Dunfermline District Camp

As promised, here's some photos from the District Camp - there are also loads more on the main Fordell website (thanks to Ian), so have a look there afterwords.

The weather was generally great for the whole weekend - friday night stayed dry as all the groups arrived. Most of the tents/marquees/equipment had already been set up beforehand so things went pretty smoothly. Groups started arriving from 6pm onwards, and by around 8:30pm everyone was assembled at the campfire circle for the opening ceremony.

Saturday morning saw lots of excited hyperactive cubs and scouts up incredibly early (some at 5am!), playing football and waking up the leaders, although strangely this didn't happen on the sunday morning and they seemed reluctant to get up.

The main camp programme consisted of lots of different activities on saturday and sunday morning/afternoon, as well as an arena show at saturday lunchtime, a bazaar saturday evening and a campfire again on the saturday night. During the weekend groups had the chance to take part in the usual site activities as well as offsite ones (watersports, quad biking, etc) and other one-off bases.

Here's a selection of photos from throughout the weekend, enjoy.


Above : arriving at camp. Bonus point if you can spot Henry!





Above/below : Opening campfire.

Above : Many of the scouts quickly made new friends from other groups.

Above : An eager crowd gather in anticipation of the old donkey story on saturday morning.

Above : groups enjoying the good weather before the arena show

Above : Firemen getting ready to rescue invisible man from crashed car.

Above : Craig leads a team of scavengers to try and salvage some spare parts for his own car after the show.

Above : Bob realises the pitfalls of buying a used car on Ebay.

Above : Aerobics session just about to start up.

Above : Fordell staff busy with popcorn/candyfloss sales.

Above : Gladiator action

Above : One of the more popular bases on the saturday night.

Above : Camp leader John trying out his fantastic new mic stand, as the staff wonder where the bit off their hoover has gone.

Above : Hovercraft looking a bit bruised after some poor drivers/pilots on the saturday.

Above : The mystery of the disappearing popcorn is finally solved.

Above : much better fire on the saturday night!!!

Above : Honda Pilots, in one of the nearby fields.

Above : an exclusive for the camp - the world's largest working guitar effects pedal.

Above : Scouts busy in the radio club hut.

Above : Yoda and friends at the closing ceremony.

Busy season again

Above : Groups busy setting up in advance of District camp this weekend

Well, that's us well into the busiest part of the year - most weekends for the past month or so have been pretty hectic with a huge number of groups visiting and taking part in activities. Most weekends have seen around 12 staff in to help out (some weekends with nearly 20 over the whole weekend!) but luckily the weather's been fantastic in general, although maybe a wee bit hot for some of us.

This weekend sees the biggest event of the year, a centenary camp for Dunfermline District Scouts with nearly 800 expected in total. Most groups have already been in to set up their tents and equipment in advance so that they can just turn up on friday and get started with the programme. The site's looking pretty good; the dry spell has helped dry out the notoriously wet areas although some other bits of the grass have suffered a bit with the heat which will make it hard to get tentpegs in!



Above : Group which drew the short straw and got stuck next to the infamous burst water pipe...


The new grasscutter arrived a few weeks ago and has been much in use already - we should have a few action photos here soon for all you machinery freaks out there. We bid a sad farewell to the trusty old tractor, but wish it well for its future life.

Aside from the usual activities, there have been a few other events recently including the annual Gibb Bugle and Totem camping competitions for Dunfermline and Rosyth district scouts respectively. These are both run together to maximise the use of leaders/judges, and over a period of 2 days patrols from each group are tested in a variety of ways to give them the chance to show how good they are at campcraft, cooking, mapwork, gadgets, etc. A good weekend seemed to be had by all, the only downside being event leader Graeme having a freak accident which resulted in a broken ankle so we wish him a speedy recovery.


Above : Scouts laughing at one of Mr Ness's rubbish jokes during the camping competition (not)

Above : building a camp gateway

Above : scouts working out an escape route from the camping competition to the 10-pin-bowling complex at Halbeath

Above : Cutting some cheese for the world's largest toastie

Another new sight at Fordell is a curious monument which has appeared on the front lawn (next to the Richmond Chalet). This is going to be the centenary cairn and will be comprised of individual stones which have been donated by scout districts and areas across Scotland. The work is being carried out by a leader from Edinburgh who is also a stonemason (and some of his scouts), and is pretty much finished now - just awaiting the arrival and attachment of individual metal plaques which will go on each stone to show who donated. If you're on the site, why not have a wee wander and check it out?

