SAC Scouts Newsletter - Issue 120

Issue 120 Issue 1202017 November November 2017

From the Courtyard

From the Courtyard SAC SCOUTS NEWSLETTER

GSL’S NOTE In this issue Cubs..

- Cubs on a Hike - Food Handling Fun!

Scouts..

- Bulwark 2017

Rovers..

- November Activity - LAN—Late, better than never!

- Food Handling Certification.

Our GSL tells us what’s on.

Membership Form We would like to thank those parents of Cubs and Ventures that stood by the deadline we provided to get an update on members’ details. It is now time for troop members to fill in the form online and print, sign and return by December 20th. The Scout Leader has sent an email with this form in order for you to fill in. Leaders also forwarded the subscription form for next years subscription fees – kindly check out the deadlines accordingly.

Subscriptions 2018 It is very important tat subscription forms are returned to us in a sealed envelope with the form too as it becomes a headache trying to keep things in order if submissions are not done in an orderly manner.

Coming up - Dec 13 - No

Wednesday meeting - Dec 20 - Last meeting for 2017 - Dec 27 - No Wednesday meeting - Pack Central District Christmas Party

Annual General Meeting The Annual General Meeting is planned for January 26th 2018. All members are expected to attend and as many parents/guardians as possible too. By then we hope to have clear instructions on the new uniform. Do not buy it until we give directions on January 3rd 2018.

Bulwark Shield November’s highlight event was the Bulwark Shield held between November 3 rd to the 5th, very ably organised by Section leaders of the Crew, Troop and Unit. It was great to see the enthusiasm and healthy competition between all members taking part in the two day expedition over Gozo’s North west. In all, we were nearly sixty members besides our usual partners, the Girls Guides from the 8th Swieqi Guide Group.

December meetings Please note that we shall not be holding meetings for the Cubs and Scouts on December 13 th and the 27th. The last meeting for the year shall be on December 20th for the Annual Christmas party. There

From the Courtyard

GSL’S NOTE

Issue 120 November 2017

will however be other sectional events on other days. More information will be provided by section leaders via email soon.

Service Awards This year a number of our leaders are being awarded for their long service to the Group /Scouting in Malta.

Feature of the Month

Jolly well done to all of us.

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·

25 year’s clasp- Edward Cassola

·

15 years’ clasp – Stefan Pullicino

·

10 year’s clasp- Jackie Maistre Melillo

·

10 year’s clasp –Pierre Sant

Christmas This newsletter will probably be the last one this year you will be receiving before Christmas. I’d like to thank all members and leaders for their participation and contributions over the last year. It was a very successful one and membership remained healthy and is steadily rising further. This means we must be doing something good :) I would like to wish all members, readers and their families a very Happy Christmas and we wish everyone all the best for the new year.

From the Courtyard

Issue 120 November 2017

CUBS ON A HIKE

While the Wednesday meetings focus on learning, the Pack leaders do their best to take the Cubs out to put anything learnt during the meetings into practice.

This month, Baloo organized an activity based on a hike and cookout at our campsite at Wied is-Sewda.

The Cubs and Pack leaders met at Greenscapes, Attard on Sunday 12 November and once everyone had arrived, the day’s events began.

The activity consisted of a hike

towards

Chapel

were

tal-Hlas the

cubs

stopped to have a short break and eat their packed lunch. The second part of the hike lead the pack

From the Pack

towards campsite.

When

Valley we

arrived, the cubs were given

a

short

but

informative lecture about fire, the history of fire, types of fire, the utility of The Cubs cross a bridge in Wied is-Sewda

fire in a Scouting context, how to cook on an open

fire and how to safely extinguish a fire.

The lecture lasted for an hour, after which the cubs were divided into equal groups and tasked with building a fire, with a leader’s assistance. We hoped to teach the cubs how to implement effective division of labour and encouraged them to discuss and respect their respective roles in getting a fire up and running.

Each group had to fetch tinder, kindling and wood from the campsite itself, then work together to light and control their fires. Once the fire was lit, one member stood by their group’s fire while the others went in search of larger logs to burn.

The plan came off without a hitch with all the groups communicating well and successfully building a wonderful fire.

Once the fires were under control, the cubs had to cook their own food (under a leader’s watchful eye). Burgers and sausages where on the menu much to everyone’s joy. Once everyone was well fed and content, the cubs cleaned up the area and embarked on the return hike toward Greenscapes.

