New Sea Scout Booklets

Brand new booklets have been  published to help us consolidate our knowledge of scouting, especially Sea Scouting.  The link has been created as a permanent page in the Important Info section on the right:

Have a look and see what you can learn

Cosgrove Gold 2019

Cosgrove Gold Course 18 -20 October 2019

This weekend Adam, Liam, Gabi, Alfie, Harry and Hamish took part in the Kapiti Coastal Zone Cosgrove Gold course.  Cosgrove Gold is a course for our senior Scouts, where they learn - and more importantly get to practice, managing and leading in an outdoor setting.

We met up on a rainy Friday evening at the Otaki A Frame, where we joined 12 more Scouts from around the Zone, as well as the Lance, Ben and Paul who (along with Derrick and I) were overseeing the course.

The first evening was a classroom session.   The Scouts were divided into their patrols for the weekend  and worked through the planning and paperwork necessary for any activity.   The focus was on trip planning, gear planning, menu planning as well as safety and risk management.

 

It was a pretty intense few hours, and finished up with a "Dragon's Den" where each patrol reported back on how they would manage the next days' activities.   Here are the Dragons at work:

Saturday morning dawned grey and damp....

Each patrol collected the supplies they had selected and we headed up into the Otaki Gorge to the Otaki Forks road end to begin the tramp.  

Occasionally the rain stopped.  But not for long. 

Navigation and route finding was a key part of the course, but Alfie showed how it was done, with a clear sense of where to turn at every intersection.   

The rivers were very high after a couple of days of rain, but there were good solid bridges when we needed them.

However even some of the little streams were pretty interesting

The rain continued, but, as we say, there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes.   And everyone was well kitted out for a day in the bush. 

By a very circuitous (but thoroughly planned) route we arrived at Parawai Lodge, where the Scouts set out building some shelter for the night.  Mostly successfully.

It was still pretty stormy however, so we made some additions to the hut - and used some man-made options  - which in the end was where the Scouts slept.

Derrick did sterling work lighting the fire with wet wood  (although he did eventually concede defeat and sourced some of the left over Ngati Toa pallet wood from the A frame) while Scouts prepared some pretty tasty burritos for dinner.    There was an extended, and increasingly noisy game of Scouting Charades, followed by several rounds of Mafia  (which I understood was a quiet game - apparently not....)

Everyone slept soundly on the deck outside  (or at least, I didn't hear anything from my mattress on the bunk in the hut.  Which is essentially the same thing...).

Sunday morning dawned grey and rainy..... 

and we breakfasted on pancakes and bacon.  

Gabi demonstrated her serious pancake flipping skills, and somehow the boys managed to persuade her to cook their pancakes too.

We completed some activities (which I will keep quiet for the sake of Scouts who will do the course in the future), before a serious fire wood collecting effort  - paying it forward to future users of the hut, and the short walk back to the cars, and drive back to the A frame. 

Where the rain had stopped at last.

All of the Scouts were awarded a swag of badges (which I am sure they will have sewn on by now!) including the coveted Cosgrove Gold award, which they can wear with pride.

Well done to all the Scouts  - it is a real achievement, and some great skills learned and demonstrated that will really help you to manage and lead your own adventures in the future.  BRAVO