Above : enormous jigsaw puzzle

Above : Team just about to get started on the cairn

Above : mixing up some porridge for Bob's breakfast

Above : (Nearly) finished centerary cairn looking good - just waiting for plaques.

Lastly, a fantastic free competition for you all to take part in.

Just answer the following question and you could win a wonderful Fordell Firs comb.

Q. Who is this well-known local leader who is trying to hide his identity during the camping competition?

Send your entries to :

Murray Thompson Competition

c/o Fordell Firs

The first winner picked out will receive a free comb (but will require to pay courier charges of £25.95 before despatch).

That's all for now, but we'll have another update next week with lots of photos from the district camp.

Have fun and look back soon.

Flagbreak fun

Above : Pipers head to flagbreak

Lots of photos in this update (at no extra cost to you) to make up for the lack of an update for a wee while.

Over the past few weeks visitors to the site have also had an extra bit of added value as Bob has put on not one, but two fantastic flagbreaks on sunday mornings.


Above : The famous £5 note story in full flow

First up was a fun-filled-3-in-1-flagbreak featuring not only the fantastic £5 note story, but also the yearly reenactment of Zulu (Bob's favourite film) AND a visit from Boghall pipe band, who were staying in the Henderson centre. After the pipers played a few Scottish tunes, the groups were divided into 2 (Zulus and British Army) and commenced a brief but exciting battle with some predictably bad acting from both sides.


Above : Carnage after the first Zulu battle

Onwards 2 weeks and word had spread of the fantastic flagbreak so Bob was obliged to re-run the Zulu show for another group of campers. Not only that, but it was also one of the young Edinburgh scout's birthdays, so a brief celebration was added into the running order as well.


Above : World's highest scout belt? Or lowest headband.


Above : Birthday scout getting congratulations from everyone at flagbreak


Above : name the staff members


Above : victorious pipers leaving flagbreak after defeating both the Zulus and British Army

Apart from breaking flags, there's been lots more happening on site. More groups are starting to camp now and the good weather has meant that lots of activities have been running. Some local explorer scouts became the first ever to be invested at the top of the zipline platform (photos below), and last weekend the St. Andrews scouts attempted to build a replica of the Forth Road Bridge at a scale of 1:1.

Work-wise, it's been busy - last weekend's main project was to built a fence round the jacob's ladder, which was going perfectly until someone (who shall remain nameless but who may happen to appear in a photo below) burst the main water pipe to the field whilst drilling a hole for a fencepost. Luckily everyone's used to dealing with such incidents (some more than others), so although it did delay things for a while it's not a major problem. Hopefully the slats and door should be added to the fence soon - in the meantime enjoy the rest of the photos.


Above : Zipline initiation 1


Above : zipline initiation 2 - the smell of fear



Above : Newly invested explorer leaps from the platform to collect his celebratory wedgie


Above : Luckily, there wasn't a water pipe under here



Above : But unfortunately there was here...



Above : The real source of the staff hut coffee is finally revealed



Above : Jacob's ladder fence - halfway there



Above : St Andrews scouts/explorers midway through their huge monkey bridge

Zipline training

Hot on the heels of the climbing assessments, it was time for a similar session on the zipline last sunday. Steve Spalding popped down again and luckily the weather decided to behave itself for a change and everything went ahead as planned. 4 staff were getting trained/assessed and spent almost 7 hours in total trying out different setup techniques, practicing rescues and occasionally hanging around in an uncomfy harness because the rest of the group had forgotten about them (Coco). Stopping only for a brief lunchbreak (Morag's fantastic homemade soup being a welcome alternative to the usual Tesco Value cold meat sandwiches), the team headed straight back up to continue the session, although some had a bit trouble climbing back up the pole as they had eaten far too much. At the end of the day, everyone had learned a huge amount and felt much more confident about dealing with any unusual situations which may arise during zipline sessions in the future.


Above : Rescue practice


Above : Siamese twins


Above : Ginga getting a few tips from Steve


Above : Reinforced ground anchor

Meanwhile, back at basecamp, Brian had assembled a crack team of joiners, firefighters and general layabouts to try to add a new (free) conservatory to the front of the hut. He'd managed to pick this up from his neighbour, but unfortunately had forgotten what it was supposed to look like by the time he brought it to Fordell. After almost an hour of muttering and arguing, the team had worked out how the roof went together. Something then clicked, and within a whirlwind couple of hours the rest of it flew together. Although there wasn't time to fit the glass panels last week we managed to finish everything off this weekend - despite Ginga having a horrific accident when he plummeted from a 2-inch-high paving slab onto the ground. The final conservatory fits in pretty well with the existing hut and we look forward to testing it out during the summer months ahead.


