Summer news

Above/below : Flagbreak during the recent guide centenary camp


That's us into the summer holidays and things have started to quieten down a little bit (at least at weekends) after a pretty hectic few months.

After the really successful Fast Forward camp (see last post) there have been a few other big events including a weekend camp by Forth Valley guides to mark the 100th anniversary of guiding - with several hundred guides on site.



Above : Camping tip number 314 - always check that your new airbed will fit inside your tent before you go camping.

As with the Fast Forward camp, the guide one ran very smoothly - even with the car-parking on the friday and sunday which we'd thought would be a bit of a nightmare (most of the attendees were being dropped off by parents instead of by minibus). Despite a few busy moments, the car-parking system seemed to work well and everyone managed to arrive and depart with the minimum of delays.


Above : busy car-park as parents arrive to pick up their kids.

After the guide camp we also had a visit from a large Youth Theatre group who were basing themselves at Fordell whilst taking part in events nearby. Another good group and they got extra points by even supplying the staff with breakfast one morning which was a welcome change from the usual "50 for £1" Tesco value sausages which we normally have.

Activity-wise things have been very busy up until the past few weekends; the new King Swing has been popular and the centre has also purchased 2 additional Bell Boats which will be put to good use soon - now we have 3 in total so can cater for groups of around 30 in total.

Last sunday some of the staff had a rare trip off-site to put up a couple of marquees nearby at Townhill playing fields. Unfortunately they couldn't have picked a worse day for it as the wind was horrendous and despite trying to bravely put up one marquee they had to beat a hasty retreat for safety reasons and return the following day when things had died down a little.

Arriving back at the site conditions turned even worse which wasn't a good thing as another large guide group had just arrived to set up their camp. Lots of flattened and damaged tents and even one of the marquees was affected and had to be taken down for safety reasons, however after a few hours conditions improved a little and everyone could relax a little bit. Possibly the windiest weather ever seen at Fordell (in one instance the wet weather hall blew away and landed in someone's garden in Inverkeithing, and had to be brought back on a trailer on the monday).


Above : Hungry Henry having a good feed after being forced to run 75 consecutive low ropes sessions due to a staff shortage.



Above : 15 seconds later

And finally, it's time for the summer caption competition. Simply think of a witty caption, send it in to the usual address and the winner will win the contents of Craig's plastic container, sent by Royal Mail Special Delivery.

Fordell Fast Forward camp

Last weekend was the first ever Fast Forward camp, an event for older cubs (who are nearly ready to move up to Scouts) and younger scouts.

The weather was fantastic for the whole weekend and the event went really well; very tiring for all the kids and staff but everyone had a great time and it looks like the event will be run again regularly.

You can visit the official Fast Forward website to see what happened, and also read more about it on the Scottish Headquarters site (no point repeating everything here!).

Pop back soon for more news and updates, and hopefully the good weather will still be here.

Busy season again

The busy season's now officially here and the site's going to be pretty manic for the next few months after a nice quiet spell. Two weekends ago was the first real busy weekend of the year - with big camps from Leith District scouts and also Rosyth District, who were holding their annual St George's Day camp. It was also a busy weekend for the Fordell Fellowship as it was the AGM on the friday night - good attendance as usual and the usual mix of formalities (electing new committee for the next year) and socialising. Thanks go to Pete Merckel for doing a talk about the new Active Support structure (which the Fellowship will change to later in the year) and to Kev Mitchell for doing a really good talk about his work with the Ochils Mountain Rescue Team afterwards.

Both Leith and Rosyth districts had a great time and it was good to see everyone enjoying themselves. The Rosyth kids and adults had a trip away on saturday to the stock cars at Cowdenbeath - free entry but there was one catch which is that they'll have to go back and clean up litter after one of the race meetings in a few weeks time.



Above : Fielder not making much of an effort...


Above : Cub watches in horror as the ball heads straight through the staffhut door and hits Bob the warden.

As well as the 2 big camps there were the usual mix of smaller groups and day visitors, including a visit by the smallest sumo wrestlers yet seen at Fordell...


Above : the smallest sumo wrestlers in the world (probably)




Above : the biggest novelty sideburns in the world (apart from Noddy Holder's)

Other news - as mentioned in the last update the site now has a Bell Boat (soon to be two), and over a period of 3 days recently nearly 50 staff, volunteers and local leaders were trained up at Lochore Meadows to achieve their Bell Boat Helm award. The plan is to keep the boats at the Meadows most of the time, and for Fordell and also local groups to use them for groups of up to 20 participants. The course itself was much fun - everyone on it performed admirably and aside from a few minor mishaps (Brian guiding the boat over a huge buoy and getting it stuck underneath) everyone emerged unscathed and much the wiser.

