To all Malvern Parents and leaders we have email for…

Wow, what a year it's been for us all!
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A quick note about Wednesday this week:

It's the end of term, and the time we transition Keas to Cubs, and Cubs to Scouts, so this week on Wednesday we're going to have a group meeting with as many parents as we can get together. Bring a plate and watch your child get the awards they've been working on this year.

6:00pm Openings

6:10 begin awards (Bronze, Silver, Gold section awards and any Be Prepared badges)

6:25 activities in Rugby park

6:40 Invest Keas to their next Cub pack (Matai or Tama)
Invest Cubs to their next Scout troop (Monday or Tuesday)

7:00 informal supper

This will be instead of the regular Kea meeting for the last week of the term, other sections are meeting as normal, check with your section leader for your regular meeting
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Due to leader movements as their children move between sections we've had some re-arranging to do.

This has led to some re-thinking of how best to organise our volunteers into a scheme that works for most of us, it's not perfect but I think it will work out well in the long run for us all.

I'll confirm the finer details with you all on Wednesday, there'll be a few new faces and some day changes but I believe that your youngsters will continue to be faced with a challenging, adventurous, outdoors programme of Scouting at Malvern after these changes.

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I'm struck by the loss of momentum the group has faced this year, and in part I blame myself for this.

That is why the group really does need a Group Leader who's only doing one thing, and currently as Acting Group Leader I'm not doing a very good job of uniting all the families of the sections.

So, if you've got an inkling that you could devote some time to the group, please consider some of the roles we need to fill:

Group Leader
Committee members (currently the largest group in the zone has only 3 committee members, this isn't enough to do the work they face)
Section leaders: from Keas to Scouts, there's room for you.

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Looking forward to seeing you all on Wednesday October 5

Adrian

I'm proud to note that Grant Bennett, our Scoutmaster of very long standing has been awarded a Medal of Merit in the Founder's day awards list. Grant has worked alongside a number of leaders for the last ten years and more, his children are long gone from the section but he's continued to work with our youth members.

I'm sure you'll all join me in thanking him for his excellent service for more than a decade.

I'd also like to note that I'll be presenting three new leader warrants in the next few weeks.

Glen Daglish has helped us with Keas since we set it up, as well as being something of a fixture at Cubs as well. Towards the end of last year Glen made an application to be a leader, and this has been processed. I'll invest Glen as soon as I can.

James Egan has also been highly involved in the Cub section and when we jump-started our new Thursday Cubs last year he was one of the first to jump in and give us a hand. His application has also been processed successfully and I'll invest James too.

Jo Le Gros, has been a leader for many years and transferred to Malvern last year, she's been one of the linchpins for the Tama (Thursday) pack which is going gangbusters. Jo has been highly trained (to Wood-Badge) in the other zones. I'll be proud and pleased to present her warrant one night soon.

There are now 13 adults running our sections at Malvern which happens to be two more than the number of Scouts we had back in 1996/7 when I first got involved at the group.

Say hi to them all next time you're down at the den...

Grant Bennett
Mike Foubister
Asipeli Tufau

John Enright
Kenny sparrow
Darren Kellett

Jo Le Gros
James Egan

Deanne White
Kayla Hazlett
David Douglas
Glen Daglish
Courtney Von Hagen

I hope you all had an awesome break, I know that after Jamboree I certainly had a week without answering my emails and without wearing my Scout uniform. I felt very naughty.

Keas, Cubs and Scouts start again next week on Monday, there's an exciting programme the leaders have prepared for you all.

Can you all do some housekeeping for me please?

1. Let me know if you're not coming back to the group.
2. Unsubscribe from the emails if you're not coming back (instructions at the bottom of this)
3. If you owe any money, can you please pay the treasurer, the Jamboree has cleared out the bank.
4. Let me know if your contacts have changed.

There will be a separate new fees notice coming out soon with the fees as approved at the AGM (I missed you all at that meeting). Nothing has changed substantially, though we have passed on the $20 increase in our fees to National, the first fee rise in many years.

Don't forget to keep an eye on the web page, our calendars are live there and kept current.

Upcoming events this term.

