NTC

Hannah D'Anzi NTC Training Write Up 2010

It was a sunny Friday afternoon when the trainees of the NTC 2010 arrived. They were totally unaware of the amount of work that lay ahead of them over the next four days…

Day 1

Camp was off to a good start. It wasn’t until after dinner that we realized how much work the staff had ‘forgotten’ to tell us about. We were all given plain hats to be worn at all times and a notepad to write essays in if rules were broken.

The majority of the rest of the day was taken up by each of the 3 patrols - Hawks, Eagles and Kingfishers - setting up their campsites. A task that never got completely finished.

Members of the Eagle patrol were one of the first to face the wrath of Senior Guide when they arrived late to the first lecture on how to organize a campfire. After the lecture, we played a game where the objective, like musical chairs, was to run around the circle and not be the last person to sit down. Although some of the trainee’s found this challenging to do, I think it’s safe to say we all enjoyed it and was a good break in between listening to the lectures.

A campfire is always a good way to end the day, and the one we had to mark the end of the first day was no different. There was lots of singing, some very old skits and a chance for each patrol to present what they had so far of their song/yell. Commander Chris finished off with an encouraging devotion based on David and Goliath.

Day 2

I don’t know about anyone else but I was woken bright and early by the hundreds of sheep that were meant to be in the field next to our campsite. Although a few had escaped and were having fun terrorizing some of the campers..

This was the busiest day of the camp, because it was our only full day at the campsite, and we had lots of different lectures, like rope craft and how to use a compass, which a lot of people found difficult, but eventually got the hang of after practicing.

We were also taught easy ways of cooking food on camp, and prepared foil meals to eat later. Each patrol’s fire had been kept going all day, so in theory they would be hot enough to cook the foil meals, but in practice didn’t work as well as it should have, so unfortunately, most of the trainee’s went to bed hungry that night.

The free time at the end of the day was spent finishing off tasks that needed to be done by Sunday afternoon. This involved having a song and a yell, making bolo ties and a banner per patrol and putting up a gatepost at the entrance of each patrol’s campsite.

Projects assigned from some lectures also had to be finished, including making knot boards, camp furniture, fuzz sticks and identify leaves.

The last night on the campsite was made extra-special by the staff who had prepared a surprise for all the trainees. Even though it was raining hard, we all really enjoyed it, and was a definite memorable experience.