Teacup is Launched

Rememberance Day 2018 - MOTH Hall Benoni

Jota-Joti 2018

What is Joti-Jota?

Joti-Jota is a world-wide scouting event that has been held annually for the past 61 years with this year being the 21st year at Arrowe Park. At Joti-Jota different scout groups get together from all around the world on the same date and they communicate with each other at the radio base mainly, but there is the computer base where they can play games online through the internet.

This Year at Joti-Jota:

This was the second year in a row that I lead a camp for 1st Benoni at Joti-Jota, and I must say it was completely different from last year. There were 14 of us at Joti this year which was a fantastic turnout and I am proud to say it was a success.

We started on Friday night setting up our camp site and once we were finished everyone could relax. Some of us sat around talking while others were running around playing. When it was getting late some people decided to go to sleep while others who decided to walk around and not come back until the early hours of the morning.

On Saturday everyone was up before 6 and I still remember a few complaining about breakfast only being at 7. It was amusing to watch considering those scouts had been hungry since about 4 / 5 in the morning. After breakfast was finally served. We cleaned up and waited for opening. After opening our group of 14 was split into 3 patrols and each went their separate ways to the different bases.

The bases involved the legendary Radio base where scouts communicate with each other all over the world, the rope making base, the pioneering base the shooting base which is one of the more popular choices, the computer gaming base is also very popular if not the most popular. You can’t forget the Tie Die base where each scout got a white scarf and had to die it with multiple colours and in different patterns, some even decided to get a bit colourful themselves.

A few of the younger scouts decided to swing over the river and the next time I saw them they were soaked, and where quickly sent to have a warm shower.

Later that evening we had a few issues with a very high wind which made cooking food very difficult and we had to bring in other means, which worked out great.

It wasn’t long before people became very tired especially those who decided sleep was for the weak the night before. So everyone was in there tents and asleep by 10:30.

The next morning my alarm decided to wake a few people up and the first thing I heard was, ‘Turn it off’ and we only all got up some time later to make breakfast, clean up and started packing up.

Overall we had a great amount of fun and next year I can’t wait to see everyone there again next year with colourful scarves as well as more people with

GIG ADVENTURE 2018

Gig Adventure Senior Gig

Thoughts on senior GIG Adventure 2018 lead by Alison McLachlan

Sleep deprivation and full body workout, but definitely a must do. This year gig adventure was held on the weekend of the 3rd to the 5th of August, slightly later than normal, and extremely windy. Gig adventure is my favorite thing in scouting. It tests both body and mind, and shows the true personality within all of us.

This year a new challenge sprung up with the increasing wind, making it extremely hard to row in the direction we needed to, so collectively we decided it would be better to pull over onto the side instead and wait it out. This gave us a nice chance to get some really good rest, to prepare us for the final stretch. The last 8km is the worst stretch of all, feeling like it’s never going to end. It’s on an open piece of water on the dam, and you can barely see the lights at the other end. With the wind starting to pick up again, we knew we wouldn’t be able to stop very much, as we would probably just move backwards again, making the distance needing to be tackled that much longer. So we kept on, pushing further beyond our boundaries than we knew we could. Eventually we reached the end at about 6:00 on Sunday morning. This was definitely one of the toughest gig adventures I’ve done, and I’m super proud of my crew for pushing through and giving it their all.

Here are a few of my crew’s views on this year’s adventure:

Kayleigh Young:

I loved gig adventure, it was my first year participating in this event and I do not regret a minute of it. It was a tough and long journey however my crew made it so much easier. We had rowed through strong winds this year which did make it more difficult but it also motivated us to get to the finish sooner. Even though the journey was difficult and caused some pain, I enjoyed every minute of it with my crew beside me.

Daniel Kiff:

Fun, cold, windy and never do it with land scouts 😂😂

Mathew Butterworth:

When we started I was a little sacred as I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t know how to row but I was still excited. Once we started it was a lot of fun and laughter but as it went on I realized what I had gotten myself into and soon got a new respect for the sea scouts.