Mudslide Day Feb 20
Founders Day fun at Blue Skies Feb 22
Kea Sleepover (Zone, not group) March 12/13
Zone Camp Keas, Cubs, Scouts April 1/2/3
ANZAC day observance
and many more.

Please check out the calendar when you get a chance: bit.ly/iiegoh or on our web page at the top

See you in the weeks to come...

(I am no longer the group leader at Malvern as I'll be keeping the same eye on the whole zone now as the Zone Leader. If you think you could help us out by being our new group leader, please get in touch. It's a lot easier than I made it look, and also a lot less work. Go on, you know you want to help.)

Adrian

We've had a few ups and a few downs this Jamboree, but today has been a very good day for all of us.

You should be very proud of your Scouts, they're an awesome team. From getting our hands slapped by our sub camp team on the evening of the second of January your Scouts have learned how to set up and keep their camp site in the proper order. Yesterday they were awarded the Silver award for Camp-Craft, we were all really chuffed with our progress. (From -1 to +2 almost overnight)

Gaining the award, and being able to see what to do (from their own efforts and from viewing other camp sites with input from the Sub-Camp team) has allowed the Scouts to move on and achieve more, to such an extent that today at the Patrol Leader's Council they've been attending all Jamboree my PLs were awarded a Platinum Camp-Craft award.

Stacking the beds lets us get more room to move and clean within the tents and helps the clothes and bedding get aired and healthier.

The morning Duty Patrol worked hard to get their kitchen really clean and tidy, with all the food covered and put away neatly, and ready for service when it came to lunch as well.

We'd been given a bit of an inside tip on this and so at dinner today we made a bit of a wager.

If the Scouts can get another pennant tomorrow at the final judging of the Jamboree and it's higher than our current platinum, I get to go the full Yul Brynner.

As long as I get to do it myself I think it may not look too bad. Mike Bellamy will give me some tips on maintaining the look hopefully.

Tomorrow will be our last cooked meal together and once the chores are complete we'll have ourselves and awards dinner, each PL has chosen one of their team to recognise in some way and has procured some kind of award to present. The leaders have also done some discussion, and awarded some humorous as well as serious awards to our young men and women. Additionally there will be some people's choice awards voted on by our Scouts. This is in part to show them that they get to take responsibility for their own futures.

We'll let you all know who's who once we get back to Christchurch on Friday.

Please be ready to collect your Scouts on Friday evening around 8:50pm. This will be the last news from Jamboree as we start to break camp tomorrow after breakfast. Last official event is tomorrow night and Jamboree will officially close at 9:30pm, followed by some last fellowship and swapping of uniforms etc. Our Scouts have made some wonderful friends here at our first single troop contingent Jamboree, an event they'll all remember for a very long time.

Keep an eye out for photos of yours truly in the newspapers (real ones, not online ones) in the coming days, I was interviewed at length today and had my photo taken, so I may get another shot at my 15 minutes of fame.

Thanks for letting me take your children away, it's been an honour and a privilege.

See you all on Friday

First of all, most of our Scouts are back on site with us again, Tom and Luke are allowed out of isolation tomorrow at 5pm and will rejoin light activities for the last day of Jambo. Kate is also popping back in with John tomorrow and then we'll see how she gets on with activities.

It was an exciting morning when the Governor General, Anand Satynand dropped by with RH Bill English and RH Phil Goff to see the Jamboree and to have lunch with Takuma Peters who has achieved his Chief Scout award. We gave him a wave and called out as he went past the front door of our site as we were finishing off the last of our duties before inspection.

There are a couple of inspectors who pop by every day checking on our site's health, hygiene and camping standards. Today I'm proud to report that our Scouts achieved the Silver standard for the first time on the whole Jamboree. They've all begun to understand how camp works, and how the team work brings together many skills to make the whole family site work. You can all be proud of your kids, they are an awesome bunch. They won't be the same boys and girls you sent away almost nine days ago.

Tak went along to the Chief Scout's Luncheon with around 120 other Chief Scouts who have been awarded their badge this year.  Jo and I vetted his uniform and presentation last night and Tak organised cover for when he would be away from his patrol during the day. We borrowed a few things from amongst the troop to make sure he had some smarter pants, and a more modern shirt, but I felt like a proud uncle as he walked off to his appointment with the Scouting top brass as well as the top echelon of our political system, representing our group. Well done Tak.

