One Piece of Rubbish Aday

Someone nudged my memory today, and I had an idea. . .

Sweden is a relatively clean country. We have the highest numbers in the world of recycling, especially drink cans and PET bottles, as we get a small amount of money for every can or PET bottle we hand in at the shop. (This is paid for by an addition to the price of the drink in the first place) Nevertheless you see an awful lot of rubbish along the roads and on the ground in the town centres. Even in the middle of the woods! Some people seem to think that dropping rubbish on the ground is what you should do, even if there are bins around.

In 2005 the organisation Håll Sverige rent! (Keep Sweden Clean!) started a campain called One piece of rubbish aday (In Swedish of course) The campain, in all its simplicity, aims to raise people's awareness about the damgers of those little bits of rubbish that we drop on the ground and to get people to pick up their own rubbish, by urging people to pich up one piece of rubbish aday and put it in the nearest bin! If everyone did that, hey presto! We'd have a MUCH nicer environment!

Someone has now taken this idea onto Facebook, and someone else mentioned this in their blogg, which jolted my memory. And I thought, why not spead this via the Cub Scout groups around the world too!

So this autumn you'll hear more about what rubbish we have in Falkenberg, Sweden, and what we do with it!

Happy scouting!

Picture by: Alfred N

Scouts help out!

Picture from National Day celebrations somewhere completely different.
When in need, ask a scout! The Swedish National Day is a very new holiday. It is celebrated in rememberance of King Gustav Wasa getting elected King in 1523. It was commonly called the Day of the Flag, until 2005, when it was made a National Holiday. It is all a bit more festive these days, when people are off work. In Falkenberg there is a gathering at the outdoor theatre, just by our scout hut, where new citizens get celebrated, the brass band is playing, choirs singing, people in national dress mingle and have a picnic. The group was asked by the council to help setting out all the seats (and put them away again). It was hard and sweaty work, and as the Scouts were off cannoeing together with the Junior Scouts on a quest for a deserted island, and quite a few of the Venture and Rover scouts were celebrating their own, or close friends and relatives' 6th form college exams (a very big tradition i Sweden) some of the leaders pitched in instead.
Let's put it this way:We won't need to pay to go to the gym this week. But we had time to relax in the sun too, to administer the last bit of paperwork for this term, and start making plans for the next.

End of term!

Next week sees the end of school term and many of our scouts have so many activities going on, so we usually finish of the scout term slightly earlier. It's a bit of a pitty, not having organised meetings during the summer, but on the other hand both kids and leaders need a bit of time off sometimes.
This year we were very lucky with the weather. It's been very warm and sunny for the last month, and the water in the lakes and even in the sea is already warm enough to go swimming in. The cubs has been looking forward to this cannoe excursion the whole year, and all the mums and dads and siblings were invited to.
There were a few quiz questions put up along the shore line and in the reeds, summarizing what we've learnt during this, for many of the Cubs their first, year of scouting. In the autumn 15 Cubs will join the older Junior Scouts, and we will have room for some new.
Since there hasn't been any rain for a month, it is unusually dry, and the rescue departement has issued a fire ban, but we were alowed to use a coal bbq. People had brought plenty of the now so popular single-use barbies, but we only used one communal in the end, to minimize the risks.
We're going to miss our Cubs over the summer, but are looking forward to seeing them again when school starts in August.
This blog will sparingly report from other scouting events through the summer.
Scout on!

Fire safety drill

This week we were fortunate enough to get a visit from the fire brigade. Anders came with his fire engine and talked about the importance of smoke detectors, knowing how to evacuate and knowing how to call emergency services. The kids were in awe and asked lots of tricky questions.

They got to try the gear on, talk through the radio and spray water with the hose. The lawn in front of the hut got nice and wet, and the wall got a well needed cleaning

Then we tried running to our collection point and showed how we would count them after evacuation, and scouted out all the emergency exits in the scout hut.

Hallandsyxan, District Scout Meeting

After camp, we all felt rather out-scouted and tired, and unfortunately only 6 scouts, minior and junior, had the energy and opportunity to come to Halmstad and compete for the district challenge prize in scouting, an axe securely stuck in a block of wood, or in the Cubs' competition, a lantern.This year's competition was organised by one of the groups in Halmstad, and the trail was layed in the centre of town, mainly along the river. Akela unfortunately got stuck on

For the Cubs (minior and junior) the callenges were among other things to transport as much water as possible into a bucket, using cups, flasks and other vessels stuck to the ground with string, an obsticle course, knotting and various cooperation exercises.

