Scouting at Halloween

As you might remember a while ago I wrote about the difficulty in letting scouts be independent. This weekend the Falcons of Falkenberg finally hosted the Halloween party they had planned for weeks. The setting was pretty horror film: A group of happy youngsters arriving at a small cottage in the middle of nowhere for a party, decorating the place with jack-o-lanterns, skulls and ghosts; dressing up as zombies, squirting fake blood every where; A car that seemed to have given up the ghost on parking; A little jet black cat showing up from nowhere, miauing desperately, trying to crash the party...

I left the scouts to their own devices, worrying about the state of the car: If I were to be the responsible adult with a car, ICE, I thought it might be an idea to have a functioning one. There seemed to be a hose leaking in the cooling system, and Marie was going to arrive at six anyway, to keep me company over night.

The little black cat showed up out of nowhere when I was sitting outside on the stoop, having lunch. I had bought some ready made Swedish dolmas in gravy that I had heated in the microwave oven. The cat almost threw herself into the gravy, crying with hunger! It's so sad, how some people get a kitten for the summer holiday, and then, when the season is over, they leave their summer house, and the cat, and go home.

The cat was skin and bones. It wasn't bothered about the dog, but the dog was very vary about the cat, not wanting to leave it when I left the house to set up camp. All afternoon the dog ran back and forth between the house and the camp site. I think he was worried about the cat. I made a few phonecalls, but noone was interested in taking it, and there isn't a rescue center anywhere near, so I'm afraid we finally had to make the decision to just leave it.

Anyway, the guests arrived at 6, and was met down by the road by a couple of zombies with lanterns who guided their way to the cottage. Marie and I withdrew to the hilltop, and had a very pleasant evening, grilling gourmet sausages and dunking Italian chocolate rusks in mascarpone. We had a good natter in front the fire, and crawled into our sleeping bags at about 10, gazing at the starry skies in the moonlight. The dog curled up by our feet, and our breath rose like smoke in the cold evening.

I'm not a very well equipped scout leader. Whilst Marie has all the gear to get up Mount Everest, I have been stingy, making do with budget stuff. But I've rarely suffered. You just have to be a little bit inventive. My first sleeping bag from the 1980's, and a budget bag, designed to manage freezing point, some wolly socks and a sleeping bag liner did me just fine in -4. I had also a good mat, and a warm dog. I woke up at 8, not realizing I was sleeping outdoors!

We had a lovely breakfast, cooked on the Trangia: Scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms and a tomato relish. We pottered about for a couple of hours, before we went down to the house to see if the scout had woken up and started clearing up yet. They had and they were. They had had a wonderful time, even though they didn't get the film projector to work. They had finished all the food (except the veg, and a bag of potato crisps). Marie and I made sure that they locked up everything and then we all went back to civilization: The mothers relaxed and invigourated, and the kids very happy and pleased that their project had come together as they had hoped.

Fun without parents

One of the aims of scouting is to make young people independent and selfsufficiant. We do a great job for the most part, but it is so difficult to let go and let them try their wings and fly unsupervised.

At the moment I'm reading the Famous Five books aloud to my 10-and-a-half-year-old son. Enid Blyton is so scouting: The children are resourceful, brave and have great social ethos (even if they're very middle-class and sometimes stinking perfect) My son loves the books where they are out camping on their own, or as in this last book, with a supervising adult who lets them do what ever because he trusts them to do the right thing. The Famous Five always stay 11-15, which isn't true for our scouts, who grow from 6-year-old Beavers to 15-year-olds with spots and hormones. As leaders we're their to lead them in the right direction, to guide them gently into adulthood, and to safely let them try their wings and fly under supervision. But when is it time to let them fly on their own?

My soon 13-year-old daughter is tall for her age, has the vocabulary of a 25-year-old and lots of integrity. She is a dream, and a nightmare. All parents want their children to be independent and selfsuficiant. She is that, and she wants to fly on her own. Together with her slightly older friends she has organized a Halloween sleepover, booked the cottage in the woods, sorted a digital projektor, made a budget, a menu, a program and invites. Already a good few people in the group has confirmed. It will be a great sleepover, I'm sure.

As a scoutleader and parent I have very few qualms about letting the kids do this completely on their own. I have offered to be around as back-up, as invisible as I possibly can, as the cottage is a good 45-minute drive from town, and IF something happens it might be a good idea to have someone around who has a driver's licens. Now, my daughter and her friends have decided that they'd like to go to the cottage already on the Thursday, to prepare (and have a bit of fun as well I'm sure). As I'm not prepared to spend three days invisable in the woods, I've said that I'll be joining them on Saturday. They are definatly competent enough to take the bus and hike the last 5 km to the cottage along the country lanes (The Swedish country side is very desolate and peaceful, on account us having a country twice the size of Britain with only 9 million people in it!)

B-P encouraged "his boys" to explore and hike on their own, to practise their skills and to make independent decisions. Some parents might argue that they were different times, more peaceful, and safe, and they are right in some respects, but perhaps our fear of something happening is more crippeling than the accual risk of something happening? Sooner or later we have to let our children go, and if they haven't practised flying on their own at all, they are bound to crash into whatever lampost at some point anyway. What we need to teach them is to risk assess, to listen to their instincts, help eachother out, and to keep to their good values - that goes a tremendously long way!

But nevertheless I'm going to offer a compromise: They'd go on Friday morning, and I'll join them on Saturday afternoon. First flight shouldn't be too long.

Gourmet Restaurant in the Dark

Learning how to use a Trangia is brilliant fun and very useful. Cooking is also a great life skill, and a very good team building excersise. We try to do cooking at least once a term, not including the group camp in May, where all the scouts do their own cooking for at least two days, the Cubs on Trangias, and the Scouts over open fire.

Cooking in the dark poses some difficulties: If your carrots escape, it is very difficult to find them before someone steps on them. It can also be very difficult reading the recipe. But it is very cosy cooking by the light of parafin lanterns, especially when the result is so scrumpious!

The Cubs were proud and happy with the result of their efforts, and there were hardly any leftovers. Even the cooked vegetables got finished! And this time we let them off by not having to do any washing up, which was a smart move, as we then didn't have to rush anything, but had time for both a game and a song.

Many of the Cubs took the recipe home with them to cook for their family.The recipe for the culinary success you find here.