Sa Pa

Sa Pa
After the celebrations on Friday we made our way back towards the aptly named Hotel Amazing in Hanoi to drop off our bags and catch the overnight train to Sa Pa. The train was an experience in itself, and after the inevitable Harry Potter discussion everyone headed back to their surprisingly comfortable carriages for a good night’s sleep. We arrived at the station early in the morning and boarded the bus that would bring us into the town. The terrain was drastically different to what we had seen around Hanoi, with spectacular mountain ranges and terraced rice fields to keep us occupied during the bus journey. After our breakfast we were given a tour around the town and encountered some of the local ethnic minorities, of which there are fifty-four different types in Vietnam. We soon acquired our own personal escort of Black Hmong women, almost all of whom managed to sell us something or other. We then set out for a leisurely walk to where we would be staying for the night, giving us another chance to take in the beautiful scenery.

We arrived at the home-stay, were deftly parted from our money by our Hmong friends and given the rest of the evening to relax. The following day we were taken on a walk of the valley and a visit to home typical of the area. For some, unknown reason we had to leave the home quite suddenly and continue on our walk, stopping at a river along the way. Then it was back to the home-stay to grab our bags, leave their delicious cooking behind us and journey back to the town, where we were able to explore the local markets and refine our bargaining skills. On our way back to the train station we stopped by the border of Vietnam, and we were able to look across the river that divided the two countries and see China. After another, well-needed sleep on the train we were back in Hanoi.

- Nicole

Thai Nguyen Orphange Project

We arrived in Hanoi on Friday night and were greeted by Ms. Binh from Helping Hands. It had been a long two days of travel, so we had a rest day on Saturday in Hanoi, where we experienced Vietnamese culture for the first time, and got acclimatised to the heat before heading to Thai Nguyen to start work on the project.

 SUNDAY

We arrived into Thai Nguyen around lunchtime Sunday, and went straight to the orphanage to begin the project. First we met with some of the elderly people who live in the social centre, and gave 45 packages of condensed milk, sugar and biscuits to them as gifts.We then had a meeting with the Director of the centre, Mr. Van Trieu, in his meeting room to organise a schedule for the 5 days and discuss what needed to be done.We were also introduced to the children living in the orphanage.We also brought with us a new outfit for all the babies, and the older children. It was decided the main meeting hall in the complex was in dire need of a new paint job, so we launched straight into sanding and scrubbing the walls, floors and ceilings to make sure they were clean and smooth before even one coat of paint was put on.

According to our contract, our working day finished at 5 p.m. everyday, so after our preliminary sanding, we walked back to our accommodation, the Dong A Hotel. The local people of Thai Nguyen were intrigued by 13 filthy dust covered Irish people all wearing blue and white neckerchiefs walking through the back streets of the town. We received a warm welcome, a enthusiastic mixture of 'Hello's and 'Xin chào's!

MONDAY
Monday morning, we woke at 6.30a.m. , to avoid working during the hottest part of the day (11a.m.-1p.m.). Even at this time, the heat and humidity would even put the sunniest of Irish summer days to shame! We arrived at 8a.m to start our days work. We finished the last of the sanding, and got to work on the first coat of paint, the white undercoat. Fortunately, we were able to procure scaffolding, to access the higher sections of the building. Everyday, we took a break from 11 to 1.30, to have lunch, conveniently during the hottest part of the day. Monday saw us having the majority of the building painted white, and confused the locals even more when they saw us again, covered head to toe in white paint!

TUESDAY



On Tuesday we managed to finish the rest of the undercoat, and get the first overcoat on, a creamy yellow. After a few minor spillages and paint roller malfunctions, we had gotten the hang of the painting, and were making good progress. We were slightly hindered by a group of hornets who had decided to make it their business to follow us around menacingly, and fly into our paint repeatedly.


WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday, the final coat of yellow paint was carefully applied to the entire building, and our work was nearly done. We received a helping hand from a group from the Student Union from the University of Thai Nguyen , many of whom were avid students of English, and were keen to make friends and teach us some Vietnamese! With their help, we managed to polish off the final coat on the building.

THURSDAY
Thursday, we spent the day finishing any odd jobs that needed doing, cleaning the area, which included scrubbing paint off the floors! We also painted the walls next to the entrance gate, which gave new life to the front of the centre. Our friends from the previous day returned to help finish the job. After all the work was done, emails and phone numbers were exchanged, and the Vietnamese students left. Preparations were started in the newly painted building for the big celebrations that were to come the following day.

FRIDAY
On Friday, the final day of our stay in Thai Nguyen, we attended the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the social centre, visited the babies again,  and had a brilliant meal under a marquee in the complex itself, a delicious assortment of Vietnamese food, which everyone had grown to love. After lunch, the Director gave us a vacuum flask each as a gift on behalf of the orphanage. We were also all given a letter of thanks, and a copy of the local newspaper from that day, which ran a story about the celebrations.

As a group, we hope we helped in a small way to improve the lives of the residents of the social centre, and we would like to thank Mr. Van Trieu , Ms. Binh and  Sharon O' Driscoll who helped facilitate our work, and gave us such a warm welcome and hospitality. We also would like to thank Yvonne, our Venture leader for doing so much work during  the year to make this trip possible!

County Venture Skills Overnight

Hey everyone. We had the County Venture Skills Overnight last night/today, in Blarney Scout Hall/ Iniscara. Seven different Venture troops were represented, including The Lough, Ballincollig, Ballinora, Blarney, Bishopstown, St. Finbarre's and our humble selves.  

 Firstly, there were First Aid bases, (encompassing 'Emergencies' on the One Program.) These were run by trained EMT's, which were very engaging. Maybe even Heather learned something new! This was followed by ice-breakers, and a quiz, with .....interesting questions. 20 wrong questions later, a new game was invented, frisbeeball. Think clay pigeon shooting with half inflated soccer balls. This brought us right up to around 2.30 a.m. so people decided it might possibly be good to think about considering going to bed. 

Up nice and early in the morning, for some fruit, iffy blueberry muffins, yops, and half-hearted frisbee before heading out to Iniscara for various other Skills bases. Different groups went out on the lake, sailing, or tried their hand at kite-flying with Declan. 

                                                          

We successfully built a friction bridge, there was some lava that needed crossing. As a reward for not killing anyone with the sledgehammer, we all got burgers, kindly barbequed by Lucy Kay, which were subsequently eaten in Stephen's Trance Gallery. Thanks to Eoghan from the Lough and Declan from Ballincollig for organising the weekend! 

Bagpacking Mahon Point

Hi everyone. Over €2000 was made over the weekend in Mahon Point, thanks to everyone's hard work! Props to Yvonne too for getting us the weekend itself.
Good job, everyone involved!

Meeting and Bowling 2011

After a brief meeting discussing the upcoming super Venture Vietnam trip it was off to the Mardyke for a spot of friendly bowling fun.
It was quickly visible that both Calszer  and Kevin were quite good, vying for the lead from the outset and that Ian was awful, remaining firmly at the bottom of the leader board.
 As per usual Deidre arrived an hour late due to a mix up in the programs (the special Deidre edition never   materialised).
Yvonne, Heather and Nicole all gave a wonderful show of bowling  skill but none could match Conor’s flourishing shots.
Great fun and pizza were had by all but unfortunately the time ran out and no winner emerged, however all were humbled by the score of an eight year old in the next lane. Besides the fact he couldn’t get a gutter ball he played  a fantastic game.
(Super Venture Vietnam countdown : 150 days )

Chip Run

When we met in Fitzgerald’s Park at 12, we thought we would not have enough people for a proper chip run, which according to the International Handbook of Rules and Sanctions for Chip Runs, is 10. Fortunately we managed to scrape together a mish-mash of competitors from various units around the county, St. Finbarrs, Ballinora, Togher, and our good selves.  For those of you who don’t know, a chip run is a competition where teams of 2/3 have to get pics of themselves outside various chippers in the city, and score points accordingly. 5 points for a proper, chippery chipper (Lennox’s), and 1 point for  other establishments that sell ‘chips’ (McDonalds). A great time was had by all, and at the end, teams received a complimentary bag of chips as per the rulebook, with a extra-nice meal for the winners. Bon appetite.

