Athlone Scouts enjoy successful Cork camp
Athlone’s 2nd Westmeath Scout Group are delighted with the largest turn out of young members to attend an annual camp. The large group of 48 youth members and 12 Adult Scout Leaders returned from their camp at Fota Scout Centre, near Cobh in Cork. The large attendance of young people was a demonstration of the successful scouting programme being run in Athlone.
The camp was at an established scouting centre with forest and ample toilets and shower facilities on site. The camp’s programme is based around traditional Scouting activities like camping, pioneering and cooking and a hill walking trek around the 14km Nagles Mountains Loop, navigating in patrols using maps and compasses. There was a patrol cooking competition on one of the days where each patrol had an invited guest leader to eat with them. The camp included two day trips, one to the Naval base at Haulbowline and the naval ferry across to the base, and a visit to Titanic Museum. Day two’s trip was to Cork Gaol and shopping in Cork City. Weather on camp was generally good for camping except for a very windy morning which brought down a couple of tents.
One of the leaders on Camp, Sean Mimnagh said despite the windy day, that the campsite was a lovely location for a troop camp with nice mature deciduous forest for offsite activities.
Cooking for large numbers was not a problem as the troop had with them a 8m x 5m mess tent plus 4m x 5m kitchen tent with all the provisions of a modern kitchen. Feeding scouts on annual camp is organised around the patrols of six scouts, each patrol being responsible with Leader support to planning and cooking meals for everyone for the day.
There were regular updates for parents of activities on the camp through the group's 2nd Westmeath Scouts Facebook page which was popular with parents especially with the bad news coming out from the International Jamboree in South Korea. Sean Mimnagh went on to say that food, activities and accommodation was very good on camp and the Group Leader said that in addition to having a large group of brilliant young people with them on camp he thanked all the leaders for their hard work on the camp and he said that adults could never be recognised enough for their frequently, 18 hour days working with young people.
The 2nd Westmeath Scout Group thanked the management team at Fota Scout Centre, Irish Naval Service and staff at Haulbowline Naval base, the Titanic Centre Cobh and Cork Gaol for facilitating the Scouts visit.