No photos at present but we'll have some of the boats once they start getting used properly in a few weeks.

The next few weeks are pretty busy and then it's time for the first huge camp of the year, which is the Fordell Fast Forward - a camp for older cubs and younger scouts. Richard Fairbairn from Edinburgh is the camp organiser and has made up a great website for it, so why not have a look at the link above to find out more? Unfortunately all the spaces were filled a long time ago but there will be photos up during and after the event.

Finally it's time once again for the irregular and pointless photo competition. Just tell us who this shy chap / chapess is and you could win an original Fordell comb. Is it Kenny from South Park?

King Swing

Above : Kingswing shortly after completion.

It's been fairly quiet at the centre for the past few months in terms of groups and activities, but there's been lots happening in other areas, some more obvious than others.

The biggest change is that a huge medieval-like contraption has sprouted from the ground behind the Scottish Headquarters / Henderson building. We're not sure exactly where it came from, but maybe the wet weather and fertile soil had something to do with it?

On closer inspection it's actually a fully-working 'King Swing', which will add another roped activity to the centre once the staff have been trained up and assessed to run sessions. The idea is that one brave person is attached to a pair of huge metal cables which are suspended from the top beam, and the rest of the group hoist them up until they are almost at the top of the single pole at the back of the swing. The lucky test-pilot then pulls a release cord and hurtle down towards the ground, which they clear by a small margin before zooming skywards again.

From initial tests by some of the staff, the swing is amazing fun so looks likely to be a popular activity once it's up and running. One of the main reasons for building the swing is that it will be fully accessible and useable by disabled users, unlike a few of the other roped activities at present.


Above : Giant wedgie machine

The centre has also purchased a 'Bell Boat', and is in the process of purchasing another - these are 8-person boats approximately 30 feet long which are very stable and easy to use. They will hopefully be based locally and the idea is to train up lots of the staff and local leaders to provide a new water-based activity. These will also provide another activity which is suited towards individuals or groups with disabilities. No photos so far, but we'll have some from the first training sessions in a few weeks' time.


Above : Everything ready for Giant Jenga championships


Above : Scene after first round.

Other than than, a few less obvious changes have been made. The main store has undergone a complete transformation from the Aladdin's cave of before. A new racking system was installed recently and a forklift has been purchased for the centre. The main reason for this is to tidy up the main store area where most of the equipment and marquees are stored, and make them easier to access.

Over the past few months, the Fordell staff and Scottish Fellowship (who run the marquee service and organise other camps/events) have been in helping with the transformation. Everything's looking much tidier now and 4 people have been put through forklift training recently, 2 from Fordell and 2 from Scottish Fellowship.


Above : New racking system just after installation.



Above : Store looking way more tidy than before.

The busy season's nearly here again; from the end of April until July every weekend's busy with groups and activities. Before then there's some training organised for the Bell Boats, and also the Fellowship AGM in a few weeks time, so more photos and updates soon.

Happy New Year!

Hope you're all surviving the freezing weather!

The centre's now fully open again, with quite a few groups braving the icy conditions. The first group of the year were some mad explorers from Glasgow who turned up on the 2nd January for a weekend of activities (mostly indoors though) and a spot of sledging on flagpole hill.

The past few months have been pretty busy - here's a quick roundup of what's been happening.

November saw us holding two of our regular courses - GNAS archery one over 2 weekends and Brian & June's popular first aid course over 1 weekend.

We were also honoured to have a visit from Radio Scotland who came to record some material for one of their programmes : Bob became a star after being interviewed and there was also the excitement for the listeners of listening to crate climbing and pioneering on the radio!! What fun, you could really feel the tension as the scouts finished off their square lashings.

Into December and still busy in terms of groups. The staff treated themselves to a fancy new TV, after suffering with the old one for far too long. Plans to improve the reception by installing Sky Freeview were quickly dashed due to signal problems, but hopefully we can find a solution soon. Of course, it was also time for the annual Christmas Meal which was fantastic - this year we headed out for a spot of 10-pin bowling then back to the conference room for a great meal (courtesy of the new caterers) and a fab xmas quiz hosted by Claire & Lindsey.

There's another busy year ahead with a few new events - more updates soon but till then here's a random selection of photos from the past few months.


