By: Lester Lo
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….
There existed a Galactic PACKPACKPACK Station. Not so long ago and much closer to home, a distress signal was sent from PACKPACKPACK Station to three Cub Packs within the Lower Mainland.
As such, Cubs (youth of ages 7 – 9) from 28th Richmond, 99th East Vancouver, and 21st Burnaby Highlanders Scout Groups, as well as some Rovers from the 180th Pacific Coast Scout Group, suited up (figuratively) and attended an exhilarating and adventurous outer space themed camp on the weekend of May 10th – 12th at the Morris Valley campsite.
To put simply, this was one heckuva camping experience for all, and I’m sure everyone who went to this camp brought home beautiful memories. The success of this camp was largely due to the leadership of the Camp Chief, the 180th Pacific Coast Scout Group’s very own Karen Tse, who believe it or not, has never put together a camp for Cubs before!
The camp itself was organized with the intention to ease off some of the pressure from Scout Group leaders when planning a camp for their youth, but it did so much more than that. Cubs and leaders from all three groups were able to forge new friendships and bonds, and the camp also gave some of our newer Rovers a taste of how awesome a Scouts camp could be.
After a lengthy blast off into the darkness of space on the Friday evening (which was really a car ride into the night), 13 Cubs, 1 Scout, and 10 Rovers/leaders arrived into camp. To get the Cubs warmed up and familiar with the notion of being in space, an intense dodgeball match using glowsticks was held. Intense was exactly how the game went, as it was so dark it was impossible to tell if Cubs were hit, so leaders just let them play and expend all their energy (shh…).
The next morning, our Cubs awoke to an astronomical disaster. “Houston, we have a problem,” would be an understatement. There were crashed rockets that needed repairing, broken spaceship parts that needed finding, and invisible aliens (convenient, eh?) that needed saving!
No problem is ever too big for Cubs who are willing to do their best, however. The Cubs from these three Scout groups worked together to blast bottle rockets into amazing heights so that they could transport aliens back to their homeworld. They also created a special silly putty goo that can repair spaceships, and finished everything with enough time to spare for a hike to a nearby waterfall! Of course, the day also had its tiny glitch when the three teams could not settle on which was the best flavour of ice cream, but the dispute was quickly resolved with the most logical and sensible solution: an all out war with wet sponges and cardboard fortresses between the three teams!
At the end of the day, our thirteen brave Cubs became heroes, and what better to celebrate their heroic feats than with a campfire filled with song, skit, and cheer? The night’s festivities began with the lighting of the fire to an acapella version of “The Imperial March” from the Rovers, and lasted for almost an hour long, consisting of going bananas, making purple soup, and saluting penguins. Unfortunately, one of our Rovers Lawrence Panzo also had to make the unfortunate long journey to retrieve his shoe after I used the Force and sent it flying away from the campfire pit during a skit. *insert evil laugh*
On the last day of camp, the Cubs, leaders and Rovers all worked together very diligently to clean up the crash sites and campsites, and with bagged lunches in hand, braved through the rain to re-enter into the atmosphere of civilization (at least the drivers had to brave through it, most of the Cubs probably had a peaceful sleep through it all).
Now if only this camp was held on the week earlier on May the 4th (May the Force be with all of us!)…
Anyway, onto the next one!