Varberg Scout Group took all the challenge prizes this year (a privilege formely reserved for the Falkenberg group, but what can I say? We have to give someone else a chance sometime ;o))

2008 Group Camp

Every year the Falkenberg Scout Group goes to Tranabo over the Ascension Day weekend. The Scouts, Explorer and Network scouts arrive already on Wedensday evening, as the Thursday is a national holiday. On Thursday morning the Juniors (10-12) arrive and then on Friday morning the Cubs (the Miniors) finally descend on the Tranabo forest. When the Cubs invade you know it! The theme of this years camp was water, but the Thursday's rain had dried fairly well before the Cubs were dropped of by their parents and left in the care of two sea monsters, one crazy fisherman, a diver and the little mermaid.

Well installed in the old military tents, the cubs commenced cooking their lunch on Trangias, with the help of the leaders, helpers and parent-helpers. We were lucky to have two dads joining us on this camp too, a new one and one that we apperantly didn't manage to scare off on the last sleepover. They were great!

On the lunch menu was a pasta dish with a ham sauce, raw carrots and cucumber. All the sixes were happily chopping away, and soon enough chomping away at the results. The Cubs were happy to share their food with the leaders and helpers, and believe you me when I say that they'd done a beautiful job of preparing the food. It was absolutely lovely, and the pride in the children's faces when we praised their cooking skills!

We had our friend Tom from Oxford with us. We accually have three Cubs whose mother tongue is English, but being inquisitive and curious the others weren't stopped by any language barriers either, and Tom was a very popular leader at camp.

After lunch an adventure trail was laid out for all at camp to enjoy। The sixes were mixed with older scouts and among other things the cubs and scouts got to try Ph-measuring, building a pressure driven PET-bottle rocket, panning for gold, target shooting with water guns, getting an egg to float, and shooting off waterfilled baloons with a catapult made out of bamboo sticks. The local paper came and did a piece on the camp.

When the trail was finished it was time to start cooking again! This time the Cubs cooked us a Sausage Stroganof with rice, served with tomatoes and cucumber. Again it was delicious!

In the evening there was a camp fire, where classical songs were sung, jokes said and some traditionally bad acting staged. After Kumbaya everyone walked back to the house for rosehip soup and a bun before bedtime.

The sky was filled with stars and the warm day was followed by a cold night, and some of the Cubs was a bit cold during the night, even if they had put extra night clothes on. But all survived 'til morning and at breakfast it was already warm enough to sit outside with our porridge, sandwiches and the left-over rosehip soup.

After an obsticle course and the packing up of all the equipment, it was time to lower the Swedish flag and the Union Jack that had been flying over camp. We summed up the camp and thanked eachother for making it the best camp ever. Then we sang the scout song and walked back to the road where the parents picked their tired, but happy, children up again.

Waiting...

In waiting for the photos from Wednesday's St George/World Book Day celebrations, perhaps you'd like to hear the Swedish National Scout Anthem. Ehem... At least for now... Appearently, noone ever accually made the decision in the 1920s, and the lyrics are, by most people, considered to be slightly dated and also slightly unfashionably nationalistic. Personally, I find that it would be better if we sang verses 2 and 3, that unfortunately are never sung (except in the 1990s punk version, virtually impossible to find on the net, I'm afraid) about our love for the outdoors and how we should strive to be good to others, instead of pledging our honour to serve king and country. Some of the words are almost archaic and most scouts struggle to understand them, even reasonably well educated adults. Anyway, the Scout song is now under scrutiny, to either be scrapped and replaced by something more modern, or at least given the official status that it inofficially has.
Here is also a technoversion. There are also other scout hits, like the 2007 Jingijamborii song you could download from this site or just watch some films promoting and documenting the centenary camp in Scania, Sweden. Or listen to the anonymous rap from the Swedish Scout Association's homepage. (They've buried it well on one of the course pages!)
If your country, or group, has got a scout song that I can link to, it'd be great fun to hear from you!