Max Hutchison:

Gig adventure was one of the hardest things I've done this year (10/10 would not do it again). The only thing that made it bearable for me was the fact that I was doing it surrounded by friends who were all going through the same thing as me. Without my crew I probably would not have completed it, we all played our parts and we suffered together so that we would be able to say that we have done gig adventure.

Tomas Schreuder

Gig adventure, what an interesting concept. The idea to allow 7 irresponsible individuals to row down a river unsupervised because why not? All in all, gig adventure was a good experience, certainly not pleasant, but good. I believe the boat almost got destroyed by underwater fences, not sure what the farmers are trying to keep out but maybe they just wanted to make a point. It was hard, at some stages it felt as if we had been rowing for hours on end without sleep, well we were. About 4 in the morning we stopped to sleep on the bank for a few hours (really just a few), on the grass till morning. We had some breakfast, no warm water due to the wind interfering with the gas stove, so luke warm oats it was. At a stage it felt as if we would never finish, especially when the wind was picking up and moving us backwards. Max decided he'd try pull the boat along the shore for a while because the wind was to harsh to row in. This worked, period. We slept a bit in the sun while the wind died down. Night came, we carried on, went over a few fences, and finished just as sun rose, "I don't know if this is pus or blood running down my hand", said the land scout. This part was the worst, 12 hours of rowing, the macaroni was good though. Gig adventure is more mentally challenging than you'd think, you could be the best rower and not get tired but you have to stay focused constantly otherwise you mess up the crews strokes. This is easy in theory but when you get to long 8 hour stretches you need something to keep your mind amused.

Jamie Truby:

The unit of wind speed is calculated in knots, where one knot = 1.854 km/h. At 17 to 20 knots the wind is regarded as force 5, and defined as a 'fresh breeze' it will generate moderate waves with many white caps on open water. We had to contend with wind on most of our journey. We experienced force 4 to force 5 in this 'adventure'. In my experience gig adventure it is not only your physical skills that test you (mainly being your arse muscles) but it tests your mental ability to row for 2 hours and not see a change in scenery and have your cox give you what is supposed to be an encouraging shout of "we're almost there, we've covered a whole 3 km". It however does not give the effect of positivity. But it all makes up when you get off the gig and walk onto the jetty, feeling like you can accomplish anything. However because you've been rowing for 28 to 30 hours you also feel like you can't accomplish anything.

Regards, Alison

Gig Adventure Junior Gig

By Duncan McLachlan

Our Adventure began on Friday night, 11:00 pm. The crew consisted of Duncan McLachlan, Luke Johnston, Gabriel Rowe, Stoan Krynauw, Declan Kritzinger, Cade Sproul and David Clulee.

As we launched our gig into the darkness we began to realise what we had commited to. But still we didn't have the slightest idea what was ahead of us. As we headed off the wind began to spin us as we couldnt get the rudder in due to the shallow waters. After quite a struggle we finally got the rudder in and at last we could carry on.

The night sky was beautiful and clear. We could see far more stars than we usually could back in Benoni. We all saw countless shooting stars in the clear black sky. After a few moments of rowing so peacefully we realised that our containers that were holding our hot water had fallen over from the jolt of the launch and they had half-emptied.The kit in the stern of the gig was wet and our hot water was almost all gone. However we kept on rowing, while telling stories and singing songs. All the while the waves were slowly getting bigger and bigger and we struggled into the wind more and more.

As we went around the turns of the route, the wind started to hit us side on and the gig rocked from side to side with suprising power. The crew were all unhappy and scared but never complained. The turns on the route were a blessing and a curse - a blessing because for some streaches the wind worked with us and gave us a boost from behind, and a curse because for the most part, the wind was coming from directly in front of us and we had to row straight into it. But we kept on rowing and struggling with the wind against us.