All in all, it was an enjoyable activity for both leaders and pack, and

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Black

From the Courtyard

CUBS ON A HIKE

Issue 120 November 2017

everyone enjoyed working as a team in order to cook a wonderful lunch in an outdoor setting.

Benji Catania

From the Pack

Baloo

Top left: Baloo and the cubs, mid-hike.

Top right: Collecting kindling Centre: Digging a fire pit and preparing a protective border.

Bottom: Wied is-Sewda after the rain!

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From the Courtyard

FOOD HANDLING FUN

Issue 120 November 2017

Having attended mandatory Food Handling as part of her leader’s training, Hathi decided to pass this information from the oldest section down to our youngest in distilled, interactive session about food safety, at scouts and at home.

We dedicated one of our cub meetings in November to learning some basic food handling skills and instructions.

In this meeting the Cubs, together with Hathi and Bagheera, discussed important rules which should be followed when preparing and cooking food. They also discussed what happens when food is not cooked properly and results in food poisoning or an allergic reaction.

Here is a list of some of the important points which the Cubs talked about during the meeting:  Always wash your hands before touching food.  Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds.  Always wash your hands in between touching different food types.  Wash fruit and vegetables with running water before cooking or eating them.

From the Pack

 Use different chopping boards to chop raw meats, cooked meats and vegetables.  Defrost food in the fridge or in the microwave.  Wash kitchenware and cutlery with soap and water.  Store food in the fridge for not more than 4 days.  Do not leave cooked food outside of the fridge for more than 2 hours as it will begin to spoil.  Use a meat thermometer to check that meat is cooked.

Towards the end of the session, the Cubs also had a game in which they had to split a list of food items into 2 categories; Red or Green. The red category contained food items which are considered

as

‘HIGH

RISK’

mainly because of the large chance of bacteria growing on them. Examples of food items in this category are; raw meat, undercooked

chicken,

eggs,

shell fish and even a burger that isn’t cooked well when we are cooking on an open fire during camp. The green category, on

Hathi quizzing the cubs!

the other hand, contained food items which are known as ‘LOW RISK’ and include a number of ‘Ready-To-Eat’ foods. Examples of these food types include; biscuits, washed fruit and vegetables, wudy sausages, bread and even prawn cocktail!

Finally, in their sixes, the Cubs were given a handout with a few questions to answer related to all the

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From the Courtyard

FOOD HANDLING FUN

Issue 120 November 2017

points we had discussed during this basic food handling session.

Although this session might not have been as much fun as other things we do during our weekly cub meetings, it was still an extremely important session for the Cubs to have, especially given the fact that we never cook in a ‘traditional kitchen setting’ but usually cook out on an open fire or in a kitchen tent during camp!

Right: Cubs fill in the food-handling blanks.

From the Pack

Bottom: The final red/green classification of a list of foods presented to the cubs,

Nicole Mifsud Hathi

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From the Courtyard

BULWARK 2017

Issue 120 November 2017

From the Troop

Below is an adapted version of the Tiger patrol’s Bulwark 2017 Logbook.

The Tiger Patrol, cooking.

Day 1 Bulwark expedition started on Friday 3rd November. We met at Cirkewwa ferry at about 7:30 pm ready to start this expedition. The trip to Gozo was quite a pleasant one, and despite knowing we had a big uphill waiting, everyone was cheerful. That night was pretty cold so we didn’t get very hot climbing the Ghansielem up-hill, which lead to The Arka Foundaton, our sleeping location. By this point in time everyone was super hungry so we sat down and ate dinner. The PLs had a brief mapping lecture from Mike to refresh their memories. Everybody went to sleep at about eleven, to be freshly rested for the challenge awaiting us.

