Issue 123 Issue 1232018 February February 2018
From the Courtyard
From the Courtyard SAC SCOUTS NEWSLETTER
ARTICLE TITLE In this issue Cubs..
Our GSL tells us what’s on!
- Cubs go to Gozo
Scouts..
February
- Scouts go raftin
As expected, once half yearly exams were over all our section kicked into top gear with many activities
Ventures..
being organised nearly every weekend for one section or another.
- Venturing into the Kitchen
The troop organised its annual rafting event, the pack a hike in Gozo, the Venture unit a cooking activity and the Crew assisted where and when required. The latter were also heavily involved in the Annual Marathon held in Malta, usually on the last Sunday of February. I am sure you will read more about these events in this issue of The Courtyard. Meetings are also underway to organise Easter Camp. It will be held in Wied is-Sewda between March 25th to the 31st. Cubs will be camping between March 29th to the 31st. Parents are invited to camp on Saturday morning were we shall be holding a BBQ/lunch for all instead of the usual campfire. We have adopted this approach because it was problematic to organise a campfire for all sections at once and have the parents there too and secondly access to the site is not easy during the late evening, so we thought it best to invite parents over in the morning. Parents please try and car pool to reduce the number of vehicles at or near the site. Preferably, parents opt to walk the final part of the route to the site and park down by the valley water way. We’ll have some games and activities to keep everyone busy – possibly some parents can help with the clearing up too .
Coming up 25—31 March Easter Camp
Service Awards nd
On February 22 , after an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting at the Scout Headquarters in Floriana, four of our leaders were awarded Service Award Clasps by the Chief Scout, Mr George Cassar, namely;
Edward Cassola – 25 years service
Stefan Pullicino – 15 years service
Pierre Sant – 10 years service
Jackie Maistre Melillo - 10 years service.
Well done to all of us.
From the Courtyard
GSL’S NOTE
Issue 123 February 2018
Annual parade nd
On April 22 , the Group shall be participating in the Annual Parade organised by the Scout Association and Girl Guide Association. Please ensure you have the whole and complete uniform. Headgear is not yet available. Hopefully, by then the baseball caps will be available. More details will follow in the coming weeks. Kitchenette Our Group would like to thank Mr S Zammit for helping the Group source some furniture for the kitchenette at our Headquarters. We’ll hopefully set it up in the coming weeks. Support from parents takes us a long way. Other Events
Feature of the Month
The Group is currently evaluating two invitations it received to two distinct events. At the moment,
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leaders are considering whether we can help and participate in these events, one on March 19th and the other on April 25th. Once we have the required leaders’ and members’ commitment we shall inform troop and venture members about them.
From the Courtyard
Issue 123 February 2018
CUBS GO TO GOZO
On Saturday 17th February, the SAC Pack made their way to Gozo for a wonderful day in the nature of the Sister Island. The cubs tell us what happened. On the morning of the 17 February the cubs and pack leaders made their way through the ferry terminal in time for the 09:45 crossing. We had a record attendance of 20 out of 25 cubs, making it a wonderfully immersive experience for all. The route was planned by Akela and, starting at Marsalforn, would take us on an 8km hike via Wied il-Ghasri and Wied il-Mielah and ending at Ta’ Pinu. A number of short games and activities were held at each checkpoint. The weather for the day was cloudy and grey and quite fresh, but the rain thankfully held off until we left! We asked the cubs to let us know what struck them most during the activity. This is what they said:
The Boat Trip— Brown Six
From the Pack
“On the boat trip, I had fun talking to my friends. There was a nice view on the boat” Giuseppe “The boat trip was fun. It was long, but talking to my friends made it shorter” Benjie “On the boat trip, I enjoed it because we got to talk, eat (crisps, chocolate and sweets) buy stuff and the weather was brilliant because there was no wind or rain. I had friends to talk to and stuff to play with” Julian Giuseppe, Benjie, Julian
The pack on the way to Gozo
The Hike—Blue Six “We saw saltpans and Leli tal-Melh (in Marsalforn). We went in Wied il-Ghasri and saw lots of pebbles. We saw a lighthouse (IlFanal tal-Gordan) and the new went to Wied il-Mielah. We saw a natural window. Then we started to walk to Ta’ Pinu and did a scavenger hunt. We saw souveniers (at Ta’ Pinu). It was a long hike and we walked 8kilometers. Gianluca, Luke, Franco, Sam & Julian
Hiking in the Gozitan countryside
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From the Courtyard
Issue 123 February 2018
CUBS GO TO GOZO Għasri Valley— Grey Six After going down the stairs that lead to the valley, the first thing that we saw were rocks and water and exploring the beauty of Wied il-Ghasri. After Ben offered us cupcakes that we enjoyed a lot.
The pack, together with pack leaders and GSL at Wied il-Għasri
From the Pack
Dimitri, Alec, Benjamin, Caydon, Beppe, & Nathan
Cupcakes!
Wied il-Mielaħ In the valley we saw a rock window (with no glass). There were rocks as tables and chairs were we had lunch. There were a lot of plants and flowers and nature. The sea was a bit rough. In Marsalforn we saw il-Qolla l-Bajda. Nigel, Isaac & Lucas
Leaving Wied il-Mielaħ
Things we saw and heard— Yellow Six The bus ride was fun. We say salt pans, we stacked rocks at Wied il-Ghasri, we had lunch on rock tables and saw the window at Wied il-Mielah. We saw the church of Ta’ Pinu. We heard people talking, cars passing by. We heard brids chirping, trees being blown off, rocks crashing and echoes from the valley. Matteo, Rafael, Anton & Matteo
Cubs, taking in the sea
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From the Courtyard
CUBS GO TO GOZO
Issue 123 February 2018
From the Pack
Cubs appreciating a moment’s peace and quiet at Wied il-Għasri
Our wonderful pack!
