Turf N Surf Weekend - A great escape (from the weather)

10 Scouts joined in for a fun packed weekend, starting with a sleepover at the Scout Hut on Friday night, where after pitching up hike tents in the main hall, the Scouts played a Wii Bowling competition.  As usual the Scouts stayed up chatting and catching up through the night, but all were really well behaved and that did not change all weekend.

On Saturday the Scouts enjoyed various activities including hiding a geocache treasure*, making nettle tea on the trangia stove, practising their first aid skills and some of the younger Scouts were introduced to a few knots and as a result had fun building shelters and tripods.

Our newest Scouts enjoy their first Nettle Tea

Always choose the location of your shelter carefully, inside the Scout Hut gives the best protection against the elements!

Check out those lashings!

Later in the afternoon we played table tennis, pool, table football and darts and picked our time (watching the weather) to set up a gazebo under which we had placed our BBQ.   As well as doing all these activities the Scouts had already put down their tents to make space for the games in the hall and had prepared the best tasting jacket potatoes of the year that included a range of delicious fillings and had prepared a fire (for cooking the potatoes on).

When it was time for our BBQ, the weather was the best it had been all week and we enjoyed a few hours eating and experimenting with some new menu additions, our newly added Spicy Lamb Kebab went down a storm with 9 out of 10 customers!

Sitting round the camp fire with these Scouts was a really enjoyable experience, made all the better for the support of all the adults who helped on and off during the weekend, and the 2 young leaders.  Thank you to Andrea, John, Gareth, Ian, Richard, Sam and Ethan.

On Sunday after quickly packing up, and having had some tasty bacon sandwiches, we set off to Pugneys waterpark to join the rest of the district Scouts, some 120 young people, who were making their day in Canadian Canoes and Kayaks on the water.  Whilst the weather was not that of the same event last year, it did stay dry and was reasonably warm.  The Scouts as you will be able to see from the photos shown on Flickr, all had a really fun time in the end, despite some of them being a little apprehensive of going into the water at first.

Thanks to all the leaders from across the district who volunteer to set up and run these district events, they are always really well received by the Scouts.

This canoeing lark is much easier with a tow!

Developing their paddling skills, Ardsley Scouts take to the water

It's all smiles at the Turf N Surf Weekend Finale

*Details of the Ardsley Scouts Geocache hide will be appearing shortly.

Next Sleepover will be inside a Medieval Cathedral in Sheffield City Centre - here's the all important link: http://ardsleyscouts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cathedral-sleepover.html - replies are due in at the Scout Meeting this Wednesday.

Link to all the photos from the weekend on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30263703@N04/sets/72157630267381960

Ed.