Christmas Camp 2024
Each year the Scout section has an annual festive trip away. This year we adventured to Burton-on-Trent to stop in the May Bullock Centre at Rangemore Scout Centre – in the heart of the National Forest.
From 19:30 on the Friday night, the festivity begins, with Scouts being welcomed to Christmas songs. Within no time the priorities are sorted, with the Christmas tree being put up, supper eaten, games played, and eventually their bags unpacked.
The scouts have a relatively late get-up, with a cooked breakfast waiting for them. This was followed with some free time, having a selection of games, movies, and challenges to pick from. Supplemented with lots of games of pool. Many of them discovering the magic of reversing a VHS tape! They then had to gather firewood and attempted to light a fire (they only managed a small one due to the wood being damp); some decided to practice their knife skills.
In the afternoon, they attempted gingerbread house-building and decorated the tree with their decorations from home.
As the evening rolled around, we prepared for the Christmas dinner, deliciously prepared by leader Alex. They exchanged Christmas crackers, then the meal was started with soup, the main Christmas dinner, and finished with a mince pie.
Christmas dinner was followed by young people participating in Secret Santa, wrapping up gifts for each other. The gifts included lots of sweets and chocolate, a toilet roll full of jokes, and a pack of 100 disgusting facts.
To wrap up the evening, we had our annual Christmas Quiz. Fun fact: the age of everyone present totalled 287.75 years! The night was finished off with a movie.
The Sunday morning started with a cooked breakfast to keep them going. We then all focused on packing up and cleaning up after ourselves, as well as yet more games of pool and free time before heading back home around lunchtime.