Official online magazine of Scouting Ireland August 2013 Camp One Patrols Took Control! Explorer Belt 2013 in the Sunshine in Spain! Venture Scout Challenge in the Sunshine In Ireland! And lots lots more! Communications Commissioner Intro Welcome to this month’s issue of Inside Out. This month Ireland experienced one of the best July’s weather wise on record. Our Photographers were out and about at all the Scout Events which took place in beautiful Weather. We Feature all the goings on at Camp One – Patrols in control. This was a camp to rembember ran by the Patrol Leaders. We also travel to Northern Spain to follow the explorer Belt teams as they completed their challenge.. Also at the end of the month the Venture scouts took to the roads and lakes around the Midlands to participate in the Venture Scout Challenge 2013. Also our Rover Scouts had the official launch of the World Scout Moot contigent which are all set to head to Canada to attend this event. So it was avery active an busy month in Scouting Ireland.This month as in every month we feature many articles and Pictures from all around the Country as groups get out and about. So what are you waiting for get your group or county event featured. We are making it easier for you to submit your article and pictures. We now have a dedicated page set up to enable you to make a submission Just click here and fill in the details. Lough Dan Page 29. If you have any Queries please contact us at [email protected]. Please forward this month’s issue to all Scouters and Youth Members in your group. Don’t presume they have got it. Deadline for next month’s issue is 31st August. See you next month! - The Communications Team In this issue... Quote of the Month Camp One 3 “The open-air is Explorer Belt 8 the real objective of Challenge 2013 12 Scouting and the key New Beaver to its success” Commissioner 16 Baden Powell Mountain Moot II 31 Camp One WipeOut Zone Camp One took place in Larch hill Inernational Campsite over 5 Days and is the This Zone challenged all the Patrols in both Skill and first of 5 camps that will take place over the next five years. These camps are Teamwork. Really Fun Zone in fact it was a total Wipe aimed at giving the patrols the control with the Patrol Leaders leading the way. Out. This camp proved to be a big success with a very interesting and challenging Programme. The Programme Zones were run over 3 days and had 3 very well thought out Zones. We will have a more detailed report next month but for now here is some images of the zones and details of what went on in each. 3 The Jeopardy Zone Tech Maze Zone Tech maze was a very well enjoyed zone with loads of Challenging Activities, The Jeopardy Zone included various challenges including which really got the Patrols working as teams. This Zone included activities the Hunger Games & Crash a mock Helicopter Crash. called Vertigo, Test Tunnel, Makeover & Camp Lab. 4 A New Way to Submit Your Articles for Inside out Because of the Volume of Articles we are getting from Groups and Counties each month we have decided to make it easier for Groups and Counties to submit their Articles and Photos each month. And we love to get them all. We now have designed a dedicated page where you can upload your Article and your Photos with no hassle and get a message back straight away to let you know that your article has been received. If you just Click on this link Below it will take you to a form where you enter your details and then attach your article and photos. Then when you have all done press submit. If your article is received you will get an automatic reply to say we have received your article and a thank you. See right a screen Shot of the Form. If you need any help at all with this contact me at communications@scouts. ie and I will endeavour to help. Now wouldn’t it be great if we got a small article from every group in the country just to let everyone know that you are there! Communications Team 7 to others that you were successful. Whenever you talk to a belter about What the Explorer Belt is truly their experience, there’s this light in about...is the experience you take their eye and bubbling excitement in from those 10 days on the road that their voice...no matter how long ago you originally dreaded so much. it was. This all makes sense as soon The Explorer Belt Experience And believe me, there is no possible as you have literally walked 200km way you will come off that road in their shoe’s (well maybe not their God, this has to be at least my 8th or 9th attempt at trying to write this. without an experience...whether it’s shoes, but you get the picture!), Where the hell do I even begin, how do I explain both the greatest and good, bad or ugly, it’s going to be there’s like this mutual bond worst experience of my life in a few paragraphs? I mean my log book is the experience of a life time. Before especially between the belters who over 500 pages and I still feel like I have more to tell! To be honest I don’t I had done the belt, I had heard all did it with you. You instantly have think it’s possible to sum up the Explorer Belt into a few words...because the stories... a 100 times (after all something in common and because it’s so much more than anything you can put to paper. Its so many different how do you know someone has of this you make some of the best things, but essentially when you get down to it, what belt really is...is an experience. The belt itself is nothing more than a token or a trophy, proof done the explorer belt? They’ll tell friends in such a short space of you) I thought I had it all sussed out, I mean what’s so complicated... walk 200km, complete a series of project, don’t die. Simple right? God I have never been so wrong! I walked onto this belt with a stubborn mind frame...I had convinced myself that every day was going to be hell, but hey, I just had to survive the next 10 days and I’d have that stupid belt that I wanted so badly. I was completely missing the entire concept of what I was doing! It wasn’t until after Day 1 that all those stories I’d been told really started to make sense to me, that I was suppose to embrace each day, not wish them away, that before no time I’d be sad to be off that road. 8 time. For me that was one of the hardest parts about readjusting to far one of the most difficult challenges normality, those 22 idiots I had to leave behind. From waking up to two I have ever had to face, it was worth of them bickering away every morning back on base camp to everyone every minute! One thing my partner and sitting in the middle of the campsite, quiet as mice, after lights out, in I had said to each other before we took the cold just so we could have the banter for that little bit longer! After that final descend to base camp was all these are the only people who really understand what you’ve been that if we were not willing to change through, unlike your friends at home that refer to it as “that walk” or one minute of our experience it doesn’t your parents who called it “your holiday”. God trying to explain what the matter whether we got the belt or not! explorer belt is to these people is as painful as sticking pins underneath And thankfully that was our attitude your fingernails; they just can’t wrap their head around it! Or if I’m really going into each assessment. We were being honest they don’t care enough to try, they think it’s pretty sweet lucky enough to be awarded the belt that you walked the 200km, like that’s a lot right? But you see walking and god damn did it feel good, but is the easy part (when I was first told this my reaction was the exact my point still stands. Don’t go into the same as yours...200km...Easy...yeah good one) and by no means am Explorer Belt looking for a mere belt, go in looking for an experience and you can’t go wrong. To anybody reading this that still has the option to partake in the I belittling the physical challenge, but Explorer Belt, my advice to you would after a few days on the road, your mind be DO IT! Before I went, those who is taken a far worse battering than your hadn’t done the belt told me I’d be an body! The walking is almost therapeutic, idiot if I went, but now I’d have to agree all you have to do is put one foot in front with that list of growing belters, you’d be of the other, for a brief moment there an idiot to miss hands down the greatest is no worries of where you’re going experience of your life.