District Christmas/New Year Party

At Seymour's 8th Feb

This was brilliant. Sadly only five Packs came along, about 50 Cubs, We provided 20. All the girls turned up but sadly a couple of the boys did not make it.

The Cubs were left in their Packs to participate in the afternoon's activities. Our Pack was split by gender, meaning that the boys were going to struggle. The Teams were given names taken from types of birds. The girls were Magpies and the boys Eagles, other teams consisted of Robins, Crows and Tits. So it could have been worse.

Music Quiz

This was done in as a group activity with all the teams writing the answers down. Ten TV show themes and ten 007film themes, this was tough so the Leaders were very glad that they were banned from helping. Even when Hathi went of on a spying trip around the other teams he came back empty handed! There was no feedback on how everybody did on this so I will draw a discrete veil over it.

Bases

The Boys went on to the skittle alley to play 'killer', this was popular with everyone except the poor putter up and ball retriever, who worked up a considerable sweat. Their was a little bit of help given to the boys by a Leader or two. The boys scored 27 pins	The girls started out with a base of colouring and drawing. The theme was the clown and a picture had to be made of a clown. The standard was high, high enough to win the round, well done Aimee.
The boys moved onto the colouring and although a lot of thought and effort was put into it they were doomed to finish behind the girls.	The girls moved on to table skittles and boot the ball through a hole in a piece of MDF for one point or into a waste bin for five. If we can persuade them to enter a team for the 5-a-side they might do better than they think they might.
The table skittles was over before I had a chance to find the score. The football kicking was next, The boys were informed that the girls had done really well at this and they were going to have a job getting the same score as the girls. This was enough incentive and they did themselves proud, booting the ball through the hole with great ease, well nearly.	Basketball and limbo. A fluky shot that bounced of the ceiling and through the net gave the girls a point. so not much hope of victory there. The limbo was very good some of the girls are rather petite and Beth with 2 ff's won her way through to the final.
A single basket was all the boys could manage, this was a difficult base as the net was high up on a wall and the ceiling interfered with the trajectory of the ball. The limbo was won by Ben who is one of the larger Cubs but astonishingly supple. He was through to the final.	Karaoke. Avril Lavigne was a popular choice as several of the teams picked her S8ter Boi song to sing along to. The girls ,to be fair were a little bit musical, the song was recognisable but it would not be a top ten hit.
Karaoke. This was a very quiet affair as the boys concentrated on quality and not volume. The song required a lot of actions and some seemed a bit sophisticated for young people to know. We have a couple of extraverts among the boys and they really enjoyed themselves.	At last the food part and not a moment to soon as the girls were about to fade away due to all the running around they had done. Akela picked up an unwanted bread roll and asked each Cub for a chip, each Cub was only too happy to spare a chip and Akela had his chip butty and was very happy indeed.
The boys scored full marks in this event despite the odd missed 'please' and 'thank you'. The food was enjoyed and Hathi was unable to add anything to his bread roll. The boys beat the girls who had 'only' scored 9 on their clear-up. Something to remember when we go on camp.	The skittles was, how can I put this, a little bit of fun,  they scored an amazing 81 pins. Pins were falling over left right and centre, the wind of the passing balls was often enough to make the pins fall over, astonishing!

As the afternoon wore on towards its conclusion there was some dancing to do, some by the Cubs, some by one or two of the Leaders and some by the resident staff. The final of the limbo was held and as the Cubs made it under the bar it was lowered. It started at a level that even the Leaders could possibly ducked under and went low enough that some of the older Leaders may well have been able to step or even jump over. Ben and Beth(ff) stayed going until the bar was so low that Ben failed. Beth(ff) and another Cub were left as the bar was lowered again, the other Cub couldn't quite make it through and Beth(ff) was, after a struggle, able to get through to a storm of applause. Well done to her.

Parents started to arrive as the top team was announced, to great acclaim the Magpies had won by a feather. So they each won a football!

Thanks are due to Simon for organising it, to Richard and his staff at Seymours for running it. A great place for an event or celebration. To all the people that helped on the bases and to the Young People for making it so much fun.