After hours of rowing we decided that we can't row in these winds so we made the decision to find a place to sleep. We searched for a decent spot to pull over but the land was mostly just trees in the water or little rocky outcrops. Eventually we decided to stop on a nasty little piece of land that consisted of rocks then mud then long grass. We attempted to beach the gig but did not have much succes. Our gig only got stuck on the rocks but there was still a meter of water before the land. We struggled and punted with our oars but it was no use, someone needed to get out and pull us through the water onto the land. Stoan bravely volunteered and sacrificed his warm shoes and socks to get us on land. He pulled and pulled but couldnt get the gig much further by himself. Slowly the crew members reluctantly volunteered to get out and help until every one of us were standing in the freezing water with our only form of warmth for our feet in the water. Some pushed from the back and some pulled and together, by working as a team we pulled the gig on to the land. We tied the gig to a tree and walked through the mud and into the long grass. Two of the crew members slept in the gig and the rest layed their sleeping bags out in the grass on land. So at about 4:00 in the morning we finally got some rest on dry land. We had the beautiful night sky above us and a spine chilling wind blowing through our sleeping bags. I set an alarm for 5:00 and we all drifted into a very cold sleep. When we woke up it was still dark and the wind was only worse so we decided to sleep for another hour in hopes that it would be light and that the wind would be better.

When we woke up the wind was not any better but at least there was some light and we could see where we were going and what we were doing. It was then that we realised that when we had beached the gig we faced the stern out toward the wind and waves. Each wave that hit the flat stern it poured into the gig. Each crew member's bag of snacks got soaked into an oily, papery mess. The water in the gig came above our ankles. This disgusting mixture of food and vaal water sloshed through our feet and kit. We struggled for quite some time to get off of the land and when we did we still had to fight the wind and the waves.

At about 10:00 we stopped over on a lovely beach-like piece of land to clean the gig and make breakfast. I split the crew into groups: half the crew was given the job of cleaning the gig and the others made breakfast. Once the gig was cleaned out we all had breakfast and went on our way. Even after these two stops we were still way ahead of the other crews. After many hours of hard rowing Fool's Point came in sight. As we headed for Fool's Point the waves grew to a meter high. As these waves hit the side of our boat it rocked us vigorously and we struggled to get our oars in the water between the waves. We rowed for what felt like hours but was probably not very long into the wind with meter high waves crashing into the boat. While rowing, one of our crew members commented that there was an ostrich swimming in the water. And no, it wasn't their imagination running wild. We all saw an ostrich swiming in the middle of the vaal dam. It had a head, neck, body and wings. After quite some time of arguing wheather it was an ostrich or not we had not realised that we had been blown further down wind. Now we were much further away from fools point than just minutes before. Again we rowed and rowed. Again we failed. We called land to ask if we could rather just row with the wind down to the land rather than this decided point to stop. We got the go ahead and went with the wind. Once we made it to dry land we ate lunch and waited for the wind to die down. Later, once the waves were smaller we decided to try head out once more for Fool's Point before dark.

While we were struggling in the wind two men with a speedboat offered to tow us to Fool's point. We accepted the offer and off we went towards our destination. While being towed, our bow ring was pulled out. We were taken back to land and asked the scouters to take us back to Denysville. Once we got back to camp everyone was exhausted. I gathered the crew to have a final thank you talk and i gave them each a wood burning of the gig adventure badge as a token of apreciation for coming on my crew.

We all then went to sleep and packed up in the morning. Although we did not finish the entire route we all had the time of our lives. We all enjoyed it immensly and had a Real Adventure! The crew members all got along very well and there were almost no arguments. I am very proud of each of my crew members and I know that they all did their very best. I appreciate all of their enthusiasm and hard work. I hope that they all partake in the Gig Adventures to come.

