Oct 12th
As Eastwinds is still unavailable due to a bridge being out this event was relocated to the 107th HQ. Nine Packs turned out Each with a team of four two young Cubs and two more elderly, Our team of Becky, Mike, Charlotte and Robert had a lot to live up to as we had won this event last year.
Akela and Hathi were joined by Alison (who must get a Jungle Book name soon) to help out. Our Cubs were the last to arrive but made it just in time. Alison was given the 146th and Hathi was 'in charge' of the team from the 107th. Our Cubs were helped by Jeff from the 107th.
The first part of the challenge was to colour in and cut out some animal masks. This involved a great deal of the true spirit of Scouting with lots of borrowing of each others pens and crayons. The standard of decoration was very good and one 107th Cub, lets call him Alex as that is his name wanted Hathi to paint his nose black to complete the effect. (he kept his nose clean).
After the masks were collected for marking Simon took over the show. The next part was to have a canoe race. This was achieved on the grassy area behind the HQ, all the teams were given two lengths of wood with ropes attached the Cubs had to stand on the planks and lift and move together so that progress was made. The Cubs were allowed several minutes to tie the ropes off with reef knots and practice moving (canoeing) this was very amusing to watch and has been put one side as an idea for our November camp. The air was soon filled with cries of "1, 2, 3 left... 1, 2, 3 right" and with lots of effort progress was made.
Having got to the point that everybody had an idea the race was organised. The Teams were lined up and Simon started the race. Team work was paramount for the success of this venture and some teams were more together than others. We did not do terribly well at this. Perhaps in November it will all come good.
Next was the biggest part of the challenge the food part. The Cubs had to find items on a shopping list and purchase them from the leaders with the price of the goods negotiable, barter was a new experience for some of the Cubs but they soon got into the swing of it.
The Menu:
Elephants trunk, Rubber plant strips, Shed snake skins, mixed jungle plants, tigers eyes, Monkeys footballs, Monkey meat, trees and orange sticks.
Sausage, Green beans, pasta, peppers, kidney beans, onions, chicken, broccoli cauliflower, and carrots
Any counters left over were counted as profit and added to the points total. We managed to keep one counter.
The cooking areas were put up and cookers lit, although to be fair the gas burners struggled in the wind and this counted against the 107th Cubs under Hathi's tutelage. Angela (ADC) and Akela (148) tasted and rated the Cubs efforts and lived to tell the tale. Some teams cut their provisions really small so that they would cook quicker it was noticeable that in the teams lucky enough to have a female with them made sure that all the fiddly or squirmy stuff like cutting up the chicken was left to the young ladies. The food was then eaten by the Cubs and if any was left the supervisors were given what was left, thanks guys.
The Cubs were marked on how well they operated as a team as they tidied up washed up and put things away. All to soon the final results were to be announced. The nine Packs were covered by six points, it was very close indeed, despite everything the winners were . . . Us, again. Akela had picked a young team to give the others a chance and they still won. So very well done to them, more engraving for Akela to pay for, more cleaning for the Cubs to do.
Thanks to Angela and Simon for organising and running it, to the 107th for providing the venue for Akela for the bright sunshine while everywhere else suffered heavy rain. To the other Leaders who gave up their Saturday morning to make it happen and lastly on a personal note to Alex, Paige, Richard and Jack of the 107th who provided me with a lovely lunch and whose company I enjoyed enormously.