Day 2 At 7 a.m. sharp our leaders woke us up. Everybody packed up his equipment, got dressed and prepared for the expedition. The leaders had prepared breakfast which included a chocolate or vanilla sponge, orange juice and yoghurt. We then waited for the bus which would take us to our starting point, Marsalforn where the Swieqi Girl Guides the Rangers waiting for us. After the guides were distributed and the checkpoint papers were given…the expedition started. For the first time since a long time, the Rovers participated in this activity, and they were favourites to win it. The hike wasn’t the best start we could hope for, as we started in the place before last. We had to go to the Northermost point of the island, which were the salt pans, near Marsalforn, called Ponta tar-Reqqa. When we arrived there, we had already picked up the pace and we had to keep moving west, just alongside the coast. It wasn’t very hard but from there on we had to cross a valley, which would lead us to Wied il-Mielah. There we had a thorough fire and cooking test. Our next checkpoint was San Dimitri chapel—an isolated place on top of a hill where we got a bit lost. The footpaths were leading to no were and after a few minutes we took cross country route which brought us just behind the Hounds, who started first. It was very tough uphill, but

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From the Courtyard

BULWARK 2017

Issue 120 November 2017

the next one to Ghammar was even tougher. There we tried to finish our map work, which was really, really tricky to figure out.

The View from Ghammar

From the Troop

Here, the Patrol Leaders prepared a lunch of hot dogs ready for their patrol. When we completed the compass and mapping test, we headed to Cangura where the hounds and wolves overtook us once again.

We had no time to be grumpy and picked up the pace, skipping the Wolves and catching up with the Hounds, eventually beating them. We had to go to the Roman Remains, near Dwejra, and that was also a headache to find, because we knew we were on the right track, but didn’t know were the leaders would be waiting for us, as there was a wide spread of land with Roman remains. Eventually we arrived and thanks to the members the knots and lashings test was ready in seconds, and we were ready to set off again to our…. sleeping location. We walked as fast as we could to arrive there before sunset, and managed that too. The day was turning out pretty good after all. While half the patrol set up the bivouac, the other half took care of the food, so we were ready in no time. We were the only patrol to bring foil, so the water didn’t take long to boil, and once we added the pesto to the pasta, the smell was amazing.

When we finished eating we were tricked into trying to find a duck, meant to tire us out, while the leaders and PLs had PLC. Day 3 I woke up my patrol at 06:50 and we took down bivouacs pretty easily. Gear was packed and the area cleared of garbage. For breakfast I prepared bread with lots of Nutella. During the next fall-in we were told to clear the area and pick up all the staves and were then told that we would be walking as a group to Kercem church, with Paolo leading the way. We arrived seconds before mass started, but we were still on time. After mass we left in the order we had arrived. This time we were the first to find the checkpoint, which was Xlendi tower. We knew what was ahead of us and in the next checkpoint we overtook two patrols to the Tower. We wanted to finish the test as quickly as possible, so we would still be in the race to win. From there we had to go to Sannat and we got lost on the way. We had to ask a couple people to get our bearings right again, but we had lost a lot of time. From Sannat we travelled to the Heliport, where we had lunch and finished our knife and axe test.

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From the Courtyard

BULWARK 2017

Issue 120 November 2017

After two days of walking everyone was tired and we got ready again for the last checkpoint, Mgarr. We sang and laughed, and we were happy that we had made it brilliantly. When we arrived to the top of the Ghansielem main road the members bet me that they would manage to catch me till the end of the road, but unlucky for them I had still a lot of energy and they didn’t catch me. That was a great was to end the

From the Troop

weekend, and we are ready for the next challenge.

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From the Courtyard

NOVEMBER QUIZ

Issue 120 November 2017

Once a month, the rovers take it in turn to come up with an activity for the entire crew to participate in. For November, Andrew Zammit Montebello prepared a very thorough quiz on general knowledge, scouting and everything in between.

For the activity, the rover scouts were divided into two teams, each given ‘tokens’ per each player, and the quiz master proceeded to ask questions in random order from the list provided, ranging from general scouting knowledge, to pop culture, to history, and music. The first team to correctly answer the question won points. A correct answer was always followed by a randomly selected challenge which the team could choose to perform for full points and an additional token. They could also choose to pass on the task and pay the price of one token receiving only half the points, or trade in two tokens to take the full points and make the other team complete the task. The points for the challenges were distributed proportionally to the difficulty of the task.

The activity lasted well over two hours with all the crew becoming very involved in answering the ques-

From the Crew

tions (not necessarily correctly), in debating the points rewarded and in doing their best to sneakily gain more points. The ever patient quiz master was required to remind the teams of the rules which had been put in place and eventually, team two were declared the ultimate winners.