Here are some comments from the crew members:

It was a grueling adventure and we have made many friends and I hope to do it again next year -Luke Johnston

Gig adventure was great. This time it was a real adventure! The crew was great and we all got along. -Gabriel Rowe

Gig Adventure "Gig Idiots"

Hi Everybody

So a short version of the Gig idiot’s trip… from Gig Idiot team #1 – Leon and Trevor. (Gig idiot team #2 – Richard and Jeremy will have to write their own version)

We got to LDYC early afternoon – put up tents and started sorting kit. We debated whether we were going to take hammocks or a tent and at the last minute decided to take neither. We had our dry kit – clothes etc in a blue drum at the back of the craft. We had our food stuffs and medical and repair kit in another blue drum between us. We filled our 2 litre bottles with “Game” and packed a few snacks into some mesh bags. All ready to go.

We had decided not to eat 2 minute noodles this trip, so we packed in our Prego Steaks, Bacon and Eggs etc. You gotta do this with a little style you know.

After our briefing, we headed off to the junior start. (40km by water to LDYC). We were 6 adults – three of us ‘bigger than most’ squashed in my bakkie for that drive. Carl arrived to spur everybody on and with our Scouters and Rovers lending a hand - in a few minutes the junior gig teams were on their way. They had no clue what awaited them… Ship Ahoy x 2!

We then drove to the Senior Start. Trevor had a blow out in his bakkie – Tyre popped. That’s what happens when you drive a Toyota off road. We stopped and all gave him a hand to change the tyre. (clap clap clap). Trevor was leading the way and took the wrong road – typical. So we drove around some farmers field in the dark until we saw the other Gig teams in the distance and followed the lights until we got to the water’s edge. Thanks again to the Scouters and Rovers for getting the Senior Gig offloaded and ready for the trip. The Senior Gig was ready and left. Ship ahoy again.

Then us idiots got our stuff together and packed onto our two two-man crafts and headed off. It was somewhere between midnight and 1pm. After 5 minutes paddling we realized how peaceful it was and thought we would sort that out by chirping the other idiot team. Needless to say there was no peace after that 😊.

You won’t believe how fantastic it is to paddle under starlight in the middle of the night. The only sounds were the paddles swishing in the water and the nesting birds having a heart attach as we paddled past their nests and they all squawked and flew up in front of us. There were plenty Jackal cries. It’s really very beautiful and peaceful… Just before dawn it started to get real cold so we decided to stop near a bunch of trees and have a little sleep (most of us had been up since 5am that morning anyway). I pulled my warm hands out of my home made Pogies that everybody made fun of and we settled in for a bit of a sleep.

We woke to a beautiful sunrise and the team got out their little gas cookers to boil some water for coffee. Trev put up a wind shield and another pot was put to use on a gas burner to make some bacon. After 10 minutes we gave up with that idea and started a proper fire to cook the bacon and eggs. Man were they good.

Recipe: Use fire not gas. Throw in bacon. Cook until 95% done. Throw in 1 dozen eggs. Add Salt and Pepper. Stir with stick until Jamie Oliver would be proud of the smell. Find a spoon and eat out of the pot. Perfect. Afterwards Wash Pot with River Water and Mud. Rinse out Mud After.

We also made some good coffee and then got ready to rock and roll.

The Morning Paddling was great. The Banks had some farm animals, some buck and some nutty fisherman who either said a polite “Goeie More Julle” or something I can’t repeat when we paddled too close to their fishing lines. There are some stretches that are about 10km long and they never seem to end. Navigating in the day is easy as pie. Of course we didn’t have a real GPS because we’re scouters you know, so we just navigated using the stars at night and the moss that was growing on the side of Jeremy’s face during the day to know which direction we should be paddling in. We were real hard-core. Bear Grylls would be proud of us.

By the afternoon the wind really started to pick up. We stopped for a bite and then met the two fellow idiots from Kensington (Rod and Wod) who were attempting to do Gig adventure in a 2 man Zeus Racing Kayak with a blow up Lilo duck taped to the back of their Kayak for buoyancy. We first laughed at them and thought they should rather tie the Lilo behind them but after the wind picked up we realized that without that Lilo they would be paddling a submarine…

