Histon Scouts navigate the Warwickshire Ring
Camping is an Article of Faith for some Scouts. Histon Scouts like to think outside the box though, and replaced Summer Camp this year with a trip on narrow boats around the “Warwickshire Ring” canal system. Seventeen boys and three girls, packed into two 75ft boats along with four leaders accepted the challenge to circumnavigate the county in seven days at the same 4mph that has been the speed limit since the 1850’s. The Scouts themselves voted for a 5am start on the Wednesday to get to Drayton Manor Theme Park by lunchtime.
Going clockwise from Rugby, the hard work was all in the first three days, including the famous Hatton Flight of locks, bumping up the total for Tuesday to twenty-five locks. A seven O’clock start meant the Hatton Flight was polished off in the morning, with crew “helpfully” provided to some other boats to speed their way through the locks ahead of the flotilla. Histon Scouts are not Sea Scouts – but working together on a cramped vessel is a particularly intense work and play environment, and something that the Scouts will remember and cherish for a long time. Crew on each boat were divided into two watches each, led by thirteen year old “Patrol Leaders”, swapping between working watch and cooking watch on a daily basis. Working like this meant continuous travel for up to twelve hours a day at the beginning. The troop plans to do canal trips every three to four years.
Boats are dangerous for the untrained. Free spinning lock keys break arms. Falling in the water around locks can result in crush injuries and being sucked under. Scouting is special; there are few organizations that can consistently take kids out on an experience like this and know that they will come home safe, happy, and better for the experience. Scouting teaches teamwork and responsibility and self-reliance and is one of the best ways for kids to gain these skills safely.
Three new Scouts were invested in the theme park. Boiling the ceremony down to its basics, they made their promise in uniform, with a hand on the group flag—but in this case, while either upside down, in freefall, or getting soaked! Always pushing the envelope and trying to do new things, this particular experience made some of the old hands ask to be chucked out of the troop so that they could rejoin in such a cool way!
In order to complete a truly Scouting experience, the trip also included two evenings of canoeing on the canal, and a trail for the Scouts to follow one evening; in this case, a mocked up murder and a trail of ever-sparser fake blood through a housing estate and a bog in Solihull, with evidence to collect along the way. In free moments during the day, Scouts sketched the wildlife, and worked on meteorologist, power coxswain, navigator and other badges. The Scouts decompressed at the end of the week with a water fight for several hours between the two boats, including water bombs dropped from foot bridges.
This trip won’t mean a long gap in the troop's camping. Two patrols went out by themselves in June and July, there are competition events in September and October, and the troop plans to go to the same famous Winter Camp in January 2011 that made headlines in the snow this year. 1st Histon Scout Troop runs through the Summer, with normal meetings about half strength.
The Scout Association is reporting record growth nationally, with Chief Scout Bear Grylls, and official ambassadors like Chris Evans getting the message out. They welcome girls and boys from 6-25 years old, and have been fully co-educational since 2007. Scouting in Histon is growing fast and is limited only by the number of adult volunteers. The troop (for 10-14 year olds) has grown 30% in the last year and will shortly reach capacity. Younger sections already work from a “joining list”. The new Explorer Scout section (14-18) is only half full as yet, but is filling fast. 1st Histon Scouts are keen to provide a great experience for adults too, and have run crate stacking and canoeing for parents and helpers over the Summer.