Wedding!

Monday, June 27, 2011

A busy little beaver

I have been pretty busy this weekend doing all kinds of letters for scouts and beavers.

I still can't believe I was ever fooled into thinking that scouting was just one night a week for a couple of hours! Maybe it is for those occasional helpers who dont do anything except turn up and go home again right at the end without getting involved in any of the planning or preparing.

At the moment I am juggling preparing, organising and running a beaver programme by myself with preparing, organising and running a scout programme pretty much by myself (I have an ASL but there not necessarily so great at the being organised thing!).

This is a whole lot of things to organise to sure every child gets the full experience of scouting and doesnt miss out on any badges they have earnt because of my lack of record keeping skills!

This weekend I have done the following relating to scouting:
  • Written a letter to give to Beaver parents regarding an invite to join another colony to see Persil the Owl.
  • Written a letter to send to the scout parents regarding a weekend away which our troop has been invited to by another troop in the district.
  • Addressed the envelopes and posted the above said letters!
  • Updated group records
  • Printed health forms for the patrol leader reward camp I will be running to give to the scouts who need them on thursday.
  • Printed the provisional programme for the patrol leader reward camp to give to the other leaders so they can see what will be happening and throw in any ideas they have (a camp programme is never set in stone, it is only ever a rough guide so you have things they can do but things always change when you are on camp depending on enjoyment factors of current activities!).
  • Started organising the beaver programme for the term starting in September with regards to outside guests coming in.
That is a whole lot of stuff to squish in when I also spent most of saturday daytime out of the house with family and sunday afternoon at my parents house.

I absolutely love being in scouting and this post might seem like I am complaining but it is meant that way. I love the time I spend at weekly meetings actually running them and I admit I like things to be organised and so that aspect of scouting I relish! I always try to keep my records upto date every week with regards to work they have completed in case it completes a badge (that can so easily sneak you by without realising) and letters and forms and all things like that!

Tonight I will be joining another troop in the district for their weekly meeting. They are holding a Carnival/ Fair games night and I was asked to go along and help man a stall. I think the way the night will run is all the leaders will be at a 'stall' and the scouts will be free to roam and go on any activity they like. I know they have got a candy floss machine!! and there will be a hook a duck as well. I'm not sure what else they will have going on but I am aware that the group own a set of stocks and I'm a little worried there maybe a throw wet sponges at the leader in the stocks. Hopefully if that is there I wont be on that one!!!! This is the same group who the weekend away is with at the end of July so it will be good to get to know a few of their scouts a bit better.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Cyprus

The lack of blogging for the last week or so is for a good reason this time and not because I forgot about it- I was on holiday in Cyprus!! Last year my sister moved out to Cyprus in October with her husband who is in the RAF. Well this month I made it over to Cyprus to see her. It was a good week and whilst I have seen her a couple of times since she has been in Cyprus as she has come back to the UK it was good to see her in her new environment.

While I was in Cyprus the temperature never dropped below 25degrees, even when I woke up in the morning it was that temp! The highest it went to was 35degrees. The highest temp was a tad too warm for me but I survived quite well at temps of 27-29degrees, which did surprise me. I was on salt tablets the whole week and always took the full dosage (2 tablets three times a day) which I think definitely helped with my energy levels.

Even though her husband is in the RAF his posting is on the army base in Cyprus which is based in Episkopi (everyone I told that I was going on holiday to see my sister asked if I was going to Akrotiri which is the RAF base), I don't understand it myself and do find it very confusing. He is an RAF policeman and in Cyprus it is a joint unit between the 2 forces and he works at both bases but his posting is at Episkopi. They are only about 20minutes apart though.

Whilst there we visited a number of places-Limissol, Paphos, Troodos Mountains and some other bits and bobs closer to the base. Everywhere we went you had to go by car as none of the places were in walking distance or had paths you could walk to them but by car they only took 5 or 10mins in some cases.

On the friday night she took us to see a musical show at an ancient roman ampitheatre whose backdrop was the sea. That was pretty awesome to go to! To be sat in an outdoor ampitheatre which has been so well preserved that they can still hold shows in it today. I am slightly jealous of my sister as tonight she is going to the same place to see Romeo and Juliet! How amazing would that be to see Romeo and Juliet and behind the show you can see the sea.