He's become an aspirational goal for our Scouts and a number of them came up to us afterwards to ask just how they could get on the track to their own Chief Scout next year, a few of these were Scouts who'd expressed their intention to leave after the Jamboree.

Mike's patrol were chasing round Hamilton Gardens today, whilst our other patrols were busy making some fancy items and discovering some of the nooks and crannies they'd ignored in the early parts of the Jamboree when they were more focused on doing the 'big ticket item events'. They were also treated to an extra hour in bed as we wind down in an effort to gear ourselves up for the end of the Jamboree.

Some of the Scouts got organised to paint this fence post in a replica of the group jamboree scarf, that will be a permanent reminder of the group when it's erected at Hamilton Zoo sometime in 2011.

Here's hoping for the Gold Standard tomorrow, and the first of many more group camps using the skills we're learning now. See you all with your tired wee bunnies on the 7th.

Today's been a little more trying than usual, during the night we had a couple of the boys succumb to some kind of food poisoning. Matthew is back with us and healthy again, but Luke and Tom F are still in observation.

We think it's a case of bad burgers (this sunshine is harsh on food left out in the bush in the sun), but we may never find out what happened.

Two of the tents were isolated due to contamination, but I've hosed them down and disinfected them thoroughly. During the night (why do boys choose 3:40 am to wake to vomit?) we moved the unaffected boys to the marquee whilst we cleaned up. So our dining and chillaxing area looked a little chaotic before breakfast.

But by afternoon and dinner, everything was ship shape again.
Luckily two of the affected had parents here, with only Luke on his 'own'. The whole troop has rallied around and keep visiting the two boys who are a metre and half back from the isolation fencing as well as cheering them both up by making stuff at the activity bases and dropping it off to them.

Everyone else in our troop was out today as planned having adventures, and nothing else has developed with other troop members. Considering there are more than 4,000 young people here it's a wonder there aren't more illness outbreaks really.

Time is catching up with us all

the couch gets a battering some days,

as do the benches...

I have heard tell there's some delicious photos of leaders catching a few Zs,  I imagine they'll surface at the most embarrassing time too.

But still there's endless sunshine and some awesome food...

Here's Aidan posing in the canoes they made from a roll of Duct Tape and some coreflute from yesterday before the trots set in...

It's really time to get some sleep for me. So rather than talk too long, I'll bid you all adieu until tomorrow.

My phone died just now so no photos today, and we were wet through from start to finish so not much opportunity for posing with cameras today!

We were mucky bums today, we did a runner on our breakfast dishes which was not the most sensible thing to do for many reasons, not least of which it would have disappointed my dad. At least he's not here to see what a slob I was today as he's enjoying the winter sun in the UK.

Unfortunately the leaders pummelled the kids in every challenge today. We started by all having to make a raft float from three 20 litre containers and a piece of string. racing in pairs around two bouys, and relaying all our patrol back to the beach. Leaders 1, kids 4 patrols 0.

Lake Karapiro was mighty bracing at 10 am, but like most things refreshing and reminiscent of my favourite Brighton beach, just no pier. I think it was all down to the fifty metre lead that Darren and I set up for the leader patrol personally. Asi's awesome calf muscles seemed to get bogged down in the thigh deep mud around 30M out, and of course the Scouts were a little disadvantaged as they couldn't reach the lake-bed like Darren could for much of the route. Thanks for the drag Darren.

From there onto the Top Troop competition. We let them have this base to themselves. They had to fill a container with water, but had to transport it in some interesting and challenging modes. Samantha did an awesome job on the stretcher with the ice cream container on her tummy. Early on their ingenuity was almost disqualified as they resourcefully used one of their lunchbox lids to speed the progress of the water on the uneven wheeled trotting carriage section.

Asi set the benchmark for the tennis ball shot. Using bungy cords and a tennis ball we aimed for the pontoon on the lake from our cliff-side vantage point. None of the youngsters got very close to the distance, but they did take to aiming at the poor fellas retrieving the ammunition in the kayaks. Maybe that's why we only got two refills?

