Starry Night Camp

Most of last term has been preparing for camp - learning knots, learning how to make bedding rolls, learning how to make tripods so when camp finally came, it might have been a bit of an anti-climax.
Nine girls from Waverley and six from Rays of Hope arrived on Friday at Trefoil Park.   There were serious traffic issues resulting in camp starting late and the programme being swopped around to get the tents up before dark.

After supper a Guider who was knowledgeable about astronomy and her husband came to teach the girls what they needed to know for the astronomy badge.   All the girls can now identify Scorpio, Sagittarius, the 1st Magnitude stars Antares, Alpha and Beta Centauri and Vega.

 Saturday morning was cook your own breakfast in patrols.   On the menu was Omelette in a bag.

After duties, inspection, making gadgets and an early lunch, we celebrated a birthday with a party.
A beautifully decorated fruit cake had been donated to us after the District fund-raising morning market in August.   It was a red tent next to a river and a fire.

We played party games - "Captain's coming", pass the parcel, muscical chairs and then a scavenger hunt to earn supper ingredients

 .Any lost property found lying around at camp was put into the "Manya box"   and the owner had to Manya to get it back.   This caused some consternation and even some tears but at the end of the day there were only 2 items of lost property left at camp.

The rule applied to Guiders too

Sunday was Guides Own (just a very short time of turning our thoughts to God) and then the start of the pack up.   Tents came down much faster than they went up and before we knew it there was nothing but open ground, luggage in piles and equipment ready to be collected.

Finally we had closing horseshoe and (importantly) handing out of awards.

Cookout at Delta Park

Overall it was a successful day. A couple of challenges but then isn't that what serving the Lord is all about? Six girls arrived. There had been no sign of Stella when the driver had called for her.

First I demonstrated how we were going to cook rice in the solar cooker in the sun. Only Jeanette believed it would cook. Then while the Blue Crane Patrol made pancakes, the Flamingoes decorated meskit bags.

The gel stove that we used for the pancakes was challenging as the wind kept blowing the flame out and the gel would finish just as a pancake was half cooked. Nevertheless, they all got eaten.

One thing the girls were pretty good at was collecting wood and making fires. For a group who are brand new, to light a fire without any paper, using only one match was quite impressive. I taught them to wrap chicken in tin foil and cook it in the coals and I introduced them to banana boats - bananas with chocolate and marshmallows inserted and wrapped in foil and cooked. The rice was beautifully cooked, not one chicken piece was burned and they all enjoyed the banana boats.

After washing up, the fires were still hot enough to toast marshmallows. Nellie, my new asistant was very impressed with toasted Marshmallows.

I asked Amanda, who had missed the enrolment because of a funeral, if she wanted to be enrolled at closing colours and she said yes, so we did.

The girls enjoyed the day but their good behaviour couldn't last so long and they became very challenging towards the end. Next time I'll go for a shorter day. Seven and a half hours is quite heavy for primary school children.

Please pray for the selection of patrol leaders.