A scouts week

Those of you that (try to) read the posts of this blog every week might have noticed the two-week gap between this post and the previous one. This gap originates from the hobby I practice since I was a (very) little boy: Scouting. Within the past week I had the chance to go to two camps, with a three-day rest-period in between. This results in a large amount of dirty clothes, little sleep, a voice like a grinder and lots and lots of fun!

The first camp I attended was the 'clusterweekend' of the Dutch Contingent. My role in this camp was that of quartermaster of the Bontbekplevieren, one of the 25 troops visiting the World Jamboree this summer. Because it is almost impossible to get all of the Dutch participants together on one terrain, the 25 troops where divided into three clusters. There where eight troops in our cluster, each troop consisting of 40 persons. Adding a few people for camping staff, working staff and general staff we had about 350 people attending this camp.

Even though the weather forecast was a bit disappointing at first, the rain all fell down on us during the first night. This immediately showed that our new tents are water-proof, which is a good thing considering the normal weather conditions on England. During the rest of the weekend we played some games on the beach, sorted out a massive amount of badges, played in a casino and had a big party. Luckily, the sun was shining on Sunday so we could pack everything in dry conditions. The weekend was a great success, and of course there are some general photo's, as well as photo's of our troop.

When I came home on Sunday I quickly unpacked everything and washed some of the clothes. I worked a bit on Monday and Tuesday, but I also had to take care of some things for Ontmoeting, the second camp of this week. Ontmoeting is organized once a year for all the scouts of our region in the age of 11-15. They are mixed into sub-camps to compete for the first place. Each year the competition is wrapped into a certain theme, this years theme was 'Bond maakt het Bond'. The mission was to become the replacement of James Bond. The 153 participants where divided into 6 camps, each representing a 'superhero' of some kind. I was part of the Bassie en Adriaan-camp, a rather famous duo in the Netherlands.

This camp started on Wednesday with the packing of 'Diana', the trailer of our group. After loading all sorts of stuff we want to the campsite which was relatively small, but this made the whole thing kind of cosy. On Wednesday-evening we had a BBQ and a campfire with the staff, the children arrived on Thursday morning. The next three days where filled with all sorts of larger games, smaller games and some pretty cool ticket-activities. Naturally, you can check these out on some of the photo's, made by the same people that also made the camp-news-paper. It is always hard to tell about the whole camp in just a few words, but it all boils down to having a lot of fun. This year the games where really fun, thank you 'spelstaf', and our sub-camp has won the cup! To quote a famous clown: 'Alles is voor Bassie!'

These kind of weeks are a great way to relax, no worries about making deadlines or missing important stuff. It is simply not possible to read a real news-paper, so you just ignore the rest of the world for a couple of days. Also, it gives me a lot of energy to start working again, so let's get to it!

After catching some more sleep of course...

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