Wasalna! The pack and leaders in front of Ta’ Pinu church….sort of!
*Disclaimer – Minor editing for comprehensibility’s sake The SAC Pack & Bagheera (Emma Gauci)
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From the Courtyard
Issue 123 February 2018
SCOUTS GO RAFTING
Mid-Yearly exams have ended so the troop are back with full force! Their first activity was Rafting. This is how it went. Rafting - Buffalo Patrol On Sunday 18th February 2018 the Troop held a rafting activity which is held every year usually being located at Mistra bay. The Buff patrol had a good number of its members who attended . The day started off at HQ at 7:30AM in Birkirkara where some of the members went to help loading the truck for rafting (barrels, rope box, 4 metres,3 metres, etc...). Then the members together with the leaders went by car to Mistra bay where they met with the rest of the Troop at approximately 9:30AM. From then we started unloading the truck and preparing and organizing the
From the Troop
equipment. Then the leaders informed us about what's going to happen and our patrol (Buffs) started to build our particular designed raft. After the time we were given to build the rafts we had a small lunch break and all the rafts where on the water. When the Troop members where all equipped (lifejackets on, paddles, etc...) the leaders gave us a quick brief of the course, start and finish. We (The Buff patrol) with our spectacular raft design(which was designed by Patrice Pace, APL) and our
amazing
between
the
communication patrol
members
managed to win the race! after that we de-rigged our rafts and went for a small hike in a sinkhole, and left home. Overall the activity made the Buff patrol stronger and better in every aspect and once again proved that TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAMWORK!
Rafting - Bull Patrol On the 18th of February the SAC Scouts, as annually planned, went rafting in mistral bay, and this is the bull patrol’s experience of this activity. The raft was simple, a normal T shape using 2 meters and 3 meter spars.
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From the Courtyard
SCOUTS GO RAFTING
Issue 123 February 2018
The building process didn’t take long as all my members are competent and know how to work. The raft was split in two, and then joined in the middle, the process took around 1 and a half hours, but the work involved was very minimal. The raft was up in no time and all the barrels were tightly secured to the bits of wood. The raft was held together with nothing but square lashings. The other rafts were similar to ours and all functioned properly. No raft came undone in the sea and they all fulfilled their purpose. All of the members of every patrol worked, there were hardly any members staring which means the troop has a lot of good members who can work independently
From the Troop
without a PL looming over them to check their work. The Race had 2 laps which meant that the second lap was slower as we were all tired from rowing. The laps were long but straight forward, a straight line, a curve and another straight line. The winners of both laps were the Buffs, led by Alex Seigler. The race was very tight and no clear winner was presented from the start. All of the patrols were pedaling as hard as they can but the trick to it is being synchronized. During the race one would feel besides tired and cold, a sense of pride that he made a raft that is not only floating, but is beating other rafts. The activity finished with a short hike, a beach clean up and the dismantling of the rafts
Rafting – Wolf Patrol This years rafting was held at Mistra bay. All the 5 patrols took part. We all started in a line facing the outside of the bay and when we were going on the rafts, unfortunately the Tiger patrols raft toppled over after the first person which resulted in them not taking part in the 2 rounds of one race each. After the race, everyone dismantled their rafts and until the truck arrived, we went on a short hike around the bay. The whole activity was split into 2 rounds of one race each. The Buff patrol led by Alex Siegler won both races with very good times. The Wolf patrol came last in the first race because the places where the people sat weren’t balanced. In the second race, from last place, we changed places and we ended up coming second, again after the Buff patrol.
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From the Courtyard
SCOUTS GO RAFTING
Issue 123 February 2018
Our design consisted of a rectangle shape with four barrels on each corner. The barrels were tied with square lashings and a harness was made to keep the lashings closer to the centre and not slipping out. The design was a rectangle but before it was put together, it was two catamarans. Two three metre spars were put next to the barrels to hold them together. To keep the raft in equilibrium, the four heaviest people were placed in the corners while the other two people sat in the middle of the raft for extra safety. It was made like this to reduce the drag of the water. It was also done like this because if we didn’t have to turn the raft around the buoy and just get to it, everyone could have just turned around and paddled the other way. This years rafting was very fun and everyone surely enjoyed although a patrol ended up in the water and a few others went swimming.
From the Troop
The SAC Troop
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VENTURING INTO THE KITCHEN
From the Courtyard
Issue 123 February 2018
Cooking Activity On Sunday 17th February the unit carried out a cooking activity consisting of three parts. The first part included splitting up into two teams and go through a number of challenges. These challenges consisted of a number of areas of scouting such as mapping, knots and lashings, fire building and physical fitness. This took approximately two hours to complete and a clear winner emerged with 12 points to 3 points The second part of this activity consisted of shopping for each
From the Unit
groups’ own food. Each group was given fiver euro for every member and were taken to a grocery store close by. Forty-five minutes were allocated for shopping and after this time each group were stationed at their cooking area. The winning team of the challenges was given a selection of spices from the kitchenette. Finally, the main event of cooking was carried out. One group had chosen to cook up some carbonara pasta whilst the other group prepared some pork strips with mushroom and meatball sauce. Along with this dish they also prepared enough pancakes to feed a small army. The objective behind this activity was to strengthen each member’s ability to work in a team, as well as, increasing his knowledge on cooking using a driver and coming up with a dish at a short notice. The activity was a success and each member seemed to enjoy himself.
Adam Vella Cardona Unit Chairman
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