Camping with Marple Scouts

<NOSCRIPT> <IMG SRC="/defaultUser/images/javascript_disabled.gif" WIDTH="373" HEIGHT="40" BORDER="0"> </NOSCRIPT> <BODY LINK=#3333cc VLINK=#6633cc BACKGROUND="files/sidebarredTT.gif" onLoad="document.bgcolor='ffffff';"> <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH=643><TR><TD> <DIV style="margin-top: 1px; margin-left: 1px"> <IMG SRC="/*trackimage/http://track.homestead.com/~site/Scripts_Track/track.dll?H_H=4616824&H_P=100&H_A=0&H_V=2&H_I=1&H_U=126274&E=51&E=613" WIDTH=80 HEIGHT=50 BORDER=0></DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: 1937px; margin-left: 197px"> <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH=442><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 0"><TR VALIGN=top><TD HEIGHT=46><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">Did he miss anything out?  Send us your version and / or any complaints / compliments to : </FONT><A HREF=mailto:HumperIsWrong@Marplescouts.co.uk TARGET="_parent"><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">HumperIsWrong@Marplescouts.co.uk</FONT></A></DIV></TD></TR></DIV></TABLE> </DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: -2983px; margin-left: 0px"><IMG SRC=/staticmedia/tp.gif WIDTH=0 HEIGHT=0 BORDER=0></DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: 30px; margin-left: 21px"> <IMG SRC = "files/02onred3.gif" WIDTH=135 HEIGHT=86 ALT="Connect to the Internet if you can't see this image." BORDER=0> </DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: -2983px; margin-left: 0px"><IMG SRC=/staticmedia/tp.gif WIDTH=0 HEIGHT=0 BORDER=0></DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: 151px; margin-left: 7px"> <SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript" SRC="Nav1~ne.js"></SCRIPT> </DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: -2983px; margin-left: 0px"><IMG SRC=/staticmedia/tp.gif WIDTH=0 HEIGHT=0 BORDER=0></DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: 13px; margin-left: 193px"> <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH=444><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 0"><TR VALIGN=top><TD HEIGHT=1841><DIV align=left><B><FONT class="Helvetica12" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="3">THE FIRST EVER EXPLORER SUMMER CAMP- DEBRIEF</FONT></B></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">This summer saw the Marple Explorer unit leave on our first ever summer camp as a unit, all the way to the midge infested activity centre of Lochgoilhead, way up in the Scottish Highlands. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">The group met on a cloudy morning at a Marple train station overflowing with excitement as camp T-shirts and the new explorer uniforms were issued (complete with spelling errors: Sorry Mickey!). The travelling went off without a hitch -credit where its due to the organisers- (each explorer/leader was issued by Caroline with a card telling them all their seat numbers for each transfer, the train times, location of the buffet car, Capital city of Cambodia etc) and the traditional summer camp hearts playing began as soon as we sat down. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">Notably, as there were 5 of us indulging in this tradition and hearts really is a 4-player game a new method of player rotation was invented by Ducky. In his system the person with the most points at the end of each round sits out, letting the person who sat out last time take their place ingenious uh? What with hearts, top trumps and arguing with the leaders (a theme you'll find we carried throughout the holiday) the journey flew past and, although the coach driver did his best to lose control of the vehicle on every corner, we were at the centre for a late tea of fish and chips. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">After arrival we booked our activities for the first few days, with Ducky whinging about the lack of choice "All the good ones have been taken by the Scottish. Boo Hoo" the quality of the food "It was a bit manky, the portions were pretty small whinge whinge" and pretty much everything else "too many midges, room too small, we got the crap dorms" Apart from these slight complaints however (which were silenced in an emergency meeting called by Caroline in which the leaders took a no-nonsense hard-line approach. Ahem.) we were settled in fine. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">Once the activities got underway everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, the instructors were friendly, the equipment was up to date and there was quite enough variety to keep us all going. Lots of awards were up for grabs too, Adam working for his M-form, the leaders getting their canoeing two star award and Phil, Ducky, and myself opting for a climbing award, whilst nippy managed a sailing qualification as did others. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">Favourites varied from person to person however overall popular activities were "all the wet ones!" which invariably ended up with a fight waist deep in the loch, and especially the burn-run (working your way up a fast flowing river then floating down again.) Fishing was also a popular choice especially as a quiet activity for the early mornings, and John, who actually invested in a rod, was by far the most successful fisherman (You should have seen it, it was THIS big).</FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">Food, despite some complaints, was generally good and definitely plentiful whilst the one village shop supplied all other needs. Apart from the shop, the village/ (hamlet?) featured a post office, a leisure centre and two pubs which apparently, due to Scottish licensing laws, were open all hours, with the last orders bell sounding well into the night- not that any of that affected us obviously. