Ridley District Cub Hike

Today, Akela and I attended the annual Ridley District Cub Hike. We had 4 cubs and 2 brothers attend the hike today, and it was certainly a nice day for it. While there was a forecast of rain, it didn’t arrive. This meant while it was a little cool, it made the hike pleasant as it wasn’t overly hot and the Cubs enjoyed the hike (as did the parents and aunt who attended the hike with the Cubs)

Overall, a great hike and one we hope will happen again next year.

Palaver 2015 - Sunday

Today was another sunny day (which also meant it had been cold overnight at Woodhouse again).  But thankfully Akela has this sleeping thing down pat at Woodhouse and knows how to keep us both warm while we sleep.

This morning’s activities covered our last two main sessions for the Red Six – Bun Run (a wide game around Woodhouse, which gave us a chance to get some much needed exercise as well

Our final session was cooking and we certainly had fun doing this one and eating the end results.

We then also had another two mini sessions as well – one was Animals Anonymous, which was awesome and Akela got to touch real snakes! She is a nut case, no doubts about it! We have the photos of her holding snakes on camps before!

Then we switched and did a session on Tangier cooking.  Akela has done some of this before and was happy to do some more watching on this one. Also, she was feeling rather full by this stage and we hadn’t even had lunch! She is convinced she has put on weight this weekend with all the eating that was happening.

Lunch arrived very quickly and was certainly very nice. It was lasagne and Akela is a bit of a pasta fan, so probably wasn’t the wisest of meals to serve her. I did remind her to put veg on her plate and she certainly made sure it was a balanced plate that she brought back to the table.

 

Once lunch was over, it was time to do the pack up and clean of the Rymill Centre. It is hard to believe that another Palaver has been and gone. But it was certainly a enjoyable weekend and we are looking forward to the next one in 2017.

Palaver 2015 - Saturday

It was an early Saturday morning – a COLD start to the morning (one of the leaders who arrived from home said it was 2C in his car port when he left home). Breakfast was a much welcome sight – warm, filling and lots of it.

The leaders broke into their sixes (Red, Green, Blue and Purple) and headed to their 1^st activity. Akela and I were in Red Six. The name tags this year were shells painted in our six colours, with our names written on them. They looked so cool.

Our first session was Plaster – making face masks. It was fun and Akela looked really funny with the one she made on.

Our second session was building tripods, and it was a chance for the leaders to either brush up on their lashings, or to put into practice what they had recently learnt on training. We then had to talk the tripod we made, which had a bell attached, around the car park without the bell ringing.

The 3^rd session for the morning was Tie Dye, where we looked at ways of doing tie dying without the expense of using dyes. It was certainly interesting and we even got to make Scarfs – there were even sizes especially for pack mascots! The person running the session said we have scarfs in sizes for pack bears / mascots. She then turns to Akela and says “That includes SHEEP!” So Akela made me a Palaver Scarf! It is so cool.

Lunch ensured we had a chance to re-charge and refuel before the afternoon onslaught of activities.

We also had several mini sessions throughout the day, one of which was a “So you think you can dance?” which was run by two of the dancers from Adelaide Gang Show. We had to perform the dances they taught us during the mini sessions during tea as apart of the entertainment.

Other activities that we did today included woodwork (Akela made a bird feeder – different to the ones we made at the Scout hall for Scouts in Action week though) as well as a visit to the environmental centre and a talk from the Branch Commissioner – environment. He  kindly mentioned the work that Mawson Lakes Cub Pack is doing with Friends of Pledger Wetlands as one way cubs can include environmental activities within their programs. That is, working with community based community groups who have an environmental focus.

The evening meal was the usual dress up in the theme. Akela didn’t dress up – she went in her uniform. She is not one for dressing up really and has done so on very rare occasions. But it’s just not something she is really into doing.

The decorations were awesome and done to theme really well. The placemats were designed to be coloured in, and colouring pencils as well. It was certainly well done and the food was great, as it had been all weekend.

 Talk went late into the night and there was a lot of laughter, singing happening over the course of the meal. There was even a quiz during the night and the Red Six (which Akela and I were in) did really well. We came 2^nd out of 5 teams, only being beaten by the Instructors team.

 Akela made sure we were in bed just before midnight – we weren’t the last ones to bed though as we left a few singing.

 

 

Palaver 2015 - Friday Night

This evening, Akela and I arrived at Palaver 2015. We are really looking forward to a great weekend and it certainly looks like a reasonable crowd this year.

Tonight, after room allocation and a short welcome, it was time to participate in some short activities. We could do as many or as few as we wanted. The activities (or mini activities as they were called) included:

Water Guns and Rubber Ducks – needing to knock over the Ducks by using the water guns

Pick up the ball – Pick up as many balls as you can with a fishing net

Obstacle Course – riding a blow up fish then wearing a life jacket and goggles

Making Sock Puppets – we did this one and didn’t quite get to put their eyes on them. Akela thinks she wants to put button eyes on them (Which means she is going to need to sew them on). So we put on their hair, and put them in our bag to bring home.

After supper, it was time to sit around and have a chat with the other people who were attending Palaver for the weekend.  It was a good evening, but the warmth of the sleeping bags was also a welcome site.

 

We will apologise for the photo - Akela forgot to use the flash and the lighting in the room was not the best for such a photo

Packing for Palaver

Akela is getting ready to go away for the weekend – I am making sure I stow away in a bag (and dont get missed)

For those who don't know what a Palaver is, it cam be described as follows:

Palaver is an annual camp held by cub leaders, for cub leaders, as an aid to your work as a leader.

For  those who are unsure of what Palaver is and how it works  –

The camp is always themed, to give you a full program of activities run around a central theme.

From Friday night to Sunday afternoon, we have a structured program which can be used almost exactly to run a cub camp.

You will come home with a thick package of notes, detailing at least three programs you can run at a pack meeting, games and activities, crafts, and often some form of formal training.

 

You will meet many leaders from around the state of South Australia, and make contacts that you will meet up with on various other outings, such as Region Cub Day Out, Region Camp, Cuboree etc.

A lot of value is found in chatting to other leaders – you will hear about different activities, camps and outings that people have taken their cubs to, you can chat about different ways to resolve situations that come up in a cub pack, and many other aspects of being a leader are discussed. You will always learn something new. Keep a notebook handy.