Thank goodness for technology, it was fantastic for Draca Explorers to be able to meet online while the lockdown restrictions were in place, but my weren't we ready for ditching the screens and seeing each other again. During August we were able to put together a risk assessment to account for new measures relating to Covid-19 and once this was passed we started meeting together again in smaller groups. A couple of campfires, kayaking sessions and local walks and gradually a sense of normality begins to return.
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It was an ambitious undertaking, as after all the time could be filled with awkward silences, but we had a really good online meeting last night with a group of Explorer Scouts in Switzerland whom we have never met.
The Explorer Scout age group in Switzerland are known as Pioneers and this group we met were named “Piostufe Salander” from the group Pfadi Lägern. Pfadi means Scout and Lägern is the town where they are from in the northern part of Switzerland midway between Zürich and the border with Germany. Each side exchanged descriptions, comparing aspects of Scouting and what they get up to. The funniest bit was when Jonti described what we’d call a mountain in the UK; a mere foothill compared with the mountains in Switzerland. It cracked our Swiss friends up! There were indeed a few awkward silences and it took a while to get the tech working so that all 25 of us could see and hear each other, but by the end of the evening everyone wanted to meet up again. Thanks to our new friends from Switzerland and to our own explorers for joining us. Ironically, during this time of lockdown and limited travel we've achieved so much toward our international requirements for badges and awards! Some pictures from our meet up below. A highlight was how they get their scout names. In the UK we have pack names for leaders, based on jungle book characters (the best name being Colonel Hathi, of course). Swiss scouts get names awarded to them during cub camps, usually during a naming ceremony, though their safeguarding rules would appear to be more open minded. Never have we appreciated online services quite so much now that we are staying at home. It's been great to stay in touch with our Explorers by continuing our Monday night meetings using Zoom. Over the Easter weekend we also had a 'virtual' camp out, with several of the Explorers taking up the challenge to camp in their own back gardens. Another 'night away' chalked up for them!
Who needs supermarkets when food is on your doorstep. Well almost! Some amazing wild foods foraged from back gardens and on the once-daily walks from the fabulous Draca Explorers. We were hugely impressed. To see some more, head over to padlet
And tonight we've been plotting for what we can do over the coming weeks. I can feel some great creativity coming on... Well ... who'd have thought just a few weeks ago Explorers would be SOOO interupted that we can't even have our Monday meetings?!? Ahhh ... who cares, let's carry on anyway. We're meeting on the now world famous Zoom thingy, you should all have links to our meeting room. Thanks to Claire last week we could even sit round the virtual campfire and eat marshmallows!. Ahhh ... who cares, let's carry on anyway. We're meeting on the now world famous Zoom thingy, you should all have links to our meeting room. Thanks to Claire last week we could even sit round the virtual campfire and eat marshmallows!. We set a wild food challenge but after the further lockdown please only do this if you can based on what you can forage in your own gardens (if you have one). We'll set up another meeting for next week. But keep up the chat online via this group if you want - now, more than ever, it's important that we stay in touch, stay calm and STAY AT HOME!!! First ones in from Jon (wild nettle and wild garlic with wild bunny rabbit [wild? they were furious!] stew) and Andy (wild garlic and not so wild spinach dumplings and not so wild chicking stew) New challenge next week ... but we're always looking for ideas if you have any! Well you couldn't accuse Draca Explorers of being indoorsy sort of folk! The past two weekends have seen storms across Britain, so we were very lucky to have planned our winter camp for the one weekend when the weather was just about warm and dry enough to do a camp.
Lucky for us we were able to use the brand new tarps, hammocks and underblankets which the District supported us to buy. And they were just the job, slung between the trees on the Camelsdale camp site. The weekend was focussed on survival skills, so making a camp gadget (a dead fall trap), eating without utensils, cooking over an open fire, looking at snaring small mammals, learning about hypothermia and a foraging walk were just some of the activities. And it was a bit of a foodie camp too, with sea bass cooked on a stick over open flames, slow cook rabbit stew and a veg soup flavoured with foraged three-corner leek. It hardly seems like any time since we were ringing in 2020 but we've already had four sessions of the new term. Where does the time go?? January has been mainly rainy, damp and cold so it's been a good time to brush up on some indoor skills and do a bit of route planning for this year's expedition season. Too much indoors is never good for the soul, so (second time of trying, we were defeated by the weather at first attempt!) we got out for a bit of night navigation training on Blackdown. And very muddy it was too!
Well, we've certainly had an action packed year in 2019...
Phew! So lovely to end the year on a high awarding the first of our bronze team his Bronze DofE. Well done Jamie! Oh and we remembered to have some fun and games too!! Happy festive season everyone. Such a shame the high winds - 50mph gusts in fact - meant that hammocking in the woods would be risky and our night camping had to be called off (I know, it was a survival camp after all, but even we have our limits). But we didn't let that stop us. Sunday instead was spent learning some survival skills such as wild food prep, firelightling and foraging. A slow cook game stew was prepared (with pheasant, duck and rabbit) and supplemented with fresh nettle and chickweed salad, which we gathered but forgot to eat! All sloshed down with a cup of pine needle tea. Oh, and our three brand new Explorers were invested too.
and it feels like we've done lots of things already. It's been great to welcome some new joiners, they are just trying out for now but we very much hope they stay. So far this month we've done an orienteering challenge, a bat walk (dropping in at the local sewage processing plant no less) and the Explorers have given presentations on their qualifying expeditions for bronze/silver DofE and the Chief Scout platinum/diamond awards.
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Draca ExplorersFor all young people aged 14-18 years with a sense of fun and adventure Archives
May 2022
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