After lunch the leaders won the challenge, but the kids stayed the driest. Building a platform for our 5L bucket and filling it the fastest and having it be stable for a minute was easy for the leaders. But the kids had the last laugh as they found the wheelie bin full of water and distributed it over the leaders rather than filling their own buckets.

From there we went on to making canoes from a roll of duct tape and an 8X4 sheet of coreflute. (plastic corrugated card). The Scouts then had to navigate it around a buoy and back to the jetty. Andrew L-W was probably the lightest and most co-ordinated so was the first round the bouy and back. Once again as well as the task focus, there was a fair amount of malarkey in the water.

From here the 14 year olds peeled off on their own for an overnight adventure possibly on one of the islands in Lake Karapiro, where they are building their own bivvy and feeding themselves.

The 13 year olds were also separated for an introduction to Venturers and some paintball activities. Like most 13 year olds they came home late and woke up the young uns as they bounced through the gate having been allowed up late.

Mike B is hopefully taking off a patrol to Karamu caves as long as we can find enough thermal polyprops. I'm amazed how many kids have missed this and other items they've been asked to pack. Their excuse is always that they didn't think they'd need it and how unfair it is they can't do that activity. There's always something they learn from the disappointment though. I'm dreading the activity that asks for the ground-sheet I told you all we didn't need.

Hopefully tomorrow is a slower day than today, the kids and I are both looking forward to some chillaxing before the excitement of the last night and the sadness of saying goodbye to some of the new friends they've made.

There were a few tired faces this morning, and the kids didn't fare too well either.

After a lie in until 7:15 the duty patrol were roused (gently) to make the breakfast for the rest of the troop. It was a relaxed affair, and there was a fairly subdued and contemplative breakfast of Spaghetti, toast and the ubiquitous tinned fruit with cereal. I'm glad we're not having to peel all those glacé cherries.

Awesome snags for lunch: (hot dogs and rolls). Today definitely seemed much hotter than the other days, thankfully it's a little breezier today. I never thought we might miss the easterly like we do.

We've heard that Kate is safely out of surgery at the hospital and will make a speedy recovery, but may not make it back to take up the last two days of Jamboree. The on-site doctors and hospital staff made the right choices in getting her referred to the Hamilton Hospital. Unfortunately there have been two quarantined sites with possible gastro medical issues, they're on 24 hour lock-down in case the whole troop goes down with the same thing.

Some excitement today was that two patrols were invited out to dinner as guests of South Otago Troop, two patrols came to our mess for dinner. Everyone had fun and I'm proud to say that our troop stepped up and were awesome hosts, as well as being courteous and polite guests, with Will doing us proud in his giving thanks for the hospitality shown to our troop.

I'm sorry there's been no photos today, but the pace of things is beginning to get to all of us, and discretion is the better part of valour when it comes to getting some sleep.

Tomorrow is a big day for all of us, we're all off to Finlay Park as a whole troop. Most of our activities are based in our patrols. Every day two patrols go off site, whilst the other three stay on site and take part in 6 activities on-site. Finlay Park is the only day when we are all off-site together.

Following the day together our three 14 year olds are being whisked away by the Venturer team on an extension programme overnight in the bush near the park. The 13 year olds are not staying overnight but will take part in another evening treat activity that the younger ones are excluded from.

St Matts are our neighbours in Christchurch, and at Jamboree we are in adjacent sites. Tomorrow they'll keep an eye on our site while we're away, and collect and store our rations from the QM store on our behalf. Thanks for the support guys.

Hopefully your children are keeping in touch when they can, please txt me on 21 2 438 347 if you're hearing anything that concerns you, or if anything is going pear-shaped.

Tonight the Scouts were treated to a Tauranga 'rock' band after seeing the new uniform in the flesh for the first time ever. The new silver shirts looked awesome, and whilst there were a few groans (it looks like a boy's high shirt was one of the comments I overheard) most thought it a positive change and I personally am looking forward to wearing it as it's phased in from April 2011.

