New Facilities

Above : New 10-pin bowling alley

Observant visitors may have noticed a few wee changes on site recently - one fairly obvious and one hidden away discretely.

The old rifle range, which has been lying dormant for the past decade (this activity not taking place anymore) has been converted into a 10-pin bowling alley to provide a new self-supervised and all-weather activity.

The range (at the side of the main store) has been used for a variety of purposes since then, mostly storing wood, random bits of metal and lots of useless things. The roof had suffered a bit and so this has been mostly replaced to make it weatherproof again. With help from a number of volunteers, the range has been cleared and converted into the bowling alley, complete with fantastic hand-made skittles.


Above : Beavers entranced by spooky glow from outer space

A couple of local beavers were happy to assist with the obligatory opening / photoshoot, and achieved very respectable scores too.

The 10-pin bowling is now available for use by site visitors and can be booked by the hour, often at short notice...and Ian has added further details and rules on the main website (www.fordell-firs.co.uk)


Above : After a hard day's work, Bob finds out that some young scallywags have stolen his house and are removing the floor joists for a campfire

The more obvious change is near to the reception / vending machine area - you may remember the old triangular house (The Sheiling) which was used by various full-time staff and which was demolished several years ago. Well, nearly demolished - the foundations were left and it was suggested that they could be used to make a wooden stage which would both provide a useful facility and also make the area look a bit nicer too.


Above : Nearly finished - service team working on stage

As luck would have it, there happened to be a very large team of explorers on site on the weekend the wood arrived who were super-keen to take part in a service project. The team were from all over Scotland and are training for a trip to Malaysia, where they will take part in a number of large service projects, including building new buildings to help local people.

After an amazingly short time, the huge stage was finished and the troops had well-deserved break. It's planned to use the stage for the first time during the big Festival camp in a couple of weeks (Guides) so we'll put up some photos here. After that it's planned to erect a small marquee/gazebo on top and use it as a tea-tent / relaxation area for the campers.

That's all for now, but here are a few piccies from recent weekends - with lots of groups enjoying the great weather.


Above : Leader cheats by using perspective and standing on a tree to get past tricky bit of route


Above : Young scout is sent up to carry out weekly fire-bell test


Above : Fordell crate thief caught red-handed

Better late than never!

Apologies for the delay in updating the blog recently - normal service has now been resumed after a few problems involving missing photographs, a missing memory card adaptor and a large toolbox being dropped onto an important network cable and severing the connection.

Here's a quick update of what's been happening on (and off) the site over the past month...

Bob and Ali took a short trip down to Gosforth Park in Northumberland to promote the centre, and Scottish Scouting, at the Lookwide Marra 2008 camp which was held on the 23rd-26th May. This was a special activity camp to celebrate 100 years of Scouting in Northumberland, and shared its name with that of the original camp which had been originally held there by Baden Powell all those years ago.


Above : Promotional stand at Gosforth Park

The camp was very well attended and featured a massive range of activities and events for all ages. The Fordell staff manned a promotional stand (this time using the Scottish Headquarters multimedia trailer) over the weekend and generated lots of interest, as can be seen in the photos. Lots of promotional material was handed out and hopefully this will lead to visits to Fordell in the future from a number of new groups.


Above : Bob finally finds some people who haven't heard his 'Donkey and the well' story before.

Meanwhile back at Camp Fordell, the rest of the staff were looking after the site under the guidance of assistant wardens Claire and Stevie. In Bob's absence, their duties included running the leaders' meeting, organising the activities for the weekend and telling the 'Donkey and the well' story at flagbreak on sunday to everyone who had heard it before anyway. Everything seemed to go very well, even though it was a hectic weekend, and all the groups went away happy again.


Above : Bobby Ball

The last couple of weekends have also been incredibly busy and well-supported by staff - with some pretty good weather thrown in too. The weekend of the 31st/1st saw us welcome two big scout groups from Ireland, one of whom had caught flights at 4am in order to come over! There was a great atmosphere on site and most of the groups on site attended a big campfire on the saturday evening - possibly not the best thing to have on a hot summer night but as soon as the sun disappeared most people were grateful for it.

The busy season is well underway now - and thoughts are starting to turn to the 2 big camps which are coming up next month; the Guides Festival camp and Young Firefighters camp which will run back-to-back with around 800 at each. More updates here soon, as well as highlights, news and irrelevant photos from the forthcoming weekends :->


Above : Busy campfire full of Irish and Scottish groups.





Above : Which one's the mop? Bob and Callum waiting to clean the toilets.

Roped-activity assessments

Above : Trying out a few new ideas on the abseil wall

Each year, all the staff and volunteers who instruct roped acitvities have to undergo an assessment/workshop in order to confirm that they are still competent and also to review each of the activities and look at ways in which they may be modified or improved.