Ventact 2011

Down to Kilcully for about six or so. And then up with the tents. Awkward, Jake asking me to hand him the blue beta. But Kevin saved the day and explained it was a tent and not a code for something. On the plus side, the badly put up girls' tent didn't effect me at all, Deirdre's bag absorbed all the water that leaked in, thanks Deirdre! 

Wild evening the first night, the lack of atmosphere in the barn/shed was made okay by the wonderful band, who cares if they only played the same few songs. Over and over... Punctuated by looking for sponsorship for Calszer's beard shave of course. Conor must have some charm and charisma in there somewhere, he got a lot more money than Iollann and I did. Then we got our tickets for activities the next day. Tears were shed, swaps were made, lies were told, bargains were struck and everyone ended up happy. Except for some people obviously, would you prefer canoeing with Nathan or Jerry like? Powerfighting and fireboating for me! Or the other way around. Boats and hose!

 Up at an unholy hour in the morning for a nice bowl of coco pops, courtesy of my mother, the cereal definitely makes up for how delighted you were to be rid of me for the weekend. Firefighting was definitely a laugh, however it must be said that the fireman outfits suited some of us more tha nothers. Back that evening for a free burger and chips, nice healthy scouting way of life. Now for a really wild night, disco time! 

Spent the whole night in my onesie, pyjamas all the way. Once again geting sponsorship but also sending people to get mocktails, fundraising for Vietnam baby! The thick layer of grease on my hair definitely made the bubble machine at the disco totally worth it... Or not, who plans these things for discos? Having to wash your hair at two in the morning under an outdoor tap, not nice. Had to be back at our tent for around two. Deirdre arrived early, shock! However, in true form, she left so that she could re enter after the assigned time. Well played Deirdre! 

Up bright and early again to the sounds of Robin Williams wishing everyone a Good Morning Vietnam, time to clear the site, drag ourselves to the bus and home. You know you've had a good weekend when you go to bed at two in the afternoon and sleep until the following morning. Thank God it was a Monday. What would I have done without a long day of school after a very long weekend.

-Heather

 

County Planning Overnight

So, a County Planning Overnight was held to arrange activities in the County in the coming year. There was good turnout, there were Ventures from nearly all the Groups in Lee Valley. We had some ice-breakers and a BBQ on the Friday night, followed by a small casual campfire...

On Saturday morning, the main event was held, the new ONE Programme among other things were explained, and then a brainstorming session was held. 10 activities have been planned for the coming year, 5 day activities, and 5 overnights/weekends, which will all be organised by different Ventures in the County. Several of our Ventures have volunteered to organise activities, Pádraig and Frank will be organising a big party for next Summer, (God help us all... ) David Lane will be helping with the workshop day, etc.

Hopefully all the activities will actually happen, I'm particularly looking forward to paintballing...

Mahon Falls Hike

Recently, (well recently enough) we went on a nice quick hike in Mahon Falls, in Co. Waterford. The Scouts hoping to go on the MPC came with us as well, even though there's plenty of other mountains around the place, they chose to come with us. Anyway, we discovered the wonder that is a Storm Shelter, where have these been all our lives?

We managed to complete the hike in around 3 hours, and on the way out, discovered something really cool that we'd never seen before, Mahon Falls' ''magic road''.
The idea is you go to the bottom of this hill, and, in neutral, a car will roll backwards up the hill. Or so they say. If you want your innocence destroyed, check this out. If not, take a lookie here.