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">There was a slight disagreement when the 'Older' Dorm made rather a racket late (or rather early) one night and woke quite a few people up. Despite slight over-reactions from the leaders however (note restrained tone) the camp warden took it in good humour warning us "not to do it again". Some of the instructors were maybe slightly less amused and personally I think Ducky's subsequent injury at the hands of a canoeing instructor was less than a coincidence!! However we still maintain that the Irish leaders just back from </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">the pub made MUCH more noise than any of us. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">Other than this late night action our time was spent thrashing assorted scouts at football, organising wide games which we won (I said it would have gone down better if we'd let them win but they wouldn't listen) and of course playing cards. I'd like to take this opportunity to appeal for anyone from the hearts old school to tell Ducky what a scumbag he is for constantly passing the power-cards and dumping on loser whilst maintaining "there's nothing wrong with playing to win". </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">Half a day was spent at the extensive leisure complex, which was fun and gave us half a day in bed to make up for the usual harsh -up for breakfast at 8:30- regime we were forced to conform to. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">I have decided such were their quantity, the subject of accidents and injuries on the camp deserves a paragraph to itself. Although our time at Lochgoilhead was brief Adam's first aid kit came back considerably lighter and Thorpey's various midge repellent products were in great demand. Notable injuries excluding the thousands of insect bites suffered by all include (insert 'top of the pops top twenty' theme tune: der ner nuh nuh nah) Rick Ellis' nose being broken by Phil in a game of football, Ducky's hand spilling several pints of blood after being cut on a rock, Ducky falling on the ice rink and reopening his previous wound, Phil hurting his foot and myself opening up a cut in my foot on a burn run not to mention countless other minor injuries I can't remember. The upshot of all this being of course: lots of incident reports for the leaders. Hurrah! </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">All too soon the week was over, goodbyes were said to the Irish drunkards and the young guides our Finny had his eye on, not to mention the young Swedish instructor Phil was pining for all week. (Now would be a good time for a quote from Phil but none seem appropriate- see 'Summer camp uncut' for more details) who turned out to be only sixteen but poor old Phil didn't find out until the last day, presuming from her, ahem, figure she was at least twenty. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">The train journey home provided some amusement (i.e drawing on Ducky's face and taking photos whilst he was asleep), but everyone was tired and tempers were wearing rather thin. Travel Monopoly was packed away for the last time a welcome new addition to the essential summer camp amusement inventory- as were the cards and we arrived at Piccadilly just in time to see the back of the Marple train disappear. This seemed to be all too much for our Paul who was last seen on a train for some obscure place (where does he live?) in rather a bad temper. </FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">Despite these few minor hiccups however I think a good time was had by all and would like to thank all the leaders for their time and company and putting up with us for the week. I'm absolutely positive they're looking forward to next year already  if they've finished the accident forms by then.</FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2"><BR></FONT></DIV><DIV align=left><B><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">By Humper</FONT></B></DIV></TD></TR></DIV></TABLE> </DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: -2983px; margin-left: 0px"><IMG SRC=/staticmedia/tp.gif WIDTH=0 HEIGHT=0 BORDER=0></DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: 51px; margin-left: 193px"> <IMG SRC = "files/divMscocapnorth.gif" WIDTH=450 HEIGHT=10 ALT="Connect to the Internet if you can't see this image." 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BORDER=0> </DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: -2983px; margin-left: 0px"><IMG SRC=/staticmedia/tp.gif WIDTH=0 HEIGHT=0 BORDER=0></DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: 1938px; margin-left: 197px"> <TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH=442><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 0"><TR VALIGN=top><TD HEIGHT=46><DIV align=left><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">Did he miss anything out?  Send us your version and / or any complaints / compliments to : </FONT><A HREF=mailto:HumperIsWrong@Marplescouts.co.uk TARGET="_parent"><FONT class="Helvetica10" FACE="Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow" SIZE="2">HumperIsWrong@Marplescouts.co.uk</FONT></A></DIV></TD></TR></DIV></TABLE> </DIV> <DIV style="margin-top: -2983px; margin-left: 0px"><IMG SRC=/staticmedia/tp.gif WIDTH=0 HEIGHT=0 BORDER=0></DIV> </TD></TR></TABLE> <DIV style="position: absolute; top:1px; left: 1px; width:1px; height:1px">    </DIV> </BODY>