Do keep an eye on the Jamboree facebook page where Brenda and the media team are uploading lots of photos of our children having fun here in their first adventure of 2011.

Well it's nearly new year's day and we've had a big busy day here in the Hamiltron. Kate Enright is unfortunately off-site with possible appendicitis, John her father is a leader here and he's on tenterhooks waiting to hear what the outcome is. The med team are hopeful that if it is a surgery issue she could be back in a few days anyway.

On a brighter note, here we all are just before heading off to the international night and new year's eve party. Our subcamp colour is blue, and Malvern went along themed to the hilt. We may well feature as the most photogenic troop on the front of the Jamboree Newsletter. Even though we were the only troop to go in fancy dress, we had  blast and we certainly got noticed.

The international night followed another full-on day. Mike showed me photos of all his patrol fast asleep on the out-bound and in-bound coach rides to their day out on the wet and wild adventure. The Scouts are having a great time, but are beginning to tire, bedtimes are certainly getting quieter quicker.

I got out today with the rest of John's patrol whilst he was with poor Kate. We went to the Xhaust base and ended up smashing cars with sledge hammers (once again our smaller Scouts soon ran out of puff lifting the 10Kg hammer) Axe throwing (no one lost a finger) and a water fight with some Australians. We gave them a hiding as usual. It was awesome to see the Scouts hooning round the go-kart track on two-stroke motorised scooters and snowboards.

After a dinner cooked under some trying conditions (whoever in catering and menu design dept.  that thought fish cakes and potato chips cooked on a barbecue without resort to enough oil  to deep fry them was a good idea should be shot.) we went over to the International night to be entertained by some of the more than 500 Scouts from Australia, New Caledonia, Samoa, Hong Kong and our treasured Asi's homeland: The Cook Islands.

Almost two hours of songs, drumming, and haka were topped of by seeing Siosifa (our shy young Scout) up on the stage in front of 5,000 demonstrating how the Chinese handkerchief dance was done. An impressive task given that he'd only been taught how to do it 10 minutes before by Amy; one of the leaders from Hong Kong.

The Scouts enjoyed making a fair bit of noise and seeing the new year in under a rain of hundreds of balloons in the arena with some of that new-fangled rock'n'roll rubbish blaring from the sound system with some of their new found friends and peers.

A happy new year to you all from the Jamboree troop, and our thoughts and prayers are with the Enright family and Kate.

Have a hunt around on facebook for some more photos, as well as the links from the Scouts.org.nz sit. These stories also appear on our website at www.malvern.scouting.co.nz

And this was taken after the shower to get rid of the worst mess...

Sunset on day two, fingers reaching out to our Scouts from behind the clouds.

Well we're now fully into things with the Jamboree proper getting into full swing. Two of our patrols off the site today one to Hamilton Zoo (which is like Orana Park only closer, and the others to Waingaro for an adventure camp experience.

The other patrols spent their day getting muddy at Xperience (an army styled adventure activity) Xhaust (goodness knows what they were doing but they came back tired and wet) and Xtend.

As well as the adventure they've also been creative and our Leader John is re-living his youth in his newly created Tie-Dye T-shirt. He's hoping it becomes fashion again. Some of the leaders are hoping to revive Gonks, but somehow I doubt they'll take off like Tie-Dye did.

Dinner was a welcome sight, even though the chefs forgot to add the vegetables to the sweet and sour pork sauce. And we were almost swimming in vanilla ice-cream with our apple slices.

No one is sunburned yet, but one of the hats has been a casualty and Cas is now wearing a borrowed hat which is even less liked than the black ones they've been issued with.

John tells me that this is a Gum Emporor moth, and frankly I think it feeds on small birds. I don't want to live in the North Island if the moths are this big, I swear it's big enough to carry Andrew Limmer-wood off. Aidan did scream like a girl, but is calm now that it's gone on to terrorise another camp-site.

Tomorrow is new year's eve, and the following day we get a lie in, and a chillaxing day on-site to try a few things out without the travel after a late night.

Our two off-site patrols are going to Cambridge and to Jone's Landing. One race day, and one wet day and as Dave Dobynn said the outlook for tomorrow is good.

Caio parents, enjoy the time without them...