St Paul's Events

Phoenix 2019

Phoenix 2019 took place at the Cork Showgrounds, Curaheen Rd., Cork. St. Paul's Wolf Patrol achieved a Gold Award.

Here is their Log Book from the weekend:

Thursday
We arrived at our Scout Hall in Limerick at 8:15 am. We left the scout hall at 8:30am with all our stuff in the cars. Our patrol gear and boxes were taken to Cork the night before. The drive was an hour and a half long, we were all quite tired. We arrived in Cork at 10:30am. Our Patrol Leader signed in the Patrol. After sign-in we found our site.
We unpacked our trailer and sorted out the wood. We went to go get water and it took an hour! After we figured out that the water tap we went to wasn’t working, we went to another one and it took another hour… but finally we got the water and then we went to the opening ceremony. The opening ceremony was good. At the end of the ceremony everyone around us started running back to their sites, we walked.
The weather was better than we expected. It was quite sunny and got it cloudier as the day went on, there was only a few drops of rain. When we started pitching our site we started with the Icelandic, there weren’t many difficulties with it. After the Icelandic we put up the dining shelter followed by the tents, wood chop and gadgets. The gadgets were a prep table, personal wash, alter fire, bins, store racks, uniform rack, table and the gate.
Half way through we had to go get our lunch box and dinner box. The cooks started to cook dinner at 6:00pm. They cooked mashed potatoes and meatballs with gravy. It was really nice. Three people washed up while, two others got more water. It was a good first day.

Friday
We woke up at 6:45am. We were all quite tired. We didn’t sleep well because there was a loud wind shaking the tent every way it could go all night. When we got out of the tent our dining shelter had fallen down due to the wind last night. After we had set back up the dining shelter we packed our day bags and had corn flakes for breakfast. The weather was pretty bad, it was still raining and quite windy at 8:30am. We grabbed the stuff we needed which was, sisal, staves, log book, first aid kit, compass, spare clothes, packed lunch and a bivvy bag. We headed to our Sub-Camp to do a headcount and then headed over to the buses which brought us offsite to a park to begin our bases.
Our first base was orienteering. We got a map and a sheet of questions. While orienteering there were ten minute challenges, we could also do. We found the orienteering quite difficult at first because we had struggled a bit with finding our directions but then we got better at it. It was a good base even though the weather was against us, it would not stop raining. We completed three, ten minute challenges.
After our first base we got an hour break to eat our lunch and relax. At 1:30pm we started our second base. In this base we had to use teamwork to build a raft. We were fine with building the raft until we lifted it up and one of the barrels fell out and we found it difficult to try and get it to stay in. At least the rain had stopped and it got quite sunny. Four of the patrol members reluctantly chose to get on the raft in the water, because they didn’t want to get wet or cold. Meanwhile the rest of the patrol gave them moral support from the side lines. We got to the finish line with only one member of our patrol in the water. We think our team work was pretty good at this base and a leader complimented our work :-) After we dissembled the raft and the people that were in the water were dry, we headed to our third base at 3:00pm.

On this base our patrol had to split up into two teams of four. Half of us filtered water and made tea, while the other half made a water wheel. To filter the water, we had to build a tripod, get three neckerchiefs and attach them to the pole. We got grass and charcoal to fill the neckerchiefs. Then we got water from the river (which was a bit muddy and dirty) and we poured it through the top of our gadget. We put a cup at the bottom to catch the nearly clean water. Finally we boiled a kettle and mixed pine leaves to make pine tea :-) To make the water wheel you needed ten bamboo sticks, sisal and six paper cups. We had to build two tripods using up six of the bamboo sticks. Then we had to build the wheel out of four bamboo sticks. After we had the wheel on the tripods we had to put it in the water and make sure it was in line with the waves from the river so it would collect water in a cup and the wave would push it on to the next cup so all six cups could be filled with water. We enjoyed the base and we think we did quite well overall in this base.
Once we completed that base we headed to the bus to go back to the campsite. The bus ride back was about 10-15 minutes. When we arrived back in camp we collected our food for dinner. The cooks started to make dinner at 5:00pm. They cooked chicken curry with rice, it was served at 6:40pm. We all enjoyed the meal. At 7:30pm we started wash-up, the cleaning went well but we struggled with time a small bit but we got it all done in the end.

Saturday
It was an early start again this morning. We woke up at 7:00am. First we tightened our lashings and put back up the flags. We ate breakfast around 7:15 am, we ate corn flakes again. The weather looked sunny but it was slightly cold. Next we packed our lunches and got ready to go to our bases. The bases were on-site so no busses. We headed over to our Sub-Camp at 9:00am to do a headcount and then go to our bases.
Our first base was orienteering. We got 20 minutes to do each base. During orienteering we had to find clear labels with coordinates on them. We finished finding them with 10 minutes to spare.
Our second base was habitat deconstruction. In this base we needed to stay silent and only use sign language. One person had to go into an Icelandic tent and choose one structure to memorise. After that the person had to go back to the patrol and show them using sign language what to do. It was a bit frustrating, but we managed, and got the base completed.
The third base was called pollution. We had to move the “nuclear” water from one spot to another without spilling it. We had to stand two meters away and use lengths of sisal tie around the Jar to lift it. If it did spill the world would be destroyed. We spilled it twice  The third time we finally transported it without destroying the world.
After that we went to the first aid base it was called pesticide. In this base we had to carry an injured member through various obstacles while being sprayed by water guns. While we were carrying the person, one of the staves started to crack when we near the finish line. Luckily we got to the end without it breaking. We also took many bullets for our fellow member/queen bee. Then we ate our lunch ad got to rest for an hour.
After lunch we walked back to site and started the pioneering base called “generation green”, in which we had 15 minutes to build a Lego k’nex replica of a windmill. After we had finished that, we started to build the windmill out of poles and sisal. We finished with 25 minutes to spare. We also met our Scout Leader at that base :-)
Our next base was the beeswax base. We needed to spread out the beeswax seeds and place a sheet over it to iron the seeds, so they could melt together and harden when cooled down. After that we went to our next base to make protein balls. The protein balls were made of peanut butter, oats, honey, chocolate chips and peanuts. Since we didn’t have enough peanut butter to stick the balls together, we had to put in a lump of butter as well. Eventually we made the protein balls and everyone loved them. After we had cleaned up we headed to our next base. It was to make seed bombs. First we ripped up newspaper and soaked it in water until it was like porridge. Then we got moulds in the shape of half a ball and put some of the newspaper and seeds in them. Then we put the two moulds together to make full seed bombs. We did a good job on this base. Our final base was to make a miniature greenhouse out of materials presented to us. The markers said our greenhouse was unique. That out of all the greenhouses they had seen, ours was the first one to be shaped differently. We didn’t know if this was a good or bad thing.
After we had cleared up and did a site walk. We went back to our site. We got food for our dinner and then the cooks started to make dinner at 5:45pm. They were making vegetarian carbonara. The dinner tasted quite nice for vegetarian. After we washed up and put everything away we headed down to the campfire. We sand a load of songs. It was quite fun. Our legs got a bit tired from standing up and sitting down. It was a good last night and we had great fun.