We left Rod and Wod and started paddling into the wind. The waves were 1 meter high in places and depending on the frequency of the waves, we would go up one wave, and then down it when the next wave would break over our bow and fill it with water. In about 100m paddling the rear of our canoe was 1 foot deep in water swishing from side to side. I told Trevor that I had to start using his fancy HTH container that had been converted in to a professional bailing bucket, but as soon as I stopped paddling, Trevor said he lost control of the craft and shouted that I should continue paddling. In the few seconds that followed our canoe turned side on with the waves and we capsized in to the freezing water. We quickly righted the canoe and threw the few floating bits and pieces in the water back into the canoe. The Blue container at the back of the canoe popped out and I tried to swim to get it but it ‘raised it’s mainsail’ and sailed away from us much faster than I could swim. We ditched that and I swam back to the canoe. The wind blew us towards the land (which was luckily not too far away – about 250m). As soon as we hit the shore Trevor ran about 1km in the direction of the blue floating drum. Luckily the Kensington crew Rod and Wod were still in the area and they rowed out at their own risk and retrieved the drum for us. They were real heroes! By the time Trevor got back to our boat he was shaking so much that he could hardly talk. I think that if you could put a flask of milk in his hand, in about 10 seconds flat it would be shaken into pure butter. Just then Jeremy and Richard who has stopped on the bank about 1km in the other direction arrived to see what was happening with us. Richard went and fetched the blue drum from where Trevor left it on the shore and we got Trevor into Dry clothes. I must say that it was pretty freezing cold… We took a break and spent a few minutes sleeping in the sun and wind to get our thoughts back together. We thought it was over for us. We said that Jeremy and Richard should continue but we would just sink again and again in the waves. Jeremy and Richard went back to their craft. We communicated a little bit on the radio and then Jeremy said we should make a splash deck from our plastic Emergency Bags and Duct Tape. That was a plan so we spent about an hour getting our stuff together and making a battleship on the side of the river.

By the time we returned to the water we were fed with tuna and biscuits and pringles and were ready to take on the world again. We continued paddling for a few hours. The sun set and we continued along our course under the stars. In about 20 minutes flat the stars were gone, and in then the sky lit up ahead of us. Yes it was lightning. Not the kind you see in the movies, but the kind that lights up the sky when you feel very vulnerable in the middle of a river. A few minutes later it happened again, and then again, and then it started to drizzle. We headed to the side bank and thought we would rest for an hour or so until the weather cleared. 5 minutes later some big oomie with a torch in one hand and a drink in the other hand came to where we had stopped and basically said that it was private property and we were not allowed to stop here. After a few minutes chatting to him we realized that it was impossible to reason with an arrogant drunk person (we didn’t use those exact words) so we got back into our canoe and continued on our way. Trevor said it was great because I was so angry I was paddling like a motor boat…

A little way ahead – after dodging some barbed wire fence in the middle of the dam we joined up with Jeremy and Richard again and continued on our way – laughing at the wise cracks that hadn’t stopped since we left together. The sky cleared up again and we could see the stars. There was endless bantering between ourselves as to where we were supposed to go. We would say, we must aim for those lights on the left bank, and when we got closer we would realizer the lights were on the other bank. It’s impossible to judge distance at night so there was a continual “let’s aim for that star” – “no that’s not it, go for those three lights over there”, “we will pass them on the right”, but we passed them on the left… It was very funny. Just as we were approaching the main dam the wind started to pick up. We knew there would be hectic wind the next day and we would be riding the waves side on to get to LDYC. We were debating that if we capsized in the middle of the dam, we may be swimming for five or six hours until we reached one or other shore.

We made a decision that this time we would let “Discretion be the better part of valour” and we decided to exit at Misty bay about 8km from LDYC. We stopped there at about 2:40am Sunday Morning. We made a few phone calls and in a hour or so we heard Wendy coming with the bakkie to fetch us. Wendy brought blankets with and Jeremy said that it was more difficult to get out of the warm bakkie under his blankie than to wade into the cold water to launch the canoes 😊. Total Distance was in the region of 74km.

By the time we got back to LDYC we heard the call that the senior team was about 4km away and on it’s way in, so we went straight to the shoreline to watch them come in. By then the waves had died down and in hindsight, maybe we would have been able to cross that morning.

