1st Shirley Buckholt Scout Troop

This years' summer camp was the biggest ever. 56 people in total which was made up of 36 scouts, 5 Explorers, 2 Cubs & 13 leaders.

Obviously, plans for camp get underway long before the actual camp and well done to Paul who puts it all together. Of course, he has help from various people and the leader team usuually take on specific responsibilities.

It is my role, and has been for the last few years, to provide the food. The official title is Quarter Master. Before camp, I have to work out the menu, quanitites of food and where and when we should buy food. I need to ensure that there are suitable storage and cooking facilities available.

Usually, and this time included, the first shop is about a week before camp and involves a trip to the local cash and carry. This year, we bought more from the cash and carry than we normally do as this allowed us to get the bulk quantities that we needed.

For ease, the menu is quite simple and also for ease, contains a lot of tinned food. Not ideal but a necessary evil due to the logistical constraints.

A few days before camp, we went to Sainsburys at about 10 o'clock at night to get the food that we could not get from the cash and carry. Steve and I usually try to embarass Paul by acting like we've been let out of the local loony-bin for the night (we don't have to act too hard!).

The biggest change for this years camp was finding out one week prior to camp that our intended destination was under water! Yes, the summer floods had struck. After some frantic phone calls and some good luck, Paul managed to get us booked into a Scout Camp Site on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. Not ideal as we are used to back to basics camping but at short notice, it was a good find.

We set off in convoy on the Saturday morning having loaded the cars, trailers, lorry and minibuses with the scouts, equipment and leaders. Luckily, we managed to rope in volunteers to come with us to help set up upon arrival.

We arrived at the site and decided upon our pitch, had lunch and then off-loaded the vehicles. At this point the clouds grew darker and the heavens opened!

I disappeared off to commence the first of many trips to Tesco to get the fresh food that we could not have bought prior to camp. Traffic was awful and it took ages to get what I wanted from Tesco's. By the time I returned, the bulk of the tents had been erected and the field had turned into a quagmire!

I began to set up the gas fridges and try to establish some order to the pile of food stacked randomly in the corner of the marquee.

That evening, we took the decision to cook the evening meal for everyone and complete the set up of individual dining shelters in the morning.

The following day was drier and we managed to get set up and established. Despite the recent floods and bad weather, we had a very good week weather-wise. We did struggle to have the roaring camp fires that we are used to because the wood was so damp.

The activities included walking along the coastal path, backwoods cooking, kite making, abseiling, archery and canoeing.

I don't intend to go into great detail about what happened during the week. Needless to say, all of the scouts thoroughly enjoyed the week and the leaders did too, but were glad to get home after what turned out to be a very busy, hectic and tiring week.

I think that I spent half of the week shopping in Tesco's. At least I racked up a good number of points on my loyalty card!

Unfortunately, it rained on the last day and we ended up taking down wet tents. These had to be hung out to dry at the head quarters upon our returned and meant several trips to the HQ until everything had been put away.

This year we had a post-camp leaders de-brief where we discused things that could have gone better. This was a useful activity to do and will allow us to have a more successful camp next year.

Andy V.