St George's Day Jousting Horse

Almost complete. The boys turned up on a sunny Saturday afternoon to put the finishing touches to the horse. They loved spray painting - it was almost as if they'd done it before some place else.. !?

Read about the winning success of the St George's Day Jousting Competition.

ANZAC Day

Besides making a plywood cut out of a jousting horse for St George's Day, we also made ANZAC biscuits. ANZAC day remembers those in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp who fought in the 1st World War.

Me Ol' Bamboo

This is a game that we haven't played in years. Each player has a bamboo pole and instructions are given for players to move one to the left or right. They leave their poles balanced where they are and move on to catch the next one. The command "stay" means to do a full turn on the spot. Anyone who fails to keep their pole from falling is out.

3D Towers

A problem solving activity during our Scout evening.

We gave each group 20 garden canes and a pile of elastic bands. The challenge is to build a tower as tall as possible. It must be free standing.

District Scout Night Hike

Team 4 from 3rd Billericay, Orion Troop before they set off on the District Night Hike. The scouts were issued with local maps and a route card, which they subsequently used to plot the route. The route took us from Runwell Scout HQ, to the village of Ramsden Heath, passing through Downham before heading back to the HQ at just after 11:00pm.

Being a clear night, we were able to use the stars to navigate for much of the hike, using the compass only to find footpaths which weren't easily identifiable.

Here are the results from the District Night Hike.

1st Team 4 (3rd Billericay) - 1150 points
2nd Team 1 (5th Billericay) - 1100 points
= Team 2 (2nd Wickford) - 1100 points
4th Team 10 (1st Ramsden) - 1000 points
5th Team 3 (3rd Billericay) - 950 points
6th Team 12 (1st Runwell) - 900 points
7th Team 7 (Columbus Explorers) - 850 points
= Team 5 (1st Wickford) - 850 points
9th Team 6 (4th Wickford) - 700 points
10th Team 9 (1st Runwell) - 650 points
= Team 8 (Columbus Explorers) - 650 points

Scouts get a good soaking

Later, one of the appliances was driven outside to the yard and several hose pipes were unreeled to give the Scouts an opportunity to squirt some water. Their challenge was to squirt water to move a traffic cone about 10 metres with the water from the hose alone. We used the smaller of the hoses to begin with before moving onto the larger hoses which required adults to help the boys hold the hose steady, such was the power of the water running through them. It was a chilly evening, so we tried to discourage the boys from getting too wet, with the promise of taking them back during the Summer to squirt more water on a warmer day.

Fire & Rescue appliances

Scouts from 3rd Billericay Orion Troop visited Billericay Fire Station as part of the Community Challenge award. They gained an insight into the organisation of the Fire and Rescue service, how the various stations supported each other and how they also serve Stansted Airport in the event of an emergency. The Scouts were shown around the two appliances that are stationed at the un-manned Fire Station.

A Common Whipping

At Scouts this evening, we were showing the fine art of whipping and splicing a length of rope. Here is Luke proudly showing off his Common Whipping.

Orion Scout Troop Website

I've just been revamping the home page of the Orion Online website. I've managed to find a way of taking a specific content label in a Blogger.com blog and produce an RSS feed.

Pancakes: just read the instructions

Here is young Tom, a scout who has successfully made pancake batter and tossed his pancake without it landing on the floor or roof beams.

Although this was a fun activity, we were training the boys in the art of reading instructions. Few followed them which left them making several mistakes, or should I say created several 'learning opportunities. It is a life skill, but in this day and age, is the printed text just not stimulating and interesting enough to read? What if the instructions were a podcast or a video tutorial? Would more have had greater success and neding less adult input?

Truth is, as long as it was food and somewhere close to edible, the scouts simply stopped caring about how they got there!

Sedan Chairs

Scouts had quite (!) a lot of fun racing up and down the hall in Sedan Chairs having learnt how to tie a square lashing. Later, we gave them a bowl of water to carry on their laps which made the event all the more exciting. This is how learning something telatibely uninteresting can be made both fun and engaging.

Scouts learning how to tie a square lashing

Colin Burrough, Scout Leader of 3rd Billericay, Orion Troop, shows the scouts how to tie a square lashing. This is training for completing the pioneer badge which we later used in a rather fun activity, Sedan Chairs. See above!

Scout Swimming Gala

The annual Billericay and Wickford Scout Swimming Gala took place this evening at Gloucester Park. Although our scouts did well, we weren't able to achieve enough points between the 6 scouts who participated in order to challenge the top teams. Maybe next year? Congratulations to Flo, Liam, Ben, Tom, Joseph and Ben who represented Orion Troop, 3rd Billericay. Peter Taylor, who was the Team Manager, did a fabulous job at organising the youngsters into their respective races.

Mechanical advantage - it's just physics

Scouts in Orion Troop learnt how to use levers and pulley systems to gain mechanical advantage. Although you never get something for nothing, some very little scouts were able to lift some of the heavier ones!

3rd Billericay Scouts on the driving range

Scouts from Orion Troop developed their golf swings this evening at The Belvedere Golf Club this evening. We had the son of a former champion give instruction. However, what was more interesting was the way the scouts helped each other. Those who knew gave advice to novices. The smart ones exchanged advice for more golf balls, clearly they're not lacking in ingenuity either.

The 'out' in Scouting

Patrol Leaders training weekend

Scouts learning about photography

We looked at how film cameras invert light to create negatives.

Anyone got a light?

Check out the size of this match!