Over the May Bank Holiday weekend over 200 members and families of the 1st Sevenoaks Scout Group attended their Centenary Family Camp in Knole Park.
Once everyone had set up their tents on Saturday morning and the camp had been formally opened, the mammoth task of feeding over 200 people was the next challenge. The queue was as long as the length of the 3 marquees that had been erected but soon everyone was sitting eating in the warm sunshine. Then came the washing up! Large yellow flexi baskets had been supplied for this and everyone soon learnt the knack of washing up scoutwise!
The afternoon saw the first activity which was Trading Post. This proved very popular with young and old alike and when information was needed by the adult teams, such as the words to the Cub Scout Promise, and the Cubs themselves were not forthcoming, some parents found their blackberry very useful!
It's a Knockout followed this with mixed age teams doing events such as egg n spoon and 3 legged races After dinner and a wide game everyone went to the large campfire and enjoyed lots of songs interspersed with stunts performed by each section in the Group finishing with 'There's a hole in my bucket' admirably performed by some of the leadership team! Sunday morning came and with it Scouts Own led by John Lane from URC. Following this, everyone was put into groups to start the day long incident hike which took teams of all ages, to the 1st HQ for rifle shooting, the 3rd HQ for an assault course, and the 4th HQ for archery. Added to these there were also bases on fire-lighting, problem solving, first aid and observation. Even though not all finished the course, everyone came back to camp having had a great time, and that evening there were quite a few very tired people walking about. That was until Skip announced there was going to be night wide game. What was supposed to be a quiet game saw the first aid post inundated with visitors displaying scratches from tree branches to being stung by stinging nettles as everyone tried to avoid Skip's large beam of light.
On Monday morning the task of breaking camp begin but with everyone pitching in to help, we were all finished and ready to leave by 11.30am. Everyone seemed to have a great time and I would personally like to thank each and every one of the Leaders and Executive Members who, without their 100% commitment, this event could not have taken place.
Lesley Grant GSL
The photos are starting to go up online. You can log in to view them here. Don't know the password? Contact your section leader.
Caught the scouting bug? We're desperate for help in every section. Contact Lesley for more details.