The four of us idiots have decided to make another plan in a month or so to go back there and do the trip from Misty bay to LDYC again – maybe in a different craft – for the fun of it. Just because we can.

Thank you for all the support from the Scout and Cub parents, and for our sponsors. Mark, thanks for our case of liquids – we shared them amongst us. Karin, thanks for your Paddlers Pamper Pack – they will be shared out between the four of us too – I know who is getting what! Thanks for all the sponsors who sponsored some cash towards our expedition. We do appreciate it and you can be sure it is going to a good cause. There are some repairs needed to the Gigs this year after their adventures too.

Even after writing this little memo, one has to remember that the trip was tough for us adults. How much more would it have been for our scouts. They did fantastic work navigating, rowing, planning, scheduling, negotiating in the midst of difficult high winds and high waves – being blown about and having to make plans and put their wits to the test. They also got the opportunity to spur each other on, to see some beautiful wildlife and scenery. These are the real heroes of the weekend. It’s fantastic that we were able to get our three gigs together, all sea-worthy and kitted out with scouts with big grins, blistered hands and sore backs. These little Scouting trips set us up for tough times in our lives, and when the going gets tough, the scouts get going.

Another big thank you to the Support Crew, the organizers, the scouters, the tiller fixers, the trailer drivers, the parents who camped out with us to cheer our scouts along and fetch and carry kayaks and canoes and wet clothes and wet scouts (and scouters). I know the Rovers had their Fireball dinghy out on the water on Saturday and they said they were Flying along (until it broke). Mike and Nicholas were on their “hobycat” catamaran and were also flying along doing their beat to stay on the craft without being blown off. Lots of fun was to be had.

For those of you waiting to sponsor us per km, use the 74km as your reference for both teams. I’m sure Liz will tell you how much you owe…

Yup, we’ll probably do it again next year. Idiots!

Leon

1st Benoni at Sanjamb 2017!

From the 8-16th of December 2017, scouts, guides and Rovers from all walks of South Africa came together for the South African National Jamboree, also known as Sanjamb. The theme of the event was "Ubunye", the Nguni word for Unity- which is exactly what our scouts did. This past year was the first one in 16 years! This event was held at the stunning Doornkloof farm, which the Free State Voortrekkers kindly allowed us to use. The event had kids busy with 26 various activities such as debating, rifle shooting, abseiling, water activities, potato canons, dutch oven cooking, tye dye and much much more. Evenings were just as fun filled with the barn dance, motivational speaker, Backwoods night, movie night and live band evening! For photos, please visit the 1st Benoni Facebook Page! There are just too many priceless pics. View them here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/193472830703228/?ref=br_rs

Representing First was Willow, Allie, Thomas, Duncan, Jamie and Alex. Dawn, one of our ATS's also headed up the marketing portfolio on the Sanjamb core management team. It is very clear that Benoni made one helluva impact. Ask any scout about Sanjamb and they will tell you that it was epic! If anyone would like to find out more please visit the Facebook page titled Sanjamb 2017. Link: https://www.facebook.com/sanjamb2017/

Back to Gilten Happy Land, Happy Land!

From the 2-11 January 2018, the 62nd Gilten PLTU was well attended by 1st Benoni with 4 participants! Kayleigh Young (PL of Seagulls), Alison Mclachlan (PL of Albatross), Daniel Kiff (PL of Pelicans) and Caiden Dawkins (APL of Pelicans) all went through Patrol Leader Training Unit, which saw them being tested in more ways than one. This course is aimed at unlocking leadership potential in young ladies and gentlemen as they approach their PL-ship. This course tested how they lead, how they follow, and ow they approach problems, all while tackling tasks as a Gilten patrol. Not only did our scouts learn some life- changing and valuable lessons but they made friends for life. We, as the 1st Benoni adults cannot express enough how proud we are of our young leaders and look forward to the improvement in patrols we are sure to see. Well done!