Badges on the camp.

During next week's meeting, the group AGM will be run and all parents are encouraged to attend. Afterwards, there'll be campfire for the whole scout group, so remember your campfire blankets!

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A New Term

Yesterday we had our first meeting for the last term of 2009. Over the holidays, a new system for storing our long (five and six metre) poles had been set up, and we got to pack them away. This is more exciting than it sounds, because the poles are stored several metres up. Getting them there required two PLs in safety harnesses and four people on the pulley systems. The author of this blog now has four blisters, but apparently she is getting soft, as everybody else was fine!

We also learned different ways of carrying injured people and which should be used when. Then we ran races using the different carries. It was a fun and practical way of making sure everyone understood how they worked.

Before we ended, we got to hear about the projects Kay will be running to get her Springbok Scout award, and to meet our new District Commissioner. I can't wait for another term full of scouting activities!
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