Monday, April 26, 2010

WALES CAMP

Well, this was the newly refurbished 4th Cork Venture's first Camp, in Snowdonia, Wales. Unfortunately for us, Snowdonia lived up to it's namesake. It was FREEZING the first night. I also must apologise to David Daly, he's been asking me all year whether it'll be snowing in Snowdonia, and I told him to stop being ridiculous. I could see his smug little smirk when we arrived.

We intended on climbing Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales the first night, which was postponed due to the weather. We had a day of relaxing and exploring instead. We did go to the local town, which had a some fun things to do. Even though it was freezing, we all bought ice-creams. Seriously, if we get any more badass we'll start getting fan mail.

The second day we went to Alton Towers, which was amazing. Everyone thought the rides were excellent, and even Frank found something he loved. I think most people agreed that either Oblivion or Nemesis were the best by far. We brought a packed lunch with us, but we found a KFC, and that was the end of that.

The third day, we had intended on going to Snowdon, weather permitting, which it wasn't. We decided to go on two shorter walks in the vicinity of our camp. The weather had improved, but it was still pretty windy, and when we returned from our first walk, our marquee had abandoned us, and was sitting placidly in a field nearby, over a barbed wire fence and a large stream. We retrieved the marquee, and reinforced it. We double pegged it as far as possible, and Calszer guyed out the individual upright poles. That night, we had some board games that got a bit crazy. On my way back from the toilet block,over the roaring wind, I heard a hideous bellowing, and I rushed back, thinking someone had seriously injured themselves. Apparently Frank had landed on Income Tax for the third time in row.

We went to bed that night content that the camp had gone very smoothly and according to plan (except for Snowdon). I think anyone who's ever been on a camp knows it never goes 100% according to plan. Well, around 1 in the morning, we heard the wind getting steadily worse, and then, a massive crashing noise outside.    All we heard next was Frank. 'THE MARQUEE'S GONE!!'  We all had to get up, and take the patrol boxes, cookers and other assorted bits and pieces up to the main building, where we were able to store it temporarily. We had to take down everyone's tents and gather all our personal gear to bring it to the building. The Marquee was nowhere to be seen . It wasn't the end of the world by a long shot, we were allowed  to sleep in the main building. In the morning, some of the Calszer along with some of the lads mounted a rescue mission for the Marquee, which had gotten caught in a tree. It was in bits, but at least we now have some spares for our other Marquee! In hindsight, we thought it might have actually been easier to take everything down that night because the weather was so bad that morning.

Anyway, everything worked out in the end; we annoyed Calszer and Yvonne until we got to go to MacDonalds on the way back. Who says we're childish? We arrived roughly on time, tired but happy. Hopefully this Summer and next year will be as eventful as our first year in Ventures. We would like thank Yvonne for all the hard work she's put in over the last year, and we hope that we can keep up the momentum for long time to come.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Wales Preparation Meeting


Last week, we had our final meeting before Easter Camp in Wales. (Why Easter? 'Cause we're just hardcore like that.) We just ran over some of the finer points, menus etc. We set up our new fancy shmancy Gala Marquees, which are lovely and bright, after the artificial night that was our old Marquee. Everyone's really excited for Wales, and heated discussion has already broken out whether to bring Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit, which went down very well in Killarney. We eventually decided to bring both, just in case. ;)  Wales, brace yourself.

The final few names have been added to the S.S.P.P. Venture Tree. Our Venture tree, for those of you who don't know, is a large painted plywood tree, which has the names of all the Ventures in our Group on it. We will keep it until it is completely full, which will be a few years at least. 


Thursday, April 8, 2010

Killarney

Well, we went to Killarney for an overnight in February, to walk some of the Kerry Way, and for some general Venture funsies. We had Trivial Pursuit until 3 a.m. . It was great except that the game was the 1989 edition, but that kind of made it a but more unpredictable I suppose...  
The walk was really nice, despite a slight drizzle towards the end. We basically walked from outside Kenmare all the way to Killarney, while the Scouts went to Torc Waterfall. (They're not as cool as us you see.)

This was the new member's first overnight, and I think they enjoyed it, although I don't think they realised you can't stay up until 3.30 a.m. and not pay for it at 8.30 the next morning. ^^

Wall Climbing in the Mardyke -


Sorry about the inactivity on the site, we should update regularly from now.  We went Wall Climbing a while back, it was great craic. We were pretty lucky that we had scheduled our climb for the time we did, because the Wall was destroyed a few weeks prior, because of the flooding. Remember that? Neither do I. It was ages ago.
Anyway, people enjoyed this activity so much that some decided to try it again, themselves. If you are interested in Wall Climbing in the Mardyke, check this out : Mardyke Arena: Climbing Wall.