{"id":15067,"date":"2013-11-24T15:50:49","date_gmt":"2013-11-24T15:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=15067"},"modified":"2013-11-24T15:51:46","modified_gmt":"2013-11-24T15:51:46","slug":"camping-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/11\/camping-november\/","title":{"rendered":"Camping in November"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dragon<\/a>

Dragon Award Badge<\/p><\/div>\n

We’ve decided that the Scouts should try to get their Bronze Dragon Award Badge. In order to do so, they need to camp outside under canvas in every month of the year. It can be done over the course of a few years, but it does mean sleeping under canvas in the winter months. The summer months should be easy to do, but camping out between November and March in Wales is always a little more challenging.<\/p>\n

Of course, what Anna and I forgot when we challenged them to this and decided it was a good thing for them to do was that as their Scout Leaders we would also therefore have to camp out in the winter as we couldn’t let the Scouts do it on their own.<\/p>\n

Rather than go for proper camps during the winter months we decided that a sleepover format would be better and if we could do it somewhere that had indoor facilities for other acivities, games, cooking and toilet facilities then all the better. The idea was to turn up somewhere where we could all spend the long, cold, dark evenings indoors (especially if it was raining) and then simply head to our tents to sleep. Limiting the sleepover to just one night sounded like a good idea too and doing in place of a normal Friday evening Scout meeting would make thing easier as the Scouts should be free and we\u00a0wouldn’t have to give up a whole weekend to it.<\/p>\n

We did the first of these on Friday out at Cwm Newyddion Woods, near Abermagwr.<\/p>\n

Anna took the day off on Friday to prepare things. I had already been out to the cabin in the woods (owned by Penparcau Scouts) the previous Friday to check things out, and organise a few bits and pieces. It’s these planning and organising stages that take the most time. Anna went shopping for supplies and packed the cars on Friday morning. We had already extracted some tents for the Scouts from the Borth Scout stores a few days before so these all went in the car. After lunch we then both headed out to the cabin in order to unload the car and set up our tent in the daylight. We also put up a fews signs to help parents find us in the woods.<\/p>\n

We then headed back into Aberystwyth, collected Morgan from school, filled some water canisters up and had a good feed at KFC! Next we had to go shopping again for a few things we had discovered we needed but didn’t have. We\u00a0then collected one of the Scouts (Cameron) from Plascrug leisure centre before heading back to Cwm Newyddion to meet the others. We were of course there an hour or so before the other Scouts started arriving as I wanted to get a fire going ready for them, unlock the toilets and get the generator going.<\/p>\n

It was dark by now and away from any light pollution the stars were already looking amazing. We soon had a nice fire going in a raised basket under a canopy in the woods. The generator was fired up so there was light in the cabin and we had boiled plenty of water that was now in flasks ready for hot drinks. With clear skies the temperature was dropping rapidly so we were concerned about keeping them all warm. The Scouts range in age from 10-14 so the last thing we need is a group of cold, grumpy Scouts!<\/p>\n

They soon arrived complete with all their kit, and our two adult helpers Kath and Nia. Anna set a few ground rules and I was off chopping wood for the fire. Some Scouts were sent off to gather more wood whilst the others put up their tents. We hadn’t used these tents before as we had used bigger ones on summer camps but decided that smaller tents would be easier to set up in the dark, easier to transport and warmer. This would have been true had the tents been in better working order. We had already decided against a few as they had poles missing or inners missing but the ones we had didn’t seem to go together too well either. We’re sure some of them had mismatched inners and one of them in\u00a0particular was in a pretty bad way. We got them up in the end though and then had hot dogs and hot chocolate in the cabin to keep people going before sitting around the fire for a while toasting marshmallows and making Smores with chocolate biscuits.<\/p>\n\n\t\t