Nick

2019 Term 3 - Round up & Look ahead

Welcome to our term 3 roundup. Looking forward to our new term of Sea Scouting, there are a number of regattas and sea scout events that need our support and participation. But first lets do the important bits from last term. Term 3 - 2018 - Round up Term 3 was packed with a huge variety of activities, that at times actually became quite hard to manage for the leaders due to their diversity, starting with the Winter Camp. Winter Camp At the end of the School Holidays we had a winter camp at Battle Hill. Scouts were given their own food to cook, allocated a fire place and were left to to set up their own campsite. All meals were cooked by scouts and there was plenty to keep everyone occupied the whole weekend. On the Saturday afternoon we took a tramp up the Puketiro Loop (under Transmission Gully). The walk was a lot of fun, but the views were not so spectacular as the hill tops were covered in cloud. Sunday got a bit rainy and we had to call in help to get the tents down, dried out and cleaned before returning to the den. Many thanks to the parents who helped with this and dismantling the camp. More here: https://ngatitoaseascouts.blogspot.com/2019/07/winter-camp-2019.html Term programme A fairly strong grounding in Scouting knowledge has been gained this term, with a whole evening dedicated to knots and getting knot boards ready to show off the knots we can do. The six basic knots are all we require at the moment and for some at least it is getting fairly straight forward. Figure 8 Reef knot Clove hitch Cleat hitch Sheet bend Bowline When you have done them 6 times on 6 separate occasions, we will let you have your knot board to display them up in the den. Night Hike To the top of Colonial Knob. The weather was passable, with very little rain and wind only at the top. The watches that made it up were all in tearing spirits with a lot of chatter and play happening at the top while waiting for everyone to get there. Nick provided chocolates and then we went on our way down again. A short walk, easily done in the dark (only one watch got slightly lost) and a lot of fun. (PIcture below of (L-R) Ross, Derrick, Will, Jane, Magnus, Connor and Kym at the top of Colonial knob) LNI Prize Giving A great example of how our troop can come together to do something special. We may not have won more than one first place or any trophies but we excelled at putting on a great location for the prize giving and a huge amount of spirit and fun. This prize giving is the culmination of the years sailing, rowing, and swimming events all put together in one big evening. Hopefully we can do better next year. Māori Language week Vanessa put on a great evening of Māori culture and language for us to prepare us for the following week. We wove flax fish and played Māori games and translated Māori words. Many of the scouts proving that we definitely come from a land of mixed peoples, and who take pride in their own and respect other cultures. Swimming A small representative group came to the swimming and showed tremendous spirit, representing us well and getting some good seconds and thirds and even a first. Night Row Always a good event, this was the first water event of the year at a scout programme evening and it showed how out of practice we are. It took us a while to get down to the beach with the boats and our rowing could definitely use some improvement. We were just getting back the memory of the old commands and the evening had to come to an end. Group Camp "Brookfield Gold Rush" The Brookfield Gold Rush was a winner for all who took part, keas, cubs, scout, venturers and leaders. I am so proud to be a part of this. A short write up is available here: https://ngatitoaseascouts.blogspot.com/2019/09/brookfield-gold-rush-group-camp-2019.html And some photographs here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/3t1WCpUPp5ViCBDz6 Individual Achievements Certainly this has been a term of achievement. Look at the lists below and you can draw that conclusion for yourself. Cossgrove "Practical Skills" Course This course is an essential "This is what scouting is" course covering most of the basics and a lot of the Bronze Award work. We were lucky and got several of you onto the course earlier in the year and this course was no different. Held at Pukera Bay Scout den it was at least a little more sheltered. The following scouts successfully completed the course: Gabriella Magnus Penny Dominic Sean Lauree Zac This course also saw two of our leaders attend, one of whom achieves their Gilwell woggle by completing the course. Well done: Robin Kate (achieves Gillwell woggle) Sandford "Young Leaders" course This course is a full on two days of learning and doing on how to lead (and how to follow a leader). Six of our scouts completed this course successfully in July. Liam Harry Alfie Hamish Will Ciara Well done, all of you. Bronze Silver and Gold Awards Some of you scouts have completed Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards over the last term. They are: Bronze Magnus Martin Ethan Brown Emyr Staffer Sean Byres Silver Adam The Bronze award is a requirement to attend Jamboree and the leaders will make every attempt to help scouts achieve this, but you need to be aware and motivated to achieve it to. Chief Scout Awards At our group camp this year, we were privileged to witness the awarding another Chief Scout Award to a deserving scout. This is award is a pinnacle of achievement within a scouts career and is awarded to only 2% of scouts around the country. It requires a great deal of self-motivation, organisation and drive to complete so it is definitely something to be proud of. The recipient is: Ellen Serci Ellen actually achieved this award in Term 1. Well done Ellen. She has now moved on to Venturers, where we wish her luck and hope she continues her journey towards her Queen Scout Award. Leader awards At camps this year several leaders have been honoured with Medals of Merit awards. This is normally awarded for over 10 years service or an exceptional service: Neil Vanessa Both richly deserved. Also Robin has been invested as a new leader in our troop and has now seen out his first term with us. Future Sandford "Young Leaders" and Cossgrove "Practical Skills" courses These courses are all planned for the rest of the year. Dates as follows: Cossgrove Gold Course 18-20 October - This is an advanced practical skills training exercise and will be recommended to a few senior scouts Term 4 & 1 - Calendar Please remember that we are Sea Scouts. The regattas are a VERY important part of what we do and we do expect a good level of attendance. We would reasonably view this as at least half of the scout events below. Onepoto Regatta Starting on Labour weekend with our own regatta, the Onepoto Regatta will start on the Saturday with sailing as per usual and lead on to the Seamanship, iron scout and kayaking events on Sunday. We will be camping overnight on the domain. When: 26/10/2019 & 27/10/2019 Where: Titahi Bay Sailing Club & Ngati Toa Sea Scout Den Levin Regatta When: Sunday 10 November @ 9:00 am Where: Lake Horowhenua Annual General Meeting When: 11 November 2019 @ 7:30 pm Where: Ngati Toa Sea Scout Den Petone Regatta When: 24 November 2019 @ 9:00 am Where: Petone Foreshore Ward Island Picnic When: 15 December 2019 @ 9:30 am Where: Petone Foreshore 22nd NZ Scout Jamboree - Ngati Toa Contingent When: 28 December 2019 til 7 January 2020 Where: Mystery Creek, Hamilton Harbour Race When: 16 February 2020 @ 9:00 am Where: Evans Bay Worser Bay Regatta When: 15 March 2020 @ 9:00 am Where: Worser Bay Hickson Regatta When: 29 March 2020 @ 9:00 am Where: Evans Bay Cutty Sark Regatta When: 10 April til 12 April 2020 Where: Napier Welcome Cath has been leading in Cubs for a number of years and has followed her youngest children Matt and Amelia into Scouts.  We are lucky to have her. Welcome Cath.