This year there were two sessions run on tuesday and wednesday night due to the numbers involved. The sessions are carried out by the centre's technical advisor, Steve Spalding, who has helped us for a number of years now. Steve is an MIC-holder who has many years of experience working both at national centres such as Glenmore Lodge and also running his own company, High Expectations, near Pitlochry, and has climbed extensively throughout the UK and abroad.


Above : Coco was the first person to try blindfolded crate-climbing (hence the misaligned crates)

The first session was quite a busy affair - possibly due to a certain minor football game which was being played the following evening in Manchester. As a bonus for the participants, a noisy group of Guides happened to be on site and were found to be ideal 'test-pilots' to use in the session (normally staff have to practice on other staff and tend to be a bit too quiet and well-behaved).


Above : Ian combining his two hobbies of crate climbing and highland dancing

Wednesday evening saw another good turnout from those who didn't really care about the football, and again the weather was perfect, if a little chilly.

The activities covered were abseiling, crate-climbing and climbing (on the tower). The basic setup of each of these was found to be fine, but Steve gave us a number of suggestions as to how we can modify the rigging and the way in which the sessions are run in order to make it easier for the staff and also more fun for the groups taking part.


Above : Technical advisor Steve doing his Bruce Forsyth impression

There was a slight feeling of smugness amongst the staff during the crate-climbing session when it transpired that Mr Spalding, although being an immensely experienced climber, was a mere beginner at the wonderful world of crate climbing - although after a few tips from the staff he soon got the hang of it. Although it is a popular activity in the Scout and Guide world, it seems it has yet to catch on elsewhere and it may be a while till it is featured in the various climbing award schemes!
It was also suggested that one way of adding a bigger challenge to the crate-climbing (for our regular visitors) would be to do it blindfolded. Coco volunteered and declared that it was much more difficult than usual but fun nonetheless (see photo above).

Steve should be coming back again in a few weeks' time in order to assess the other roped activities (Jacob's ladder and zipline) and in the meantime the staff will have the chance to try out their new techniques and ideas on visiting groups as usual.

St. George's Day / Fellowship AGM

Above : So many at flagbreak they couldn't all fit in the photo!

Probably the busiest weekend this year with around 600 people visiting the centre over the weekend - 300 residential and another 300 (mostly beavers) having a day visit. There were 13 groups with the largest being Rosyth District who held their annual St George's camp. Fancy dress seemed to be a popular theme for some reason, with some close competition between the local (cub) sea scouts who spent the whole weekend in a second world war theme, and the local explorers who had not one but four separate disguises for the weekend, including santa ones.


Above : Archive photo of local cub sea scouts being evacuated during WW2

The staff had a great start to the weekend with a huge cooked breakfast on saturday morning - unaware that they had accidentally eaten all the Exporers' sausages which they had been keeping in the staff freezer. After everyone had finished laughing about it (except the explorers of course), a trip to Tesco was made to replenish supplies.


Above : Due to a slight calendar problem, the local explorers turned up for their Christmas party exactly 8 months early. Note hungry look on their faces from lack of breakfast.

After a full day of activities, most of the groups attended a campfire whilst the staff held the Fellowship AGM in the reception building. In traditional form, there was a review of the past year by committee members plus Bob, followed by the election of a new committee for the following year. One X-factor-style voting session later, a new(ish) committee was in place and it was time to relax, indulge in the buffet and socialise for a while (until it was time to clean the toilets). The new committee will look after a huge range of tasks on behalf of all the volunteer staff, including finance, recruitment, publicity and organising various events.

That's all for now folks, just a few more snapshots of the weekend (except the sausage one, which was taken several months ago but which I've added in order to taunt the explorer scouts)


Above : Beavers busy preparing their entry for this year's Turner prize.


Above : Dave tries to recruit some new Fellowship committee members ahead of the AGM



Above : New site activity - Lorne sausage pioneering


Above : Blair Atholl selection day - spectacular accident during spacehopper race.

Sausages and the Stig

Above/below : Children's Holiday Venture participants learning backwoods cooking skills.


A distinct absence of campers this weekend, except for the usual local Scouts who seem to be completely unaffected by cold weather or hardship. Both accomodation buildings were fully booked though, which kept everyone busy on the activity front.

A Boys' Brigade group were staying in the Henderson Building, whilst the Children's Holiday Venture from Edinburgh were in the Richmond Chalet. The CHV have been long-term users of the centre and are a charity which is run entirely by students from Edinburgh University. They provide a range of social events for children from deprived areas, and have held camps at Fordell for many years.

Saturday was fairly busy with numerous on-site activities; the BB's trying out the new BMX skills course and inflatable gladiators/sumo, while the CHV took part in archery and crate climbing. This was the first time some of the children had tried these activities and they had a great time, the crates in particular proving popular.


