St. Chads Scout Group - Great Day Out

Due to COVID restrictions, yet another Group activity had to be cancelled this year - our annual Group Camp. This was a huge disappointment as Group Camp in one of the highlights in our calendar where Keas, Cubs, Scouts and Venturers all come together as one Group, learning from each other and sharing in fun and challenging activities. And don't forget the Saturday evening dinners - always a crowd pleaser.

One BIG Idea

The planning team knocked their heads together and after a few cups of tea and several biscuits later landed on the idea of having all the fun and challenging activities closer to home over ONE day - the GREAT DAY OUT!

Then the detailed planning began:

• What activities should we do - remember fun and challenging for Keas, Cubs and Scouts!

• Where can we hold the activities that is not too far away from our Den

• How many youth members should we be planning for?

• What if it rains? (actually we never gave this one too much thought as the weather was looking really good at the time)

• And the most important one - what's for lunch?

GDO minus 1

Friday evening - the planning team are glued to their favourite weather forecasting app monitoring Saturdays forecast and it was not looking very favourable - 70% chance of showers for most of the day. Frantic typing of WhatsApp messages flying backwards and forwards - GO - NO GO - DON'T KNOW!

Let's decide in the morning...

GDO @ 7:30am

Heavy rain overnight. Early start Saturday morning onsite @ 7:30am. As Leaders arrive, the weather debate continues. As we look towards the Skytower from the carpark, light rain falls and dark clouds are rolling in. More frantic checking of the weather apps...I'm sure we put raincoats on the packing list.

GO - NO GO - DON'T KNOW! I think we went with GO....or was it TOO LATE!

GDO @ 8:30am - too late

The youth members start arriving at their designated check-in locations and the rain is holding off.

And what a turn out on the day, 56 youth members with a supporting crew of 21 helpers and leaders. Breakdown as follows:

• Keas - 12, Cubs - 20, Scouts - 20, Venturers - 4, Helpers - 6, Leaders - 15, Total - 76

GDO summary

In the end, it turned out to be a typical Auckland day, raincoats in the morning changing to sunhats and sunblock by lunchtime......a great day had by all. Everyone was looked pretty tired by pickup time, but still managed a smile on their faces.

A big thanks to the:

• parents for not being put off by the weather forecast

• youth members for getting stuck in and having fun

• helpers for...well helping, many hands make light work

• leaders for setting up, running the bases and showing the way

• and finally to the GDO planning team - no scout left behind! Job done.