A new highlight of the Scouting year is Family Camp. This (late) winter 86 people descended on Gilwell Park in Gembrook to enjoy 2 nights of socialising, adventurous activities, bushcraft and camping. All sections and their families took part.
Category Archives: Scouts
For 10 days at the start of January, 10,000 scouts from across Australia and 30 other countries converged at Tailem Bend, South Australia for the 25th Australian Jamboree. For these 10 days, the site was the 9th biggest town in South Australia boasting a police station, hospital, radio station and mall. 16 semi-trailers were required each day to feed the scouts and volunteers.
Thousands of scouts gather for the entertainment on the big stage on opening night.
Twelve 5th Brunswick Scouts made the journey overnight by bus from Melbourne. The event started with fireworks and live performers at an opening ceremony.
All packed and waiting to board the bus.
There were almost 300 absolutely fantastic activities on offer at stations both on and off site. Definitely enough to please everyone.
Mechanics
Climbing wall.
Boating
Sewing
In between activities, scouts camped in tents, prepared meals for each other and washed their own clothes. A mall was set up which traded in the currency of Jambucks, with scouts selling their wares. A huge live stage provided entertainment every evening.
Dinner
The scouts showed amazing resilience in hot, windy and dusty conditions. Despite the conditions, the scouts came homing having had a great experience and with a new found send of independence. They were tired and filthy, coated in a fine red dust, but as for past scouts who have attended Jamborees, this will go down as an experience of a lifetime.
The combined troop on visitors’day.
The next Jamboree will be in 2022. Congratulations to all of the 5th Brunswick Scouts participants and well done to leaders.
Gilweroo is one of Scout’s most popular camps. The camp is run like a mini Jamboree- style activities weekend at Bay Park in Mt Martha on the Mornington Peninsular.
Gilweroo 2017 saw around 2,000 Scouts come together for a weekend of activities including abseiling, rock-climbing, geocaching, flying fox, huge parties, zorbing and BMX biking. There is something for everyone!
5th Brunswick Scouts relaxing around the camp.
The dam was the centre of water activities such as canoeing and sumo wrestling.
Catching cows in a canoe is fun until someone tries to nick your herd!
Pack packs, pack!
Closing ceremony.
On 15th October, some of the 5th Brunswick Scouts, including myself, went to the Scout Hall and met up with a lady called Mari from Ambulance Victoria and did a two hour session learning how to do CPR.
First we talked about some of our own experiences needing to call 000 for various reasons and listened to a real 000 call which had been made when someone had fallen unconscious at work. Then some of the Scouts got a link in the chain of the steps in restarting a heart. Then some of us had a turn with a CPR practice dummy. Then we went and did CPR practice on a sheet of paper on the floor which was a mock-up of an adult or teenager who had fallen unconscious and wasn’t breathing. The poster had a heart placed on it that squeaked when you pressed hard enough in the right CPR position. It had mock up AED pads that you could place in the correct position.
Then we spit up into groups of 3 or 4 and we rotated through three activities. The activities were using an app that you hold while doing CPR compressions and it tells you if you’re doing it at the right rate and depth. Another one was performing CPR on a practice dummy and administering an AED to it. The third was learning the very first steps you should take when attempting to perform CPR and administering and AED.
Then we each received a pillow case that you can turn into a CPR practice dummy and a heart stress ball for Restart a Heart Day and an inflatable emergency services plane or helicopter.
It was really fun and I learnt loads of stuff. For example how to administer basic CPR, how deep and often compressions should be administered and a refresher on how to use a defibrillator. I think I learnt a valuable life lesson and now know how to successfully administer CPR to a teen or adult. I am really thankful to Marie from Ambulance Victoria and Matt our GroupLeader for organising it and to all the Leaders who came down and gave up their Sunday morning to teach kids how to do basic CPR. It feels really great to know that I could save someone’s life if they ever needed CPR.
Oliver
On Saturday the 26 August 5th Brunswick had our Annual Report, Awards and Presentation (ARAP). At the start we did flag break and I broke the flag. Our Group Leader showed us some statistics of all the fundraising and sources of funding. The Joeys Leader did a presentation. It was interesting to see what the Joeys had done over the past year. Then the Cubs Leader came up with some of the Cubs and told us about all of the outings they’d done. It was great that not only a Leader came up but some of the Cubs came up too. Then for the Scout level presentation I gave a speech about what scouting had been like over the past 12 months and talked about what the a Scout troop had done. It was an exciting experience.
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After that we had a bush dance. The band was called Blackberry Jam. Before the bush dancing they did whip cracking with us. I got to crack the whip with a Ned Kelly helmet on. Then we did the bush dancing. We did a bit of partner dancing and lots of dancing as a group. My favourite dance was when we went out and around the front of the Scout hall, all linked up as a group. Also we did a role play of Waltzing Matilda and I was the farmer that owned the jumbuck.
Then we had pizza for dinner. There was 40 pizzas and about 30 people, so you could eat as much pizza as you wanted and we still had some left over. So one of my Scout Leaders challenged me and Huon to eat 10 pieces of pizza each and if we did we each got a pizza to take home. I ate 8.5 pieces of pizza and Huon ate 7. I almost passed out. I never did get that pizza to take home!
-Oliver
On 19th February the Scouts kicked off the first hike of the year with a trip to Pound Bend reserve in Warrandyte to celebrate Baden Powell’s birthday.
Along with family members, they explored Pound Bend, the tunnel blasted in 1870 and learned of the the Wurundjeri culture linked to this sacred site.
A bit of rain didn’t dampen spirits
Congratulations to Claire on earning the Australian Scout Medallion (ASM) – the highest award in the Scout Section. It is considered the pinnacle of Scouting at this stage.
To earn the ASM a Scout must:
- Participate in a Scout Leadership Course,
- Demonstrate an active leadership role in Scouting and
- Achieve the Adventurer Cord.
The final step for Claire to earn her ASM was to conduct a weekend camp in Geelong, leading four other Scouts.
Claire’s achievement was celebrated by the group and parents at Pound Bend Reserve.
