Be Prepared Avon

A month ago, on March 22nd, a group of BUGS (Bath University Guides and Scouts), ex-BUGS, and local Scout Leaders gathered at Cleeve Hill campsite in Bath for a weekend of survival skills in the form of Be Prepared Avon. Important things first, we got a campfire going and some food in the oven! We had a nice relaxing evening sat around catching up with friends and drinking a bit before heading to our tents for the night.

We were woken bright and early by a call for breakfast (bacon rolls!) and a staff briefing. We then grabbed radios and split off into various tasks - several people donned high vis and headed out to the road to direct parents and leaders, some people went off to build fires and set up various bases, and I ended up at the bag drop tent. At 9:00 the Scouts (and a few Guides!) started arriving in dribs and drabs. They were walked up from the nearby school by volunteers and brought up to my tent where they could put all their bags for the day. I then sent them back down to the large tent we had set up in the car park with benches and a projector in. Once all the kids had arrived (close to 100!) they were briefed on the situation for the day - there has been an earthquake and you need to survive in your family (all the kids were muddled up into groups of about 8). There were points on offer for completing the task successfully and also for teamwork and leadership, as well as the potential for volunteers to deduct points for bad bahaviour. All the leaders were taken into the hut and also briefed on their role for the day - they were assigned a base for 3 sessions at a time to assist the volunteer who was running it.

Once everyone had been briefed, the kids all headed out into one of the fields to meet their new family. They also did the 'suitcase activity' - they had a large bag of various items and a smaller bag which they could take with them. They had to decide, as a family, which items were important enough to take with them and then make them fit in the bag. They would get points at each base for having the correct item in their bag. They were also told that they needed to look after the bag very well - if it was found unattended, it would be taken and they would lose points for that, along with not being able to gain the points at each base.

Having selected their items, the kids were released into their first base. On the Saturday I was running the water base. They had to make a pipeline for some rice, retrieve a ping pong ball from the bottom of a pipe with holes in, and throw a rope to someone on a boat. It was quite an entertaining base, resulting in a few kids getting soaked when they dropped the pipe with holes in it! I did end up deducting a few points for kids who thought it would be funny to throw a bottle of rice at me, throw rice at the other team, or splash leader helpers with water..! I also confiscated 2 bags that were left on my base - one of which was at one of the breaks when the whole group ran off manically towards the biscuits and never even returned for their bag!

Each base had a radio, along with the control who were doing scores and there were some entertaining conversations taking place, including a bout of karaoke at one point, and lots of brie puns as we had a large one in the kitchen for us to eat later. We also had a megaphone with a siren feature which we used to simulate an aftershock - when it went off the kids had to crouch and cover their heads and points were deducted for not doing it well enough which meant that there were lots of deductions flying around on the radio. At one point the guy who was doing the scores wasn't near his laptop so he was stood in the middle of the field with his phone trying to write them all down as they came flying in!

When the kids were in their final base, we had to hand out a Golden Ticket to the quietest person in each family. I won't spoil the reason for the Golden Ticket but there is an activity to end the day which involves them. Once this activity had been completed, it was time for scores and a debrief. We announced the overall winner, and the winners in the 3 categories, leadership, teamwork, and strategy. Then it was time to get the kids back to their parents or into the minibusses. Several volunteers escourted the kids back to the school, once they had picked up their bags, and waiting for the parents there while we loaded up the minibusses in the car park. By 4pm, all of the kids had left site and the volunteers had free reign! We reset all the bases ready for the next morning and moved things into tents for the night. We then headed down to the campfire and set up the BBQ! Dinner was burgers, sausages, and halloumi skewers. We then spent the rest of the night sat round the campfire, chatting and drinking. Lots of stories were shared about resedentials that had gone wrong and trips that had gone well with each of our units, as well as the obligatory campfire songs. I taught everyone "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea". When it started getting late, we all retired to our tents again, ready to do it all again tomorrow!

We were once again woken up by a call for breakfast, although this time it came with a personalised talking clock who told us what time it was every 30 seconds, and added observations about the weather and temperature (including the phrase "it is 47 degrees Farenheit for those of you who measure temperature wrong"!)! We all grabbed breakfast and our radios again before heading out to manage traffic. Today, I decided to go up to the road and do something different. I stood in the entrance to the campsite, pointing parents in the right direction to park at the school. One woman claimed she couldn't see the people by the school (who were all wearing high vis jackets!) so I asked over the radio if they could make themselves any more visible and they all started dancing and sent someone to collect the big campsite sign to wave around! This morning a large number of the Guides were coming on a coach so my other task was to coordinate that. Our plan was the same as last years - have the coach stop directly outside the campsite and direct traffic around it while unloading the kids. This worked perfectly this year too - it stopped on the other side of the road and I waved cars past in each direction while they all got off onto the pavement and then several of us stood in the road to stop the traffic while everyone crossed over and walked down onto the campsite. The road isn't too busy but there is enough traffic to need a few people to manage the cars, especially as the campsite entrance is just round a bend. It went very smoothly this year, as it did last year.

On the Sunday, I was on the first aid base. We keep a volunteer on a base for the whole day so that scoring is consistent across all the groups but we all swap around for the second day as you start going a bit crazy doing the same activity over and pver again! On this base, I had set up 5 hazards for them to spot before they came into the tent, and then one of my extra leaders lay down in the middle of the tent to be a casualty. Once the kids had spotted all the hazards, we talked about how to check if a person is responsive and breathing. I then demonstrated the recovery position and let the girls have a go in pairs while we all walked around making sure they all had the right technique. Once they had all had a go, we discussed what you should do if the person was unresponsive and not breathing. I then demonstrated CPR - chest compressions and rescue breaths before letting the girls have a go at that too. I was very surprised at the number who didn't want to give the rescue breaths a go - I stressed that in a real situation, you don't have to do them if you don't feel comfortable and that the chest compressions are more important but that this was a good opportunity to practice the technique in case they did need it at some point. A lot of the girls did eventually have a go once they realised there were points up for grabs too (points on my base were awarded for willingness to get stuck in as much as they were given for actual ability to do the tasks) but they weren't all that happy about it. A lot of the points that I deducted from this base were for abusing the Annie's, including peeling their faces off and bending them backwards in half! I was very surprised though that one of the girls in the last group had actually used her CPR knowledge before and had saved a persons life after they collapsed at a train station. Her parents were paramedics so they had taught her how to do it from a young age but it was still an impressive feat for a teenager. I did have to giggle slightly though whenI was explaining that if you do CPR correctly then you will probably break a few ribs and this girls pipes up from next to me "yeah, I broke 3 when I did it"!

The departure went much the same as Saturday, except we made sure that the coach group came out first and loaded up before we let anyone else walk past it to the school. Other than that, 15 minutes after finishing, all the girls were with parents and no longer our responsibility. All that remained was for us to pack down all the tents and equipment we had used and return it to the various Scout huts and houses that it lives in year round. It only took us just over an hour to pack down several large tents and then we were on the way home.

This was a very enjoyable weekend, as it was last year too, although I wasn't aware it was possible to ache so much the morning after! Even the heel of my right hand was sore from the amount of CPR I was demonstrating! I was utterly exhausted for the week afterwards, but it was absolutely worth it to run an activity for Guides and Scouts which they wouldn't necessarily get to do at any other time. Even though I am moving further away soon, I have pencilled in the provisional date in my calendar and will be returning once more. It is a great place to catch up with friends from university as well as meet new leaders from the area and learn new things. Also, next year is the 10th anniversary of the event so it should be a big one.

(Note: all young people in photos have social media permissions, all photos available on the Be Prepared Facebook page)