There was a challenge which involved singing while doing jumping jacks, and one that involved singing ‘YMCA’. We’re not quite sure what this was, but wither way, here’s a photo of the adults of the group battling over quiz points!

Andrew Zammit Montebello Rover

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From the Courtyard

LAN—LATER, BETTER THAN NEVER!

Issue 120 November 2017

Last month’s newsletter was missing a Rover contribution. We can now inform you that the delay was due to the text being trapped in the mind of our dear writer who was busy getting himself into compromising situations in a dodgy tannery somewhere the Middle East.

Eventually, we extracted it from him, so here’s what we did…in October.

On October 14th, the Rover Crew converged for what has now a much awaited annual event between them. The LAN Party started some years back and since then has brought a number of classic computer games back to our monitors. Past editions have seen classics such as Unreal Tournament 2004 and the Flatout racing franchise make an appearance, but without a doubt the most sought after games for events such as these have been World War 2 themed shooter Call of Duty 2 and it’s more modern counterpart Call of Duty 4.

From the Crew

These two games have for long been global classics and SAC favourites, and this year would be no different as members of the crew, and also the Venture Unit, hunkered down across headquarters for a no frills shoot off and a contest to see who was the best shot of the lot. Indeed the weekend was mainly punctuated by games between a mixture of teams, with there always being between 10 and 12 members fighting it out for domination on an assortment of different maps.

However on the evening of the 14th the games took an altogether more competitive turn as the Rover Crew and the Venture Unit teamed up according to their respective sections and played out a 10 vs 10 battle royale, over a number of different maps. The scoring would be based on who could win the best out of 5 games of the Capture the Flag game mode. The battle especially in the first round was exceptionally tense and very close fought, but the Crew was narrowly victorious and took the first round at the death of the 30 minute time limit. That seemed to be enough to motivate the Crew to go on and resoundingly win the next two maps, meaning that they successfully secured the first ever Rover-Venture LAN Tournament with a comfortable 3-0 scoreline!

By no means did this divide the group however, and the night went on with several good natured and friendly games of both Call of Duty games, and even the original Halo (#throwback)! The LAN Party remains one of the absolute favourites in terms of internal crew activities, and it will most certainly not be long before re-appears on our calendars!

Albert Galea Rover

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From the Courtyard

FOOD HANDLING CERTIFICATION

Issue 120 November 2017

We told you’ve we’ve been busy this month! The Rovers attended a Food Handling course as part of their training on November 19.

Mention food around the rovers and you’re sure to be greeted by looks of glee. Wait long enough at any activity and you’re sure to witness the emergence of a spread of edible items, sweet and savoury—but don’t wait around. None of it lasts very long.

It is a well established fact that the SAC rovers enjoy their food. It is an equally well established fact that they can cook pretty well too— just drop by one of our campfires or Pasta Nights and you’ll see exactly what I’m on about.

Knowing this, it may comfort you to know that, from time to time, we’re also subject to training which includes a Food Handling course where we learn (or become reminded of) the correct ways to prepare, cook and then store food (if it lasts long enough). This year’s course was a refresher for many of us however we were also joined by some of the brand new Rovers hoping to eventually start their leader training.

Apart from taking the course out of general interest (and the fact that this certificate may also be used outside the scouting environment) the certificate we obtain is also a requirement for all those working toward their woodbadge

From the Crew

(or official leader training and recognition). This year’s session was a well attended event with around 13 crew members making it to SAC HQ on time, and relatively functional, on a Sunday morning.

We covered a number of areas related to the precautions which should be taken when preparing food, cross contamination of red and green foods, the best ways to store cooked and uncooked food as well as the importance of supply chain traceability, allergies related to certain food items and the dangers of wrongly prepared or stored food. The course itself comprised various modules followed by short tests to ensure that everyone present had understood the concepts at hand. The session ended with a short exam which tested us on our knowledge and understanding of all the areas covered that day. This test would then be evaluated and our final mark used to determine whether or not we would be awarded the certificate.

We are pleased to report that for the next five years SAC is unlikely to experience any shortage qualified kitchen hands!

We’d like to thank Mr. Tanti of Tanti and Mallia Quality Consultants Ltd who kindly accommodated our availability and come to our HQ to deliver the course.

Emma Gauci

SAC Rovers mid-food handling lecture.

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Bagheera