National Youth Forum

In case anybody doesn't know what I'm talking about, myself, Máire Fitzgerald from Ballinora and Eoghan Calnan from the Lough, went up to the National Youth Forum for Ventures and Scouts in Larch Hill. There were lots of interesting workshops and presentations, very relevant to all of you, so we will be chatting to everyone about that at the County Planning Weekend. One of the main highlights was the new ONE programme, so if you want to take a quick look, check here : ONE Programme. It does look really great, and is definitely worth a look.

                                                                                                
                                                                                     Also, a quick congratulations for the S.S.P.P. Scout Section, who came 1st and 3rd in the County Competition (the Shield). They worked really hard for it, and reaped the rewards in the end. Kevin Creedon was the PL of the Patrol that came 1st, and Conor Cronin was the PL of the patrol that came 3rd. No doubt they will do excellent in the Phoenix Competition also, which is held over the summer.

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.

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. 

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.

Bowling and Facebook

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know that we made a Lee Valley Venture Facebook Page,so if you are interested

,http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=285851871244&ref=ts

Also, in case you don't already know, meeting on Friday, instead of Saturday,and we will be going bowling.

-Jake

Lough Pizza Night

Last Saturday the 30th of January there was a county meeting for  Lee Valley Ventures in the Lough Scout Hall. Most of the Venture troops were represented in some way but alas Togher  never came and joined in on the fun. There was one escapee, Daniel McAuliffe, who departed early due to other plans, and that left us without any Ballincollig people. But really ,who would miss them ? *joke*.                 

What did we accomplish? Well we did find out that the Ventures around   Cork love to do things (especially water fights) but hate to plan things.  A list was made of all the possible activities which included “Commando Course” [ Ballinora’s Trademark], a Survival Weekend, a “Mini-Ventact” just for Lee Valley. These were just some of the ideas, and hopefully, at least some of them will come to fruition over the coming year!
We met the County Commissioner for Ventures, Alison who ran the meeting, and provided pizza!
Not a huge amount was decided upon, but an election was held, and Jake Murphy (S.S.P.P.), Máire Fitzgerald (Ballinora) and Eoghan Calnan (Lough) were elected as County Reps. We wish them all luck on their all expenses paid trips.                      

-David Lane


                                                                                                                                                  

Flag Day the Second - 23 Jan 2010

Just a quick thanks to everyone who helped on the Flag Day last Saturday. As you may know, a lot of our tents were rendered useless after the floods, so we needed to fund raise for new equipment. We made an almost identical amount to October's Flag Day, which was great.

Our next Activity is a Pizza Night in the Lough,this Saturday (30th) which should be a great craic, and possible County Activities for the future will be discussed, so it's important to go and give our opinions! Yvonne will text everyone with details. I'm not sure, but we might be having a meeting beforehand, but that's a guess. Again, Thanks to everyone who came to Flag Day.

See you on Saturday

-Jake

Ice Skating, and First meeting of 2010

Hello everybody,
I hope you had a Happy New Year, and that Santa was good to everyone.
We went Ice Skating at 'Cork at Ice' and had our first meeting in the restaurant while having hot chocolate. (better than our Scout Hall Porch in the Mardyke) If anybody was not there, and is reading this, there were some important points raised at the meeting.

• We have a Flag Day next week (Sat 23rd January). Ballincollig gave up their booking so we could fund raise for new equipment (All our tents were wrecked in the floods). Also, if you do not attend, you will not receive a discount on the Camp in April.
• New Members need to seriously think about getting a uniform. Check the previous posts for more information.
• Yvonne needs numbers for Camp urgently, so please email /text /ring /all of the above so she definitely knows you are/are not going to Wales.
• If you have pictures or other things to contribute to the blog, please email spps4ventures@gmail.com
  
  See you all next Saturday. 

-Jake