Cubscout camp

Since recently, I’m a cubscout leader at our local scouting group, and last week was camp week, themed around Knights and such. We went with 17 kids and 5 leaders and I’m fairly sure all 22 of us had a great time. I know I did! (We kept a log on our website. Its in Dutch, so I doubt any of my non-existant readers will understand, but there is the link just in case.)
Now, I’m going to bore you with a short summary of our week:

On Saturday four of the leaders, including me, went to the camp location. It was a building we rented from another scouting group. It looked really nice, located right on the edge of the woods. After we unloaded we went into Zeist, were we where, to find some diner (at 9~10 PM). We ended up at some Greek place. The food was great, though kinda expensive. After we finished eating we went back to the campsite, had a few beers and went to bed.

On Sunday, two of us went back to Rijen (aka home) to pick up the fifth leader and the kids. I stayed behind with one of the others to do some decorating and stuff. When the kids arived we split them up into groups and first had them do some games that where supposed to teach them how to work together. (They suck at that, big huge time.) After that, food (rice + chicken and some sauce) and an evening game and to bed it was.

Monday, we went to explore the kingdom. (Read: Walk in circles in the woods.) We didn’t really have an evening program, but found a dead tree and decided it needed to come down. So, the three male leaders grabbed the axes and saws we brought and waisted our energy on that for about two hours. After it came down, I let some of the older kids help saw off branches and after they where tired, too, we went to the campfire (the guys made one).

Tuesday was games day. The four princes(es)es all have equal clame on the kingdom but, basically, we all suck. So, the kids had to help us become better people though a variety of games.

As the tradition goes, Wensday was swimmingday; the only chance the kids got to get a littl cleaner. We had a lot of luck that we where at an inside swimmingpool, at it rained cats and dogs all day long.

The weather was a lot better Thursday, even though it didn’t really have to be as we had a cultural day and visited a mansion. It was where the German emperor fled to after WWI. I found it pretty interesting but the kids where mostly “Ooh, shiney” (which in turn forced us to be “Don’t touch that”) save two or three.

Friday was the last full day of camp and we spend it playing our great end game that was to decide who was going to be king/queen (We ended up being in change together.) After that we had a BBQ and what we call bonte avond. I lack the will to find a translation so here is an explaination: Everybody does some sort of act. The BBQ was suposed to be on a campfire but there was just to much rain for that. So, we turned to the fireplace (which wasn’t made for a fire bigger then a box of matches, really, but who cares..?) and baked the food on/in that. The acts where fun and the whole thing lasted to about 1.30 AM. After that, we send all but the oldest of the kids to bed, had a talk with those remaining while drinking a beer (not the kids, obviously, just the leaders.) and went on for an hour more. After that it was just us leaders for one more hour, which is when we finally went to bed.

As you can probally gues, we wheren’t all to fit, Saturday morning. We had to be our of the building by 12.00 AM, though! So, we had to hurry up a bit but ultimately has time to spare.

All in all, it was a great week, for me at least, and I really hope everybody enjoyed it at much as I did.