Strategy Camp June 2022
Strategy is a multi-activity challenge hike consisting of 30 bases of varying difficulty and complexity set around our 3,000 acre site with 2-3000 Scouts and Explorers.
Each challenge will earn a different amount of points and as a team you will have to plan your route and decide which challenges to visit in the allotted time to score the most points. Last year bases included everything from pioneering to supermarket sweep; Rock-Climbing to Zorbing and nail painting to Rifle Shooting!
Who knows what this year will hold but trust us – all your physical stamina, mental prowess and scouting skills will be tested!
1st Highworth Scouts (both Redlands and Northview Scouts) arrived at the camp held in Cirencester Park, dumped our kit at our tents and went off to explore the site. The field had a cafeteria, where we got our meals from. It also had a café where you could buy sweets, drinks, and ice cream. And a disco where you could relax and make friends. Before we set off, we were given blue and white wristbands with black boxes to mark our meal allowance.
We woke on Saturday at 7:00 for breakfast and were each given our lunch to go, after that we were our team kit: a survival bag with a whistle, map, and compass. We were put into 3 teams and went into the forest to the checkpoints/hubs, the check points included inflatable obstacle courses, climbing walls, air rifle shooting, cavebus and many more. The idea is to collect points during the hike by achieving different goals so there were 3 difficulties easy, medium and hard. Hard would give 150, medium 100, and easy 50 points. Whichever team gained the most points throughout the day would win.
The first part of my journey was through a beautiful forest, and we soon came across our first activity, drumming. In drumming you had to replicate the lead drummer’s beats, after that we went to do air rifle shooting the maximum you could get was 150 points my team got 39 (we weren’t particularly good
at it) during this time it was 12:30 so we had our lunch. During the afternoon headed for the inflatables, but the line was too long, and it was raining, we didn’t want to stand in the rain so we went to do the climbing wall instead.
My team went up the wall in a flash. After that, we made our way to the cavebus (no, this was not a bus that went into a cave) it was a bus that simulated caves inside. It was now 15:25 which meant we had to start heading back (my least favourite part) we had to walk for an hour before we went back to camp. When we reached camp, we went to the control tent and signed ourselves in.
On Sunday there is a fayre, crafts and sports going on around the site that we could take part in!
I really enjoyed this fantastic experience; it gave me confidence in my map skills and allowed me to get to know the people in my team a little better than before. Overall, I really enjoyed this camping trip.
By Massimo
