News! News! News!

So I believe that the last I blogged was September!!! And in that gap a whole lot of fun stuff has happened. My unit had out second training weekend at Gilwell Scout Activity Centre which is  the HQ for scouting across the UK. There we prepared for the Jamboree and took part in the JOTI/JOTA event. For more information go here: http://jotajoti.info/ and we released our first unit newsletter!

Since it has been a while since the second training weekend and I did a review of it in the newspaper I am not going to a whole post on it as the newsletter is much more exciting. PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Read it. You won't be disappointed!

Get it here at:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/#folders/0Bxp4p8V3wJzeVWhGQ2ZTdXN0OUU/0Bxp4p8V3wJzeWXVyVjJTbm95c00/0Bxp4p8V3wJzeQWhjUUcwYXY0QWs

Also please check out my other blog for my BeKeHaBu books which is explained on this blog:

http://bekehabuadventure.blogspot.co.uk/

I know this post has been a bit of an advertisement but your  views give me motivation to keep on going and show that people care about what us scouts do.

Thanks and the next post will probably be after my next training weekend in early December!

Interviews, Interviews and Interview!!!

Hello everyone!!! Scouty people, non-scouty people, tall people, short people, brunette people, blonde people, anybody at all!!!

Random Quote of the Post

"At a time when efforts are being made to eradicate discrimination between the sexes in the search for social equality and justice, the differences between the sexes are being rediscovered."

~ Carol Gilligan

Too often am I being asked "Why are you a scout... you're a girl!" Let me say one thing. Girls can be adventurous too! I would say I was a tomboy and still  partly am now. I'm sorry I don't like sitting at home spending hours doing my make-up and hair wanting to look pretty for boys. But I'd much rather be on a camp, getting down and dirty with nature. That's my nature. I love going camping. The idea of lying in tent and the possibility of being anywhere in the world beckons to me. Going climbing, caving, canoeing, kayaking, hiking, sailing, rafting excites me. I'm sorry if you do not think that a girl can do those things but we CAN. And we WILL. 

The reason I'm saying all this is because it has been brought to my attention recently that people still question why girls can be scouts. Scouting has evolved and we must accept that girls being allowed to join is part of the evolution. Feel free to leave your view on scouting and how its evolved in the comments section below.

Now back to the main story...

The Main Story XD

So this week end I attended a Scouts Speak Up course at Youlbury scout camp near Oxford. We were given the chance to learn how to speak to the media and grabbed the first place straight away.

3 people from my unit went (Me, Alex and Ollie) and it was great fun.

We rocked up Saturday morning reading and rearing to go. And as you expected as soon as all the scouts saw each other... AWKWARDNESS. However soon we were all chatting and asking "What unit are you from?" and "Can I see your badge?" 

We then pitched out tents, got our work packs and gathered inside the main building. We then watched a short video and a presentation on the Jamboree.

Then the fun began!

We were split into folder colour groups. (Blues were obviously the best aha). Our mentor was Jon who has previously been staff for the World Scout Jamboree, so he had lots of helpful advice for us.

Team Jon!!!

Our first practice interview was a radio interview and guess who got picked to go first?

If you guess me then... you right.

At first I was quite nervous however once Stuart, another leader, started talking I relaxed and started talking. Now, I'm a talk-a-tive person and I found it hard to talk for the whole interview. However after watching a few other people's one's I quickly got my self a list of helpful hints to improve my interview and answers. The biggest piece of advice of the weekend... SMILE!!! You' be amazed how a smile can really make a interview so much better. 

Try recording you self answering what you favourite outdoor activity is without smiling and then smiling. It's mind blowing.

We then had a delicious lunch and went on to newspaper interviews.

Here we sat back to back with another leader, who works in Public Relations, and had a conversation like we were on the phone. This was completely different to  radio interview but I preferred this method. We had to try and get the necessary information and detail across to her without blabbing on for ages. I believe I did fairly well but I needed to explain my personal experiences in more detail and link it to other activities such as WSJ. It was great fun!

We also did presentations that day to our groups which we had prepared before the camp and got feedback on them.

On Saturday evening we played wide-game Cluedo and made S'mores by the camp fire.

