District Camp took place on 12-15 July. We took 8 Wolves and 9 Stags and hopefully all of them had a good time. Certainly the change in the weather came along at just the right moment. By the end of the weekend we were nicely toasted.

Because space on the site was a bit tight our tents were much closer than usual. In addition to the normal leaders – Akela, Bagheera and Raksha – we drafted in reinforcements with Rikki and Baloo also being joined by the Venture Scouts (Neil and Rhys). We also had help from Nathaniel and David – our Scouts that are going to the Jamboree in Thailand.

The camp was themed on the Golden Jubilee and Commonwealth. Each of the packs came as a different country. In addition to national dress they had to run a base based on the country as part of the Commonwealth Market. This took place straight after the opening ceremony.

Also during the morning the Cubs were given the chance to do either rifle shooting or climbing.

On Saturday afternoon we had the Commonwealth Games. It started with the parade of the flags with everybody in national dress. The Cubs were then split into groups and challenged to various activities such as throwing balls into buckets, a football slalom and a water carrying game. By the time it got to the finals things were getting quite exciting. The sack race final included two Canadians and it was almost a photo finish in the skipping race. The Canadian team earned the most medals – although none of them were gold.

After the medal ceremony it was time for tea. The organisers of the camp decided that it would be nice to have a group banquet with everybody sitting together. This made it easy for the leaders as they didn’t have to cook – the catering was done centrally by Margaret Kemp and her team. Cooking for such a large number wasn’t easy. We had chicken nuggets, roast potatoes and sweetcorn to keep the golden theme going. This was followed by apple crumble and custard.

On Sunday morning there was time for a Cubs Own church service before everybody headed to the 999 Day on the other field. This gave the other leaders the chance to get the tents down and packed away without having the cubs hanging about. It was very hot on the field and even the Venture Scouts needed to take a break sometimes.

All too soon the camp was drawing to a close and it was time for thank yous and awards at the closing ceremony. As usual, Bernice was in charge of proceedings with our leaders looking on and the Cubs waiting patiently for things to start. Before we could finish we needed to select somebody to do the Grand Howl and flag down. We chose Robert to lead the Grand Howl as this was his last activity as a Cub. After the Grand Howl we asked Ryan to lower the flag. Suddenly it was all over and after some last minute words from Raksha is was time to go home.

See our photo gallery for all the pictures.

Thanks to David Ferrington and Mr Wellington for some of the pictures used on this page We’d also like to thank Scouts Canada for all the badges and resources they sent us and the Canadian High Commission for the loan of the flag which flew so proudly over our site.