141118 Cubs

Another brilliant evening at Cubs last night – well at least I enjoyed myself – lol! (hopefully the cubs did as well………?). As part of the Creative Challenge the members of the pack were given a mini-pioneering challenge to undertake. Pioneering in Scouting terms is the art of using ropes and wooden spars joined by lashings and knots to create a structure. As the Cubs were doing their pioneering indoors we used bamboo canes, broom handles and string but the results we…re the same. Prior to this challenge the young people took part in a general knowledge quiz with each member of each six choosing to answer questions worth 20, 30, 40 or 50 credits. The credits were then totalled up and converted into money (or in this case different coloured milk bottle tops!). The pioneering task was then explained and the teams were required to construct a bridge-like structure over a shark infested river in order for a ping pong ball to be rolled from one bank of the river to the other. In planning their construction they were told that they would have to purchase the items they would need from the “7th Crawley Scout Group Trading Post” and if they needed to cross the river they must also purchase permits in order to do so safely. Things started off really well and the designs were all excellent. Matters became a little more tricky at the purchasing of equipment stage as two of the six teams who hadn’t done so well in the quiz were declared bankrupt! The two “lone” sharks in the River (Hathi and I) then became “loan” sharks and an arrangement was made whereby the Group Executive would lend money to these teams at a reasonable rate of interest – a mere 200% a.p.r. (some might call this extortion but none of the cubs knew what this was so it was ok!). One or two members of the Pack clearly decided that the charges being levied on them by the Trading Post were too high as a couple of counterfeit permits were found during the course of the evening!. Just goes to show the ingenuity of some young people! By the end of the evening all six teams had managed to get their ping pong balls to the other side of the river bank – great team work and lots of fun!