I will leave this post with a few photos from my week away (I say a few as I managed to take about 300 and my parents who also visited at the same time took about 200!).

Me with my sister in the ancient roman ampitheatre
With a frog! There were lots of signs saying 'Follow The Frog' advertising a waterpark. Whilst in Pathos the frog mascot from the mascot was walking around advertising the waterpark and I got my picture taken with him (like you do!).
Paddling in the sea with my sister and her hubby.
Standing at the top of Troodos Mountain (Which we drove up and definitely did not walk up!!)

With my sister and dad on our first proper day of the holiday (I'm not counting the day we arrived as we got there mid to late afternoon!).

Sunday, June 12, 2011

You know when you just feel like blogging but you don't really know if you have anything to say or not. Well to warn you now-this is one of those times!!!

I know I last blogged on wednesday. So I am going to start with what I have been doing for the last few days and go from there!

Thursday I was at CF clinic. My lung function was about the same as last time I visited (71%). This proves that my theory worked from last clinic. I had IVs even though I didnt really need them to try and boost me past my best (71% is about my best now!) so that after Centenary camp I would still be at "my best" ready for my holiday this month rather than being poorly for my holiday. This seems to have worked so I am now on track to go on holiday and have a fantastic time-yay!

Thursday teatime I had a phone call from my friend J who is also my GSL for my scout group. She was ringing to inform that I had 2 beavers who were eager to start and was wondering if it was on tonight as cubs and scouts were cancelled. Unfortunately it wasn't because I had the District AGM to go to! However I was ecstatically happy that in 2 weeks time I will have beavers turn up! This is excellent news and hopefully they will bring friends with them as these 2 are brothers. It means the groups beaver colony is now not only open but active. I am so excited about officially being the Beaver Scout Leader. This is the section I am so much happier working with however I will still be very sad when it comes to saying goodbye to the Scout section (As proved when I spent the day in tears when I was making sure all the records upto date for the leader taking over a few weeks ago!).

So Thursday was the District AGM. Never underestimate how boring an AGM can be, especially when you have no real interest in finances. I am quite happy to know that the accounts balance and where we are in comparison to last year (ie do we have more money as a district or less!). I do not enjoy having to sit for 20 minutes as they go through every single column of the ingoings and outgoings and assets of the district!! Luckily it was a relatively short AGM and after an hour it was over (Last year it was nearly 2hours long just to compare). I did some excellent scouting relations before and after the AGM by organising a joint scout sleepover with another group before the AGM and afterwards a lot of leaders went to the pub! Where I sat with a pint of water but it was a good social time none the less and was there for about 3hrs. We also shared a Wetherspoon platter from the starter menu between the 4 of us- was quite yummy!!

Friday I went on my usual food shopping trip in the morning with my mum and grandma, My grandma can't manage the bus anymore with her food shopping and hasnt for quite some time so we always take her. I must admit sometimes it can be frustrating when I can get into town, round the supermarket and home again in under an hour (sometimes under half an hour depending on traffic!) by myself and yet friday mornings I leave my house at about 8.15am and usually dont enter it again until about half 11!! I didn't do much friday afternoon or evening.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Belton House with my mum and nephew having some fun in the adventure playground and Discovery Centre.

Thats about me caught up and now I have to go as my brother needs a lift to go fetch his car from a house where he left it last night after having a few drinks!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Yet again...........

..........a spell of no blogging.

No particular reason i just don't have a lot to say anymore that doesn't feel like its repeating itsself!

It's been half term so there was a break from scouts and all my usual activities as they are all based in school term times.

I am still hoping that beavers will turn upto our newly opened beaver colony so that I actually have a section to lead come september when i will have officially given up the post of scout leader and of moved to beaver scout leader. I have loads of great ideas for beaver meetings and can't wait to implement them!

I am busy planning a patrol leader reward camp for 6 of the scouts. This is basically a camp for the 3 kids who are patrol leaders and the 3 assistant patrol leaders to show that they get something for this position apart from getting to stand at the end of the lines at flag break and close of night!! It's to encourage the others that earning their leader stripes is something to go for and that they will get extra opportunities to earn other badges either well in advance of the other scouts or only if they are a pl or apl. They will all get 3 camp blanket badges that none of the scouts will ever get and hopefully an activity badge as well.