Above : The birthday BBQ was going splendidly until Mr Rain decided to gatecrash. Luckily the 2 stranded sausages were rescued by the staff.

The lack of campers gave the staff the luxury of having a night off from having to clean the toilets, and an extra half-hour of relaxation in the staffhut.

Onto sunday and a few day visits kept things busy with two kids birthday parties. One of them braved the weather for a barbeque next to the wet weather hall, which went well until the weather forced everyone to flee. Luckily for the staff though, they forgot to take their sausages and rolls with them, so the evening meal problem was swiftly solved.


Above : Bob and Henry practice for the World Curling Championships.

In between and after activities, a few other projects were worked on - Fordell's own ginger 'Stig' went up to the quad track to try to get some helmet-cam footage, which was moderately successful after a number of technical difficulties. After learning not to unplug the video cable during the run, the Stig and team managed to get some reasonable footage of a flying lap which will appear on the blog shortly (after certain file conversion problems have been overcome...).

Later in the evening, a few of the staff who had no homes to go to had an enjoyable session on the new(ish) bouldering wall in the wet weather hall, trying to make up a range of new bouldering routes. After a couple of hours of hard grafting, a range of routes were created ranging from easy to impossible, and an official guide shall no doubt be made up shortly before groups start using the facility.


Above : Human spider Stevie hangs over a vertiginous 50mm drop

Zipline training

Above : making the most of the (slightly) lighter evenings

With the daylight hours now starting to creep further into the evenings, Bob took advantage and held a zipline training session for some of the staff on the Monday. Roped activities are assessed yearly by the site's technical adviser, and it was a good opportunity to brush up on technique before they happen again in the next month or two.

4 staff turned up - Colin (Coco), Neil, Barrie and Scott (Ginga). After half an hour in the office going over all the equipment (and checking the kettle was still working), the team headed up to the zipline to make the most of the remaining light. The zipline platform itself is not the roomiest of places, so it was only possible for 2 at a time to climb up and practice setting everything up.


Above : Coco helps Barrie with his escapology act

After a highly productive hour or so, the light started to fade quickly and it was time to make a quick exit, making sure that no equipment was left lying around for the squirrels to play with. Ginga had made a rather hasty retreat from the top platform after complaining of feeling ill, but luckily made it safely to the ground without any major incident.



Above : Coco deep in thought.


Above : Ginga downclimbs briskly after feeling slightly ill at the top.

The staff are planning several other training sessions over the next few weeks for the zipline and other activities such as the Jacob's ladder - and there are also plans to get some exciting headcam footage of most of the activities which will no doubt make its way onto the blog soon (previous plans to upload first-person-footage of the challenge course had to be cancelled when Callum fell off the easiest obstable, ruining the video and almost ruining the headcam...)

Winter wonderland

Above : Local scouts awake to find themselves magically transported to Narnia

Just when it looked like the summer days were nearly here again, along came an unexpected weather front which left the whole site with a light dusting of snow. The first person to witness the snow was a certain un-named Fellowship member (not a million miles away from here) who decided to pop outside at the unearthly time of 7:15am in order to take some photographs of the snow for the blog. Unfortunately for him, the other staff (who were all soundly sleeping in the hut) had neglected to inform him that they had changed the code for the combination lock on the front of the staffhut, and thus the intrepid photographer found himself locked outside in the freezing cold for some considerable time until he could be rescued.
Henry, who is normally up at the crack of dawn, unexpectedly decided to treat himself to a long lie, and thus it was not until ten past eight that our hero finally made it back into the warmth of the hut.


Above : Trying to thaw out the flags before flagbreak.

As the snow deepened, most of the morning activities were cancelled - even flagbreak, although some intrepid scouts decided to go ahead with it anyway. The Airdrie scouts who were staying in the Richmond Chalet made the most of the snow, which included pelting their leaders (and the Chalet) with snowballs before they were marched back inside.

Above : Airdrie scouts making the most of the disappearing snow.


Above : Luckily there was plenty of work to be getting on with in the staffhut.


Above : Scott of the Antarctic

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the snow disappeared and the sun came out. By this time, most of the groups were packing up to go home, although some of them did manage to take part in a few of the site activities.


Above : the sun waited until the last group had left before making a grand return.

The staff, meanwhile, got on with a few more interesting task, including the one which they had avoided all weekend. During the week, a large squad had made a trip to Edinburgh to collect lots of equipment and furniture from a school which is closing down - and had returned with a wooden rowing boat which they planned to put in the playpark.



Above : Captain Bob and his loyal crew set sail for the playpark

Led on by the fearless Captain Bob, the crew swiftly moved the boat to its mooring in the middle of the play area, ready for lots of pint-sized pirates to play with in the future.


Above : safely docked and waiting for some kids to arrive