Above : Brian tries to remember what it looked like before he took it to bits



Above : Colin boasts about the size of the fish he caught last week



Above : Unfortuntely Henry reveals that he caught a bigger one



Above : opening the window for a wee bit fresh air



Above : nearly finished

Staff makeover

Above : modelling the snazzy new jackets before flagbreak on saturday morning.

After a few years of everyone wearing randomly coloured outdoor gear at weekends, things have now got a bit more coordinated after a large consignment of superb outdoor jackets and gillets arrived last weekend. It was agreed a few months ago by the Fordell Board & Bob that it would be beneficial if the volunteers could have some new outdoor gear provided in an effort to look better to visitors and also to keep them a bit warmer and drier during bad weather. After a meeting with local firm Keela, who provided us with a great offer, most of the staff took up the option of ordering new gear and duly collected it last weekend.

Despite a few sizing problems things seem to be sorted out now and the new gear seems hugely popular.


Above : Testing out the new jackets on an unlucky person (guess who) during sunday's downpour.

Soon after getting the jackets, the weather took a turn for the worse and gave some a chance to see how waterproof they really were.


Above : A narrow victory for the rain as the staff rush to the safety of the hut.

Saturday morning was fairly busy mainly due to a rearranged visit by Skillforce, who had cancelled a recent trip due to bad weather. A 3-hour activity block in the morning gave some of the fellowship who had recently passed their climbing assessments a chance to get in some supervised group experience, while the rest got stuck into a few odd jobs (and coffees).


Above : Zipline training on sunday was cancelled for fairly obvious reasons.

Saturday afternoon was much quieter until some silly person (not a million miles away from typing this blog) suggested it would be a good time to take all the mountain bikes out and give them a check. After taking over 10 minutes just to remove them from the activity store, it soon became apparent that it would be a fairly time-consuming task to service them all, so those needing work done were marked and moved elsewhere and the rest given a clean and routine service. Now we should have enough decent bikes to cope with normal weekend hires, and can work on the rest at our leisure as time permits. The bike store is also hugely less cluttered which should cause much less problems in the near future.


Above : the enormity of the task suddenly dawns on Tom


Above : Tom tries to make a quick escape while the others are busy testing the bikes.



Above : what we made with all the leftover bits of bikes.

After the bikes it was time for saturday tea, with half the fellowship staying on site to make up bags of sweets for the shop and the other half having an exciting trip to the centre of world motor racing (Cowdenbeath Racewall) for the stock cars. As soon as the stock cars finished, an amazing mini-hurricane hit Cowdenbeath, soaking those silly ones who hadn't bothered to wear their new jackets. The campsite was also hit by the freak weather, with one group's tent being blown away and the radio club having some of their wire antennas in the trees being blown down by the high winds.


Above : Ali and Ginga seconds before being caught skiving by Bob.

Onwards to sunday morning and it quickly became clear that the planned training session for the zipline wasn't going to happen, as the freaky weather continued with some snow. After struggling to think of something to keep everyone busy,Stevie hit upon the idea of testing out the new pool table which had recently been donated to the centre(and is now in the reception building). However, this plan didn't last longer than 5 minutes as Big Bad Bob appeared and insisted that everyone head out into the freezing cold and rain and move some wood from the carpark to the woodpile (and we couldn't use the excuse about not having decent waterproof gear anymore).


Above : near disaster as tired Calum falls asleep inside the bouncy castle and gets rolled up inside it on sunday afternoon.

The rest of sunday was quiet in terms of activities, so everyone got stuck back into the bikes again and managed to service / repair about 6 more which was good going.

The past few weekends have also been pretty productive - here's a few photos of some of the action. The biggest task was to load most of the (900ish) old quad track tyres into a lorry and take it up to another outdooor centre a couple of weeks ago. Despite initial optimism that we could get them all in one load, it quickly dawned on everyone that this would be impossible and several runs were required (thanks to Brian for driving it up and down)

Above : Lorry full of tyres and still several hundred left to go...

Steve Spalding also popped in a couple of weeks ago to carry out assessments for the climbing and jacob's ladder, and the sessions went very well with a great attendance from the fellowship. There were also a lot of newly-qualified rope instructors which will be a huge help during the summer, and since then some of them have been back in getting some group practice under supervision before they are allowed to start running sessions themselves.

This weekend Steve's hopefully back again to carry out assessments the zipline (weather permitting) so hopefully we'll have a wee report up here shortly.


Above : this month's caption competition (winner will receive a trendy extra-tight harness like the one Calum is modelling here)