Autumn fun day

Groups from across Bristol awoke bright and early to catch the coach down to Escot, where we spent the day exploring park, with it's maze, playgrounds and Saxon village.

For the Bristol Venturers, our 13 – 16 year olds, the adventure started the day before with a train journey and overnight bivy before joining the fun day. While fun it was a very wet evening, some boots are not as waterproof as others!

We were also joined by our youngest members, the Woochips and our mascot Woodcraft Bear, who enjoyed the day out.
Playing skittles in the Saxon village

Oh dear, perhaps he shouldn’t have done that

Grinding flour, the Saxon way

Picnic lunch round the campfire

Meeting the wild boar

Fun on the drop slide

The famous Escot swamp walk.

Perhaps this one’s a bit deep for bears

A nice warm cup of tea sounds much better

A Weekend in the woods

Our activities over the last few group nights have been building up to this, our weekend out in the woods. One of the highlights of the woodcraft year.

As well as the fun of sleeping out, and cooking over the campfire it's also fantastic to join up with the Bristol venturers (13 - 16 year olds) and see some familiar faces.

Something we haven't tried before was cooking a chocolate cake inside an orange. Although I think we might need a bit more practice, or more embers. Quite a few did need to go back in the fire for a second round of cooking.

Lots of time to chill out and of course do a bit of whittling.

Night time brought out the local wildlife

In the morning it's time for everyone's favorite breakfast in a bag.

Lanterns

Lots of work went into making these little lanterns. Sewing a bag and using rope making techniques to twist our own cord for hanging them up.

You don't quite get the full effect until dark though.

End of the summer term

Summer evenings mean lots of time for playing games outside, and tonight we also found time to practice setting up our shelters, ready for our Autumn night under the stars.

This one makes a great winter shelter, nice and low to the ground to keep the warm air inside, and steep sides to shed the rain.

This one works best as a summer shelter Higher off the ground makes it easy to stand p and work underneath when you need a bit of shade and means there should be a nice breeze through to stop it getting too hot.

A night in miniture

The challenge was for each group to design a pan support, strong enough to hold a pan of food over the fire too cook. The catch was to do the whole thing on a small scale.

Each group was given some straws (wooden poles), plastercine (earth), String (rope) and a plastic cup of jelly (pan of baked beans). Some designs are perhaps more likely to work "in the wild" than others.

And how else would we round of a cooking in minutre evening, but toasting mini marshmallows. Yummy.

Our new group banner is complete

The circus is here

We had a great time out on the field tonight practicing our circus skills.

The children made their own spinning poi, and worked hard practicing with them. We also had some spinning plates, juggling balls, and other circus bits to experiment with.