Above : the staff had to help a few cars out of the iced-up carpark in December


Above : Henry trying out his new sledge


Above : Foggiest day ever - Bob waits in vain at flagbreak for the scouts to arrive.


Above : How do his feet reach the pedals?


Above : Sleeping beauty


Above : Radio pioneering - Bob being interviewed about this exciting new extreme sport.


Above : Teambuilding in the rain.


Above : new staffhut TV, a huge improvement over the old one.


Above : Bob showing Brian how wide the well was which he found the donkey in.


Above : Fordell Christmas dinner 2009


Above : Ian tries for a new world record of some description.



Above : Stevie enjoying the traditional Christmas party games


Above : Luckily, Brian didn't seem to have suffered any serious damage.

JOTA 2009

Amazingly, that's a whole year since the last Jamboree On the Air (JOTA) so last weekend it was time for it again. The event was organised by Fordell's resident amateur radio club (KARS) who had been busy during the week setting up the equipment and rigging up a few temporary wire aerials in the trees.

Bases were set up in the reception building and Scottish Headquarters - this year there was a special website setup for the event which you can look at here.



Above : reception room busy on sunday afternoon


Above : Caught in the act...a couple of young scallywags try to hack into a US Military website during Jamboree-on-the-internet.


Above : Main man Richard feeling a bit camera shy

As well as the JOTA, the KARS guys have also been helping the centre a bit by making up vinyl vehicle stickers for the centre land rovers. Both vehicles are now looking splendid with custom signs as you can see from the photo below.



While the JOTA proved very busy, the rest of the site was fairly quiet in terms of activities and visitors. Most of the staff had decided to have a rare weekend off, apart from serial Fordell addicts Henry and Ali who weren't able to tear themselves away from the staffhut, cheap coffee and even cheaper food for even one weekend.

Saturday was pretty quiet and sunday we had a visit from an combined stag and hen party (?!) who had heard that the challenge course was good fun and spent a couple of hours falling off beams, getting stuck in tyres and finally having a shot of the climbing wall. Excellent group and they all seemed to have a great laugh, even if a few of them found some of the challenge course obstacles a bit challenging.

This weekend also looks like being quiet, next event coming up is (I think) the annual first aid course by Brian and June which we'll no doubt have some photos of here.

Bye for now!


Above : Things to do in the staff hut when you're bored #421 - play Pacman with Quorn slices and crisps.

Paddy the dog

Following a busy weekend a few weeks ago we received an email on behalf of the Tullibody guides, who'd had a camp and taken part in lots of activities on site. With them had been their official mascot, Paddy the dog, and as promised here are some photos of him taking part...(totally unedited of course...)


Above : Feeling left out as the guides all get to go crate climbing.


Above : Trying to drop some hints to the instructor.



Above : Harnessed up and ready to go.

We hope Paddy and the guides enjoyed themselves at Fordell and look forward to seeing them again soon.

Away from activities and there's been quite a bit of work going on at the centre. As mentioned a few months ago, the quad track has now gone and is gradually being turned back into a grassy camping area. The photos below give you an idea of how much it's changed (and these are a month or so old, so it should be looking even more different now). Now we're nearly into the winter season, there'll be a lot more time soon to spend on various projects and odd jobs around the centre, so look out for lots of exciting (?) photos here.


Above/below : old quad track before/after clearing and topsoil.


Despite the end of the summer, the weekends are still pretty busy for now- lots of groups either camping or popping in for activities. A mix of weather with a few cracking days and a few dreadful ones too.


Above : Don't leave animals in hot cars!

A couple of weeks ago we ran some activities for the Pentland Challenge, which was an activity camp based at Bonaly and organised/run by the Scottish Fellowship. Due to the large number of participants at the event, a few groups were brought over from Edinburgh on the saturday where they took part in some of our activities (climbing, jacobs ladder, challenge course, low ropes, etc).



Above : Craig discovers the chilli pepper which has been comically planted in his shepherd's pie.

After a particularly busy saturday, the staff retired for an enormous meal of shepherd's pie, only to be called into action immediately after it was discovered that one of the toilets in the toilet block had a bit of a problem. Brian was unanimously elected as chief toilet-unblocker while the rest watched and learned from a safe distance (the staffhut). The photo below gives an idea of the seriousness of the problem...


Above : No comment required.



Above : Brian telling an enthralled audience about his near-death encounter in the toilets.

That's all for now folks, as the blogmeister has to rush off to Dunfermline to help with his Explorers, but we'll be back in a couple of weeks with another update so stay tuned.

Disclaimer : no real dogs or fluffy animals were harmed during the making of this blog post.