The next day we woke up bright and early for a 8.30 start.

That morning we first did some TV interviews. Embarrassing doesn't even cover it aha. We had significantly improved from the previous day by taking on and using the tips we were given. Watching back the interview really helped to improve our techniques and seeing were we could change what we said to make the interview even better.

After lunch, we did our final presentation in our units. Ollie, Alex and I managed to keep under our 2 minutes time limit and manage to get all the information across  that we wanted to. Sadly this was our last training activity at the camp.

We all came together for a final talk, whilst switching contact details in our booklets. We took our tents down and said goodbye to the new friends we had made. It was sad to think we may not see them again. (Trying to find them amongst 30,000 other scouts at the Jamboree may be a bit hard!)

The weekend was a great eye opener as I never realised how hard interviews were. I want to thank all the leaders who helped us as they were amazing. There tips were very helpful and I hope to pass them on to people in my unit.

I will also soon be attending another Unit Training Weekend in October so keep a look out for that post. Please, please, please! Pass the word around of my blog as it help to promote information the Scouting Association and the World Scout Jamboree. 

For more information check out my Get Involved Page. Thanks!!!

Training Weekend No. 1

    Long time no speak everyone... I haven't really had much to blog about recently however I have lots to blog about now!!!!

    Now you may be wondering what does she have to talk about now? Well the weekend just gone was my units first ever complete Training Weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    So here's how it went...

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The BeKeHaBu Unit

    We all turned up on the Saturday morning, some nervous and some excited , including me. We gathered around our leaders and the parents were given some information on the Jamboree and our Training Weekend. After the brief intro we we and found a site to pitch our tents. My new friend Mimi decided to pitch our tents next to each other so we could help each other.

    The tents went up fairly quickly and we soon gathered back around and the main area and sat down to eat our lunch as a unit.

    Quickly the topic of a unit name appeared, mentioned by the leaders. Many ideas came about such as Besties Forevsies, Unit 76, Pick n Mix and BeKeHaBu. However one would rise above the rest on the Sunday.

    We set off on a hike through the Ascot countryside. After reaching a clearing in a slightly wooded area we were given the task of using GPS's to locate Geocache's.
    (A geochacing is an outdoor recreational activity, in which the participants use GPS device's or other navigational device's to seek and locate containers called Geocaches or caches.)

    Expecting to find a small box with a signature pad in, my group and I were surprised to find this little fella hooked onto a tree.

Bear Geocache

    After hunting down the Geocaches we returned to the leaders and headed for home.
    Once back at the camp site we wrote down some of the unit name ideas we had. When everyone was back at camp we sat around the main area and were split into 4 groups to cook our tea.

    Our group leader Ed went and got our 6 ingredients from the table of food. We quickly decided to create porkchops in a cheese sauce with roast potatoes, fried mushrooms, corn on the cob and for desert we had rice pudding and banana's. Yum!

    After eating our tea and cleaning upwe had some free time. Mimi, Rob, Ed and I sat around the camp fire together and practices some music together such as Pompeii, Radioactive, Mr Brightside and even Let It Go. We were asked to bring a musical instrument to camp so Mimi brought her voice as did I, Rob brought his guitar, and Ed brought his Cajon drum box thingy... it was very cool aha!

    Everyone gathered around the camp fire and earlier we had been asked to create a small performance to perform at the camp fire. Most groups performed and then our little music grouped performed some songs for out unit.

    We sang lots of scouting songs including Boom Chika Boom, The Quartermasters Store and Never Get To Heaven.

    Some people stayed and talked around the fire and slowly we all went to bed.

    The next morning we all woke up and the lovely leaders had cooked us all breakfast. Including a rather interesting Japanese drink. Yes... Miso Soup! Dun Dun Duuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!

    The breakfast was lovely however I can not say I'm a fan of the Miso Soup> I found it tasted like extremely salty dough however I will find a way to like it as it is a very important part of refuelling your salt levels in Japan next year.

    Once breakfast was over we helped tidy up the site, this consisted of removing leaves, weeds and blockages from the drainage ditches and cleaning the toilettes.

    At the end of the day we were all sad to go home and in fact wanted to be on the jamboree now.

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The weekend was great and I had lots of fun and can not wait for the next one later this year!!!

