The camp was held at Broadstone Warren on the weekend of 14th - 16th. June. So cubs from all over East and West Sussex arrived by cars, coaches, buses, taxis, mini-buses and motorbikes. The car-parks got a bit chaotic but everyone got sorted out in the end. There were cubs everywhere, except up the trees. Each pack had their own camp circle somewhere in the forest.
The 42nd.(Saltdean) Brighton cubs had two packs, the Seeonees and the Mowglis. There were 36 boys, 2 scouts, Paul and Mitchell, to help with the firewood and the water, and lots of leaders. Because the theme of the camp was Around the world each camp had the name of a country.
We were Italy. The tents in our camp had roman names. They were Pisa, Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples and Milan. Mowglis' Akela, Nigel, had a tent with a label saying Caesar and the other leaders were centurions. It was the first time the two packs had camped together so we mixed up the groups to help us to get to know one another. I was in Venice with Ben Davis, Sixer (Mowglis), me as seconder (Seeonees), Mark Pickering and Daniel Sutton (Seeonees), and Lloyd Verral and Alex Jeffries (Mowglis).
First we put our bags in the blue marquee and Nigel told us about who we were with and how we could win woggles for our sixes. We had a game of Tug of War and Venice got to the quarter finals and Pisa won. We set out our kit and sleeping bags and had drinks. After that we officially opened our camp circle.
All the Cub packs met in the field by the swimming pool where there was a massive model of Big Ben. That camp was called London. A man talked to us about why we were there because it was the 80th. year of Cub-scouting and everybody gave a big cheer. Nigel gave us a lolly each and someone took two so I didn't get one. There was a really cool fireworks display. One landed in the swimming pool and another set fire to the grass but they soon put it out.
We went back to our camp and they called us up for hot dogs and hot chocolate. I had seconds of hot dog, 2 cups of chocolate and some orange squash because I burnt my tongue. Then it was bedtime. Ben was a bit noisy and some other people kept the rest of us awake. Our tent was the noisiest. (Whoops). In the morning Nigel squirted his water pistol at us to get us up and took a photo of our tent because it was the messiest !
After cereals and a cooked breakfast we were given passports and we drew pictures of ourselves on them. Then inside there were countries for us to visit: Egypt, Japan, China, London (even though it is not a country), Canada, Switzerland, Australia, India, Italy and Africa. We had to visit the countries that were scattered all over the forest and do activities and get our passports stamped.
The best activity I did was getting a marshmallow on a stick, covering it in melted chocolate and eating it. It was delicious. ( This was for Switzerland). In Egypt we had to work out the code from some hieroglyphics but it was a bit hard. We came back for lunch then carried on in the afternoon. We could work on our own or in groups. Our cubs got woggles if they completed their passports.
We had home-made cakes for pudding in the evening but I can't remember what we had for main course. The 42nd. played a game called Tea-towel. This means two lines of cubs holding hands and it's dark so you can't see. The two at the end toss a coin and look at it with a torch and then if it's heads one team leader squeezes the next hand in his line and it gets passed on to the end and the last person shouts "Tea-towel" and they get a point if they're right but the other team gets the point if they got it wrong. If it's tails the other team gets the squeeze and so on. Then we played a game round a tree-stump with Sam and Kelvin. They had blind folds on and they had to collect money off the top of the stump. First Nigel, put a 2p and Sam won it. Then it was 5p, 20p, 50p and Kelvin was very good at it and then Nigel said he was putting down £1 but really it was a tomato and they both tried to grab it and got covered in tomato and we all laughed. Then it was cocoa, more cake then bed. Everyone was supposed to wash and clean their teeth but not everyone did. Our tent got to sleep much quicker this time because we were quiet.
After breakfast on Sunday the sixers and seconders had to do the washing up, ( and it was eggy bread) but some of the other cubs helped too. We had free time in the morning followed by Scouts Own over by Big Ben with all the packs. This was followed by a fair with coconut shies and other stalls and I met a friend from another pack who I hadn't seen for ages.
After packing kit we had lunch and finished off loads of cakes. We all went off for the closing ceremony and they had lots of lost property. Some of the parents came early and took the tents down. When we got back we had drinks and more cake and then made a circle for Grand Howl and closed our camp. Florence had won the most woggles and got a big bag of sweets and James Holland won Nigel's water pistol.
We all had a wonderful time and it didn't rain at all. Thank you to all the leaders and helpers who gave us all such a great time. It was brilliant !!!
