Malvern Challenge - 2014

27th - 29th June saw 12 Scouts join the other 5000 Scouts at the Malvern Challenge.

On the Saturday the Scouts complete an 8 mile Activity Hike, with 8 bases to complete spread along the route.  This year the bases were

1. Water Slide
2. Animal Quiz
3. Giant Jigsaw
4. Abseiling
5. Mini Olympics
6. T shirts and Rockets
7. Wacky Wheels
8. Shooting

The leaders don't get off lightly though.  We spend 8 hours on one of the bases helping 5000 scouts complete the task and earn their points for their team.  It is a fun day, but my feet are killing me!

In the evenings there is music, bands and other entertainments.  On the Sunday, as a reward for working so hard on the Saturday, there is there a loads of activities and fair ground rides for the Scouts to enjoy.

Apart from 45 mins of torrential rain and thunder on Saturday we were very lucky with the weather and, as far as I can gather so far, they all loved it.

Unfortunately, due to the land owner wanting to use his farm for farming in the future, this was the last Malvern Challenge.  However there are already plans for a similar event, in a different location, run by some of the same team, so as soon as we hear more about it we will let you all know.

Just a small area of the camp site

PW in the action at a volley ball game

Quiet night out with 5000 scouts

Stavros Flatley came to entertain.

Waiting for the fire act to start

Fire torches

Clever LED batons

More fire dancing

Really looked good in the dark

The quiet of a Sunday morning

Ruff Diamond street dance group

The giant slide

CMH and EL battle it out at land zorbing

At the bottom of the Mega Dance

At the top of the ride

At the end of the ride - thankfully still smiling!

Panorama of the Sunday site.  I think if you click this it will get bigger.  I hope.
From left to right...
F1 simulator, pedal carts, mini quad bikes, climbing walls, giant slide, our camping field in the distance,  The Sizzler, Mega Dance and then the dodgems.  In the background all sorts of other inflatables, games etc.

Archery

Thanks to a leader from another local Scouts who brought the equipment along and showed the Scouts what to do.  The results varied!!

Backwoods Cooking

Cooking sponge cakes inside orange peels, bread twists and sausages on sticks.

Sausages and sponges went down well.  The fact that to cook a bread twist takes more than 2 minutes of holding the dough somewhere closer than in sight of the fire meant that most of these were very underdone.

Good fun though, and another evening where the Scouts went home smelling of smoke!

Team games

A few team work games, but the stacking the blocks was the best.  Fence posts cut in to short sections with a nail in opposite sides.  The Scouts can't cross the lines so the posts have to be maneuvered in to place just using the 2 ropes.

The joy as the 6th block went on. 

The tension was just too much for some!

TIMBER!

And finally the jump the spinning rope game to end with.  Made that much more interesting buy attaching one of the wooden blocks with nails in to the end of the rope.  Look how high they can jump when it really matters!

NB - I was joking about attaching the wooden block with nails in :-)