1, 2, Cha Cha Cha, 3, 4, Cha Cha Cha!

    So I apologise for not posting on Monday but I have been crazy busy all week because I am currently doing Grease the musical at my local theatre and have had rehearsals every night this week!!!
Tiring? Yes... very!

    So I am currently working on the page about the book 'A Geek in Japan' which I promised you earlier in my blog.
    Sorry for the short post today but after this week I have finished school and my show so should keep this up to date on the right day but I make no promises.

    Thanks for the support, and keep checking for more posts!!!

Awkward Silence

    Hi all. So just realised I had completely forgot to tell you when I was having my first official Jamboree meeting!!! I'm sooooo sorry. As you can probably guess, that's exactly what this weeks post is about. Lots of photos and information.

    So, on Saturday the 31st of May I had my first official Jamboree meeting. 9 participants from Buckinghamshire went, 8 from Berkshire and 2 from Hampshire and all four leaders attended (one from each county).
    The morning started rather awkwardly. This consisted of us standing in separate parts of the room not talking... at all.

    So after about 10 minutes of awkward silence we slowly started talking to each other in little groups. I talked to my friend Matthew and a girl called Olivia for about 15 minutes. Then we all sat down and the leaders introduced themselves.
    After the introductions we played the fruit salad game (for anyone who doesn't know this game. You sit in a circle and are labelled 3  different fruits. The person in the middle says a fruit and then the people labelled that fruit switch chairs). We then had to speak to the people we hadn't met before.
    My favourite game was the noise and action game. This is where you sit in a circle, and every person make a noise and a action based on their name. My name is Sian, which rhymes with farm. On a farm you get cows so my noise was a moo and my action was making horn on my head with my fingers. You then had to try and remember other people e.g. you did your noise then someone else's then they did theirs and someone else's.
    Just realised how complicated that sounds but its actually a really simple game aha.

    Next up was lunch, and as were all explorers lunch was up to us. We were split into groups of 5 and given £1 each. However we had to cater for 6 people (sneaky leaders) :-p Our group of 3 of us from Bucks and 2 from Berkshire. We worked well as a group and decided on bacon sarnies, baked beans, brownies and tangfastics. We were off to the local Tesco to buy our food.
    When we got back to the site the guys had the fire lit and ready to be cooked on. We cooked all the food quickly and had no complaints from our leader Mark. Because we had some left over bread, Rob decided to fry it; I have to admit it was delicious! (However not the healthiest thing ever with all the oil we used!).

    After lunch we tried ordering our leaders from youngest to oldest, with out offending anyone. We didn't get it right.

    We split into 3 groups and group 1, the group I was in, did origami first. I was very pleased with my crane that took be nearly 10 minutes! Yeah I'm not the best at origami.



    So after origami we played a non-violent version of sumo where the aim of the game is to push the other person off balance. Here are couple of videos:

    The final Japanese themed game we played is where you had to move maltesers from a chair at one end of the room to the other end using chopsticks. Luckily I already knew how to use chopsticks and the team I was in won a few of the rounds.

    After all the groups had finished the games we all sat down outside and took part in a quiz where we found that some of our knowledge about the Jamboree is very limited. The group I was in came second!!!

    We then went back inside to find out some more info on the Jamboree itself. Like the weather, where were going, how many people and son on.

    Finally, our some of our parents joined us for the final part of the day. The parents were given some information on the Jamboree.

    Another thing we were asked to do was bring a postcard of our local area and a photo of something important to us to use as a prompt during the introduction game. We then stuck the postcards on a window when we got to the Scout Hut. 

    Over all the day was great. I  met tones of fun and friendly people who I had never met before and didn't even know the lived near me. The best part was definitely Robs fried bread because it was delicious and I'd never had it before. The second most fun part was the quiz because we got to work in teams and find out information we didn't know about the Jamboree.
    I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of our group next month.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! I left out the most amazing point of the whole weekend! I got my necker!!! Wooooooo!!!

    So sorry this post has been a day late but it's really long and took me so long to type. Hope you like it and if you haven't already please check out my YouTube Channel where I put my 1000 views video because you guys are awesome!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg-tKiFKKQk