Taupo Camp review

by Matt Short, and Connor Sheffield

Mine bay carvings

We started off the trip by going sailing, we did this the first day we went, our goal was to get to mine bay and back to see the Maori carvings, the sail up there was relatively uneventful and the wind was mostly in our favor.

We arrived at mine bay (under oar power due to the wind dropping off), and were approaching the carvings when we encountered a large catamaran (a commercial tour boat), the catamaran was about 5 meters away from the carvings and looking like it was about to leave, we approached the carvings and two of the 3 boats we had taken out (cutters) went in front and around on the carvings side of the catamaran.

The other boat we had went around the back and was in quite close proximity to the catamaran, understandably panicking the captain of the catamaran yelled at us over a P.A system, the scouts quickly cleared away from the catamaran and it sailed away, the scouts were quite shook and we proceeded to go jumping and swimming off a rock and later called the harbourmaster and Kym and Derrick talked to them. In the future we should have more understanding of the limitations of commercial boats and a plan for how we can be around them – how close we can get and what support we might need from patrol boats.

It was a good learning experience because we became more aware of other boats and the things that can go wrong. The experience of our crews being yelled at was awful. We learned that it is important to acknowledge these things but to manage them calmly at the time – not to make a big deal of it – but also not to ignore it – to own up to our role in when things go wrong and the contribution we made.

We filed an incident report afterwards and notified the harbor master and our zone leader.

Program changes

During the 5 day camp we experienced 2 main program changes,

Firstly the planned pool trip(s),

We had planned to go to the pools multiple times during the duration of the camp, but we later changed our minds due to not everyone being able to go to the pools.

On the camp we firmly believed in 100% participation and we (and the group) decided against the pools.

Secondly was the river float

We had planned to float down the Taupo point of the Waikato river, however we decided against doing this due to the conditions of the river and we did not feel it would be sensible to go with the group that we were with. It was unfortunate we could not do this but the group were not too upset and we still had a fun day of activities instead.

The process of organizing the camp

The process of organizing this camp was a new experience for both me and Connor and we were helped by Kym and Derrick. We found this to be a new and exciting process for us, and in the end very rewarding seeing the camp come to flourish.

Running the camp

When Connor and I led the camp it was certainly trying something new, we had lead before but certainly not in this capacity and control and we thought that it was quite a cool experience for us.

Seeing all the scouts playing and enjoying the scouts was quite rewarding as we had started from pretty much scratch (with leader help) and it had blossomed into this awesome experience.

We thought that the level of help from the Kaiarahi was perfect and they neither interfered to much nor not to stepped back. So we could go to them when we needed advice or recommendations of what to do. They also mentioned that they had enjoyed the camp more than previously and us leading definitely helped them do that.

Afterward

After the camp both we were both completely drained, we put this down to mainly the tons of decisions and thinking that leading takes, we reckon we could have delegated more to the senior scouts as that would have ultimately taken some load off of our shoulder, we also reckon that we should have done some more coaching to the juniors so they could lead more camp stuff.

In the end though we were really happy to have done it as I can say confidently everyone really enjoyed the camp and that's definitely true for us too.

Letter to council

Hi there Taupo Council,

We are Connor and Mathew from Ngati Toa Sea Scouts.

Over the summer holidays we stayed at the Lake Taupo scout den on the lake. It was amazing location, and a great place to stay.

Over the course of our time there, we have been completed our Community Better World badge, this badge includes doing experiences, which was walking the Y2K trail, collecting information about the history of Kinloch and the trail which we all shared,

As part of our better world badge we chose to do some community service and help clean up some of the local waterfront around to five mile bay, we ended up with about 2 full paper bags, there was very little rubbish (considering the distance we walked) but we noticed that there was quite the load of dog poo, and we wondered if installing dog poop bags and bins could positively impact the local area and reduce the amount of dog poo along the waterfront.