This Friday at 7:30 we will be having an investiture at the hut. All parents are more then welcome to attend. We’ll also be showing our camp video for the first time which will be placed online at a later date.

This years Phoenix was held in Pallaskenry in Limerick, one of my personal favourite locations for the competition. It began on Wednesday evening this year which is slightly earlier then the usual Thursday morning of years past.

The first night the lads had a 2 hour plan to get the tents and table up and to get the site organised. The next morning they went straight back into putting together the rest of the site which includes a dresser, fire, grubber, chopping area, wash area, wood pile, etc. And that only brings us up to 1pm. After lunch, each patrol had to complete several tasks which were marked on site, after that cook dinner, complete a 5km hike, build a bivy to sleep in in the forest and act out their sketch at a campfire… All this in just the first day.

The next 2 days were filled with more base days, cooking competitions and completing their log book. Our patrol performed magnificently and we were lucky enough to win the Bases trophy and finish in 3rd position out of 56 troops overall.

We’re all very happy with our result and a big congratulations from us, the leadership team to Luke and his entire Patrol and a special mention to Liam Mulvihill who may not have been there for the weekend but was a very important part in us getting our result, Well done lads.

Luke Cassidy
Keith O’Regan
James Maher
Leigh Doyle
Ollie McMorrow
Eoghan Cronin
Aaron O’Callaghan
Donnacha O’Brien

(Photo’s to follow)

The 3rd Cork scout camp took place in Crawfordsburn Campsite, which is 11 miles outside of Belfast. In total there were 28 scouts and 8 leaders attended the camp. We were delighted with the campsite and were made very welcome. It is a site we will be delighted to recommend to others for future camps.

We took part in many on site activities such as archery, caving, obstacle course, zip line, rafting, grass sledding and orienteering. Tours were the main events of the camp with 2 tours to Belfast city, a tour to the Giants Causeway and a fantastic over night trip on the ferry to a theme park
in Scotland. Whilst on tour we took part in many exciting activities such as the cinema, tour of  sweet factory, swimming, quasar, 4D Movie experience, W5 interactive centre, Titanic Dock tour, amusements and Belfast city Bus tour.

A very competitive Inter patrol competition was held with Ross Marshall Eagle Patrol winning the overall event. In the middle of camp the competition meal was held where each patrol had a budget to buy and shop for their own choice of menu. The leaders were treated to 4 fantastic meals from the open fire competition. The Big Brother series was won by Jordan Walsh.

Overall C11 was a major success, with no injuries and a lot of great fun and scouting completed. I feel this camp will be remembered for many years. A big well done and thanks to all the troop leaders for the hard work in making C11 happen and for improving our camps year after year.  Thanks also to our PL’s Keith O’Regan, Luke Cassidy, Ross Marshal & James Maher who will be
moving on this year. They have spent 5 fantastic years with the troop and the 3rd Cork is a better group because of them. The biggest thanks must go to the scouts and their attitude, respect and sense of fun that was shown through out the whole scouting year. Their great behaviour was
commented on many times by a lot of locals in Crawfordsburn. C12 begins here.

                        Yours In Scouting
Graham Hayes

Click Here!

Last weekend we went to Dundrum Scout centre in Tipperary. Most of the scouts and scout leaders had never been there before so it was nice to go somewhere new.

We met up outside St Patricks church at 7:30 and our usual bus driver Eddie collected us from there. We got to the house (after a couple of trips up and down the same stretch of road) around 9:30. The lads spent some time settling in and then the 3rd men from each patrol cooked up some soup for everyone. Before going to bed we had a game of “The Price is right.” It was hilarious to hear what people thought the price of milk was.

The next morning we were up around 10, had a slab of toast and the leaders went about setting up some bases. This was the final part of the Inter-Patrol competition, results to be announced on St Patricks day. After the bases each patrol was set a challenge during lunch to create and present a sandwich that you would see advertised on a menu or in a magazine. Pictures of each will be posted soon. COH were on dinner duty and John took the rest of the scouts over to the campfire circle to make bread twists.

After Dinner (Chicken Curry 3rd Cork style) each patrol went away and came up with sketches and to finish off the night we had a campfire where the lads performed them. It was one off the best campfires I’ve been at in sometime. The next morning we all dragged ourselves out of bed, cleaned the house and set off back to Cork. It was a great Scout Weekend in a great place. We will be back.

