March 27th - Mar 28th
For people of a certain age this will be a bit similar to a TV program of a few years ago: The Krypton Factor, a programme that involved contestants doing different tasks to test them on mental agility, digital dexterity, and always ended with an assault course.
Our version has been refined to be at a Cub level also as it was close to Easter there was a certain eggyness to the proceedings. There were four flocks (Hens, Quails, Ducks and Ostriches) of Cubs and five 'nests' to visit in the evening. Our fledglings were Mike, Megan, Bradley, Conner, Cameron, Deanna, Aimee, Ryan C, Alice, Paris, Xenos, Sammy, Matt, Breiz and Charlie.
The Cubs were welcomed by a cornucopia of eggy puns from Akela, the Cubs were only too pleased to be let out to complete the putting up of the tents. Despite the practice run we had on Wednesday the Cubs needed a lot of help in putting the tents up, thank goodness we, the Leaders were sleeping indoors.
There were five bases:
Nest 1
Name that noise.
A simple game where a noise was played from Akela's Laptop and the Cubs had to identify what made the noise. Apart from the rest of the Cubs making so much noise that the flock concerned could hardly hear. This proved only middling difficult as most of the teams scored well.
Nest 2
Name that logo / badge.
Two sheets with a number of company logos, and all the Activity Badges a Cub could earn. The former caused one or two problems but the second was easy, some of the older Cubs were able to recognise a lot of badges by looking at their arms.
Nest 3
Self portrait
A hard boiled egg was painted with felt tip pens as a self portrait, there was to be a competition on the Sunday morning where the Cubs had to identify which egg was a portrait of which Cub. This was popular as the Cubs had to remember what they looked like.
Nest 4
Eggstranaut capsule building
Some craft work to design and build a safety pod for a raw egg (the eggstranaut) for him / her to fly to a great height and distance and return to earth without being harmed. Points for design, height, length and survival. The test flights were due to take part in the morning. The Teams with one exception realised that lots of padding was required for the survival of the star traveller.
Nest 5
Kim's game
Forty items on a table looked at for a couple of minutes and then write them down while able to remember them.
A chip / Chinese supper was provided, our supplier being rather tardy asked for the meals to be ready at 9 o'clock, and reminded at eight forty five they managed to get the food ready twenty minutes late. During this wait the Cubs were entertained by Mrs Akela. After supper the Cubs changed into their night things and saw part of a DVD before a nice early bed time. About 22:30.
As it was inevitable that the excited Cubs would take a while to calm down before sleeping they were allowed thirty minutes before lights-out. 23:00 came round light were put out, chattering continued, quietly to start then louder and louder, until one of the Leaders had to go out and calm things down. Sometimes the Leader would get back to the Scutt door before the voices became raised again. At midnight the clocks went forward, for the Cubs. They must have believed us as they went quiet.
07:30 Hathi woke up and put the kettle on, the Cubs were already awake, and noisy. They were got up, washed and changed while Akela had some peaceful minutes in the kitchen cooking for twenty. Breakfast was cereal and toast or cooked or in one instance home produced. Through the meal the noise continued, after they were all fed the Leaders asked for silence while they eat, the Cubs that could remember sign language were able to keep talking the rest kept quiet.
The washing up was done by Baggy and the twins, the contents of the tents were brought into the hall and put tidily. After that the eggstranauts were to fly.
The Hens who had crushed their first eggstranaut in it's capsule the previous evening were given another chance. They went first and their egg fell out of the capsule, they had forgotten to fit his safety equipment. The next to fly was the quails with lots of padding and a close fitting survival suit, the flight was good and the landing sounded ok. The Ducks was bulkier than the quails and did not fly as far, the extra padding would prove to do its job but the added air resistance compromised the range. The Ostrich's was by far the most streamlined capsule and was well decorated. The flight distance was the greatest of the four but the landing sounded a little uncomfortable.
The second round of flights did not improve on the distance, so it was now down to the survival of the pilots. A moment of quiet remembrance for the dead egg was held, the Quails pilot was eggstracted from his survival shell and was found to be complete, the Dusks pilot had also survived. The capsule for the ostrich's was opened and the pilot seemed ok until he was pulled from the wreckage and found to have died from his injuries. Another moment of quiet as the fallen pilot was handed to the team, he looked so runny in Matt's hand.
The next item on the agenda was to have been the assault course but the
ground was too wet and this was cancelled. The Cubs were distracted while Hathi
hid a number of plastic eggs that Akela had prepared around the compound, some
easy and a couple he thought would be hard. When Akela eggsplained about the
game an egg was spotted and drawn to Hathi's notice, he picked it up and with
no-one looking dropped it into the hood of a Cub's coat. When the Cubs found an
egg they had to get it opened by a Leader, the message inside was either good,
swap this for a chocolate egg or an invitation to try again. Soon there was only
two eggs left and the Cubs that had not found a 'good' message were getting
concerned. Akela then produced a special egg the was hidden in a place that the
Cubs had already looked. Naturally this was found at once and the Cub who found
it sworn to secrecy. The 'last egg was found and the Cubs flocked around Akela
to get their rewards. The disappointment of some of the Cubs was plain to see
until the real last egg was produced and the message that all the Cubs were due
an egg was revealed. Eggsalent they cried.
The tents were taken into the Scutt and placed over some tables to finish drying, the ground sheets were dried and folded, the pegs were cleaned and piled so that they could dry out. The parents arrived and the coup was flown by everybody but as a parting gift all the Cubs were given an Easter egg to take home.
Thanks to the efforts of the following the sleepover was a success, Julie and Peg for helping out on Saturday night, to Baggy and Hathi for helping out all weekend and mostly to Akela for planning it, organising it, running it and enjoying it, shame about the sun.