Tonight our dragons, for the Chinese New Year Dragon Dance, started taking shape.

 

We had a different kind of night on Tuesday as it all involved kids playing games on electronic devices. It was really good. I was a bit worried they might have been bored or that everyone wouldn’t get a turn but they all seemed to enjoy the night. Everyone brought in their gadgets which was miraculous and we had two WII’s on the go with 4 controllers each, I think Mario Kart was on one and Mario Olympic games was on the other also the computers were all on in the office (after we managed to get them untangled and tidied up) so there were four at a time in there playing an on-line racing game. I had a report back from a beaver who joined us that night and he had a fantastic night! Brilliant fun and the leaders even managed to grab a cup of tea, a rarity indeed.

In a series of troop nights leading up to Chinese New Year, we’re looking at Eastern culture, starting with one of our nation’s favourite Chinese exports – their food! As part of our preparations for the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, we’ve been making stir fry, prawn crackers and, most of all, a mess.

This year’s Summer ‘Olympic’ Camp will take place from 4th – 11th August.

It’s week two of our Explorer Scout graffiti project. On week one we watched the channel four documentary Graffiti Wars and debated whether graffiti was art or vandalism. The programme looked at the battle between King Robbo, a famous freehand graffiti artist and Banksy the world renowned street artist. Freehand versus stencils which one is art? This week we made our own Banksy style stencils and sprayed them on to t-shirts. We also had a Baden Powell stencil that has found its way on to our garage wall. But is it art? Well it certainly was creative so you decide? Has Banksy been to visit our HQ? A mysterious rat has appeared in the garage.

We had a great day on Saturday at the District Cubs Christmas Party, it was Hollywood themed so all the adult leaders came dressed up as a character from a movie, or just comething Christmassy, around a quarter of the cubs were dressed up, there were a couple of Smurfs, a transformer, a few gangsters, several James Bond’s. pirates, police men and a few i didn’t recognise. There were over 100 cubs there and the event lasted 4 hours. I t was fantastic fun and all the cubs that attended had a great day.  7 cubs from our pack attended.  My camera only has a few of the photos on as we are waiting for them all to be put onto a disc so we can distribute them amongst the various packs, just check out these though of our Arthur Christmas Photo Base, it was fantastic!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alex organised a mad science night for the troop. We all had a chance to have a go at a series of experiments that proved that science can really be quite crazy. Home made glow sticks and what happens to liquid corn flour when you put it on a speaker were just two of our investigations that we did to help a mad scientist (is there any other kind) complete his experiments. Ran out of time to make our own electric motors. Maybe next week .

We had a fantastic visit to the Stadium of Light this week. We booked a tour and were shown around the grounds by a guide who seemed to know everything there is to know about the Sunderland footie team, what i know about football you could write on a stamp. The cubs were very interested in the pitch and got very excited when they were allowed to walk through the tunnel onto pitch side. We had been told earlier that all the footballers insist on having Jaffa cakes in the changing rooms and the cubs thought it was hilarious when they found two packets of Jaffas under the seats where the manager sits! I think their favourite part though was the changing rooms, they all posed next to their favourite players shirt and did a few exercises in the warmup room. A few of them conveniently needed the loo while we were in there but don’t worry, i didn’t get any pics or THAT! although i did get one of them in the bath??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cubs had fabulous fun at the Centre For Life outdoor Ice Rink ,it was brilliant to see them all having a go, not just the cubs though… oh no, lots of parents too! I have to say if there were a prize for the most dramatic skating of the evening it would be  a tie between Tom and Rhys for their constant and repeated efforts to look like an ice skating windmill… you can only imagine how many times they were on their knees on the ice, they were both  tremendous sports for carrying on but i bet they were covered in bruises bless! A few of the parents were a bit fearful but they all managed to stay upright mostly. Have a look at the pics.

 

 

 

Had a super night making smoothies with the cubs. We had 5 stations and each station had a smoothie recipe and a blender. The cubs went for it with gusto. The Spicy Tomato Juice was good to make as there were lots of ingredients to prepare but unfortunately it wasn’t the tastiest thing ever, we had a lot of sour faces and yeeuk’s! ha ha ha. The Fruit smoothie however was a roaring success and everyone drank every drop, definately a keeper.  A scout took most of the pics so we have a lot of veggie pictures with hands and no faces :0( but you will get the gist

 

RECIPES

 

FRUIT SMOOTHIE

450g strawberries-de stalked

1 banana-broken into bits

2 peaches-de stoned or 2 kiwi peeled

8fl oz orange, mango or apple juice

5-8 ice cubes

combine all ingredients into the blender, add juice, add ice last

 

SPICY TOMATO JUICE

8 lg tomatoes quartered

2 carrotts-trimmed

4 spring onions-trimmed

1inch piece of ginger root-peeled

1 red pepper-de seeded and cut into strips

4 celery sticks

feed the veg in the order listed through a blender/juicer, serve with cracker or celery stick