Everything booked. Check. Kids have all details. Check. Routes
planned. Check. New backpacking stoves bought. Check. Hike tents
okay. Check. Explorers taken to supermarket and bought their food.
Check. Scout / leader food bought. Check. Home contact list
printed. Check. Vans sorted for kit. Check.

Excellent. All is sorted. I'll go to HQ and pick up the minibus, so
that I can drive it up there first thing tomorrow and leave my car at
home. Get a lift up there, open up, get gate keys for the three
padlocks for the compound with the 'bus in. Undo locks, brief check
of the minibus, get in. Log book completed. Check. Start 'bus up -
bit of a bang, then exhaust blowing. Curious. Why should this be?
Only drove it last Sunday, when we went over to Shropshire for the
practice hike. Seemed alright then - it's only just had a service and
a new propshaft...

Ah-ha. New propshaft. Next to the exhaust. Bet they knocked it when
they were fitting that. Grab torch and look underneath.

Nope. Over the course of the last five days, someone has been up to
the Scout Hut and cut the exhaust in two places - allowing them to
nick the catalytic converter. GITS.

A door knocker.... for scouts

http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=scout+kn...

It must be synchronicity, or something, but for no good reason there I
was looking for cheap bouncy castles on ebay.... just don't tell my
Chairman yet :-)

Anyway, I kept seeing some with legend PIPA tagged. So I looked it up.

Oooh er!

How many of you have used inflatables and checked that they were
tagged as tested annually? Yup, they need an MOT.

Apart from the legality for the operator if the inflatable is not
tagged and tested, there is a real issue for us as users if we have
not checked and something goes wrong.

If you are hiring an inflatable, you should check that it is tagged.
You should check the tag against the register on the PIPA website.

If it is okay and it then fails, then it isn't your problem. Just
another little gem for us to check if we expect kids to have fun.

The more paperwork I see the more that I think the GSL role should
become remunerated :-(

PIPA http://www.pipa.org.uk/

Ewan Scott
http://www.claytonwestscouts.org.uk

no connection, it just looks worth a fiver

http://www.play.com/Books/Books/4-/5118945/The-Boy-Camper/Product.html?ptsl=1&ob...

or http://tinyurl.com/4nlbto if that does not work

Remember those great summer camping trips from your childhood—the
magical ones when you discovered the fish hiding in the shaded
swimming spot and cooked a meal over an open fire? This collection of
outdoor activities from long ago pays tribute to an age when every kid
knew how to bait a hook. And there’s plenty in these vintage pages
that children of all ages will still find worth learning...and lots of
fun.