Pictures Will be posted soon.

On the 11^th December we met at the hut at 10am for a quick meeting before we set out for the train station to get the 11am train on the Cobh route. The weather was kind of warm and sunny with a cool breeze, perfect for a treasure hunt. We exited the train at Fota to get our question and answer sheets before setting off towards the wildlife park itself. We entered through the back gates and proceeded towards the oasis café to locate where on the map we were.

We set out at about 11:15am to 11:20am to start the treasure hunt. The hunt was fun and it was great as we were able to stop and look at the animals and the information about them to answer questions. There was three trails  an don the map and signs stating what animals and places were on it and that made it a great deal easier than just running around fota looking for just one animal. All of the patrols were aiming to be back at the oasis café for about 12:30pm for our lunch. After lunch which ended about half an hour later we set off to finish our questions. When we returned we gave our answer sheets to the leaders and joined the others to finish what we had left of our lunches and chat about the animals and the treasure hunt with our friends. When the last patrol arrived back we were allowed to roam freely around the wildlife park by ourselves with our friends and look at the animals for about an hour.

After that hour we had to return to the oasis café to catch the 3:30pm train home to Cork Kent station. We took a short cut over the bridge but we were told to stop in the middle of the bridge to find out the results. 1^st place were Ross’ Eagle patrol, 2^nd place Luke’s Curlew patrol, 3^rd place were James’ Swift patrol and 4^th place was Kento’s Fox patrol.

Written By
Aaron hayes
As Part of his Gold Award

A couple of weeks ago we decided to have a sleep over in Cobh Scout Hall. We met at the Hut at the usual time of 7.30 and left for Cobh at around 9pm.

Most of the scouts took the train down while some were dropped by the leaders in their cars. When we got there we settled in and had a table quiz which the Eagle won.  My patrol came joint second. After the quiz we enjoyed chips from the local chipper and before going to bed we watched the short news video’s we made the week earlier. After the videos we rolled out the ground mats and everyone went to sleep. We rose early the next morning and packed. Then we headed back home.

Written By
Luke Cassidy
As Part of his Gold Award

The cooking took place on Saturday the 6^th of November. The Inter-patrol Competition is well underway now after the Base weekend in Mt. Lodge two weeks ago. All the patrols are well established now and the attendance was again excellent with 27 scouts taking part.

This year it was decided to move back into the Hut to do the cooking and presentation. At 10 am the patrols took off in to town to buy the food required for their meals. Each Patrol was given €30 to make a starter or desert and a main course. At 11.30 the cooking begin while outside the younger patrol members took to the challenge of cooking scones in a cardboard box ovens. All the patrols managed to cook excellent scones.

The Swift made a Chicken stir fry, the Eagle made freshly made beef burgers, the fox made a Fish pie which all were cooked and presented very well. The Curlew however didn’t win any of the inspections but place very highly in all of them with their Sweet and Sour Chicken Stir fry. All the judges agreed that the effort and attitude was very good by all patrols. A big well done to PL Luke Cassidy and APL Ethan Bonner on a great victory. The Dan Curtain trophy was presented on the day to the winning patrol.

The Cooking still remains as one of the most enjoyable event the troop holds every year. The Next event will be the quiz in a couple of weeks.

Check out the rest of the photos: Here

Overall Marks: Here

Individual Marking sheets: Here

We returned to the Mt.Lodge after a 5 or 6 year break. In total we had 40 people take part in our first Inter-patrol competition of the scouting year. As part of the competition there were 13 bases run in the surrounding woods of the cottage. They ranged from Monkey Bridge building to a dome tent pitch. One or two old favourites returned such as the blind trail and the compass challenge. At the end of the day all the leaders were very impressed with the standard of scouting with in each patrol.

I’m delighted with the addition of the Cubs into the troop. Jonathon O’Donovan, Jamie Daly, Jack Madden, Ciarain Wallace & Kaleb Stillwell all made a great effort on their first scout event. Its was also the first Base weekend for many of the scouts that joined in the summer. Donnacha O’Brien, Alex O’Regan, Nathan Buckley & Oisín Kirby Mcnamara were some of these scouts who enjoyed crossing a self made monkey bridge for the first time. I hope they continue enjoying the scouting skills with the troop.

The Troop Gold standard Award was also announced for the first time this weekend. A big well done to all that took part. The Swift were the eventual winners with the Eagle close behind. See final marking sheet attached.