Cancellation Station

Well... one of the things that I've learned in Scouting is that things rarely go to plan.

Sometimes it's you being ill.

Other times it one of the sprogs chugging up his dinner just as you're about to start the activity.

But the past 3 weeks things have had to be changed at the last moment and each week having to cancel all or part of it (and I apologise that I haven't blogged the past three weeks, bad Scotland! I must do better in the New Year).

Three weeks ago then... cancellation 1.

It was thankfully a very easy week for us leaders. We had asked the kids what they had wanted included in the program and they had said that they wanted to go swimming. So we arranged to meet at the swimming pool in town; where the sprogs would have some fun in the pool, the leaders would hang out in the viewing gallery and then we would all walk back to the hall... potentially stopping off at McDonalds on the way back as a little treat.

... cause you know, us leaders can be nice like that

...

... yes we can be nice... shut up

That was the plan anyway, and we would have got away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids.

 

One in particular really. He'd got into into his head that he was getting picked up from the pool (which some of the others were), but from what we knew he was getting picked up at the hall. Well, we couldn't exactly leave for the walk to the hall until we had things straightened out.... time to phone his mum. No answer (like sods law would ever let things be that easy), by this point time was ticking away to when we had said that we would be back at the hall.

It was getting so close now that us leaders had to do a bit of jiggery pokery to get cars in the right place so we could drive the kids down to the hall and still maintain the child protection rules.

Turns out his mum had told him he was to walk home from the hall himself... he wasn't even getting picked up! Argh sprogs!

As for two weeks ago (and cancellation 2), well, for those of you that don't live in the UK we've had a bit of snow recently here. Ok, it might not be a lot by your standards, but we're not exactly used to snow here in the UK (at least not at any significant volume) so we don't have the infrastructure to deal with it. Given the highly unusual 8-10inches of snow that blanketed the UK and the Governments advice not to travel unless absolutely necessary, we decided that scouts wasn't 'absolutely' necessary.... so our night of baking was canceled entirely!

Which brings us to this Friday past.... and cancellation 3!

The plan had been to have a sleepover for the scouts, all very relaxed. Have some films on a projector, a couple of games consoles, let them bring some of their own games and toys and run a couple of games/activities to mix everything up a bit. We don't set a bedtime or lights out... just let them crash when they feel like it; tho if someone is trying to sleep then they have to respect that and keep the volume down. We do this instead of a Christmas party. They get so many Christmas parties everywhere else... and we like to be a bit different.

Shame that the overnight part of the evening had to be canceled!

We didn't have enough sprogs confirmed for the evening, so instead we put on a cinema night using the projector and screen that I had already arranged to get. We also treated them to some takeaway pizza and some other treats from proceedings from our bagpacking efforts.

It wasn't quite what we had in mind, but it was still a good night. Which brings an end to this term with the scouts!

Merry Christmas Sproggage