Our year 3s have recently completed the COJ! It stands for Combined Obstacle Journey, where the guides and scouts are faced with various obstacles and difficulties and make use of their guiding and scouting skills to overcome them. It was one of the milestones in their guiding journey and we congratulate them on the successful completion! It was planned by the year 4s and acts as a prelude to PLTC, which stands for Patrol Leaders Training Camp. Both of these are geared towards making our girls better leaders so that they can take up the mettle when they step up to lead. Below are two accounts from our guides about their experiences during COJ.
From a P3 guide:
Finally, the long-awaited COJ arrived on 7th April. We year threes have spent a while preparing for it, and most of us felt prepared enough and were anticipating Saturday after inspection on the 4th.
During inspection, we had a surprise “test” which involved pouring water onto our haversacks to check if they are properly waterproof. This “test” had made all of us more aware that we must be prepared at all times, and to ensure that all our things are in order in case of emergencies.
During the preparation period, my patrol, P3 Rubber Ducky bonded well together as we discussed our identities, patrol songs and cheers together. We were able to communicate among ourselves pretty well, and this would help us throughout COJ.
My patrol’s first station for COJ was the obstacle course station. Generally, we felt that we could have had more communication between the patrols so that we could complete the whole course. Nonetheless, we cheered quite a lot which helped to boost our patrol’s morale and we tried our best.
Our next station was the survival skills station. We were asked to build a signal fire, as well as build a structure to elevate the whole patrol. Throughout the activity, the seniors gave us a few drills such as bear attack and wild boar attack. Unfortunately for us, we could not get the fire started and only managed to start two out of three. Also, we did not manage to allocate the manpower efficiently so there was some point where a particular task was left with too few people to cope with.
Our third station was PT as well as pitching a dome tent and I was the PL for this station. We were also being tested on our Guides code as we ran around finding the logistics needed to pitch the dome tent. Overall, our patrol’s stamina was not bad. However when it came to pitching the dome tent, I was not that calm anymore. My patrol mates were blindfolded, leaving me to guide them. It was rather difficult to give them instructions and I started to panic. Halfway through, I swapped with the PS but we still could not finish the tent in time. I felt that I should have been clearer and should not have panicked, as it would be of no use.
The fourth station was acid river, where we were supposed to build a structure to transport the patrol from one end to another. However, only four people could tie the structure while the other three had to ding boy’s style, and we could only swap every five minutes. Due to the lack of communication between the people tying and the people ding-ing, there was a lot of confusion every time we swapped. We could have improved in that aspect and ensured that everyone had a clear idea of what’s happening. Because of that, we ended up exceeding the time limit many times and we still failed to transport everyone over in the end.
Our fifth station was the vertical rope station. While some people had to climb the vertical rope to get six post-its with the Guides code and decipher it, some of us had to treat a wounded patrol mate. We managed to get all six post-its as we tied our green spar to the rope and got different people to retrieve them. After that, we had to transport our casualty up to the second level but we could not think of any way to move him up, so we failed that part.
加油everyone and thank you Year 4s for planning COJ and making it successful!:D
From a guide from patrol 1:
On 7 April, the Y3s had our COJ. We were all nervous yet excited for COJ and had made necessary preparations beforehand for it.Our first station was the vertical rope station. One person was asked to be the casualty while the other patrol members were asked to treat the casualty and transport him up with the vertical rope. Also, post-its were stuck on wall of the second level and we had to climb up via the vertical rope to obtain the post-its which had the guides code on them, decipher the message, and do the distress signals. My patrol’s morale was very low and we needed a lot of prompting to cheer. Also, our actions were rather slow and only 2 patrol members could climb the vertical rope. We failed to obtain all the post-its as the same person was not allowed to go up too many times, and we did not make use of the green spar to build a rope ladder as we would get penalized. However, we should have done so as the penalization of marks is better than not completing the task at all. However, we managed to transport the casualty up with the fireman’s chair.
Our second station was the gas room station and I was the PL for this station. When we first entered the gas room, we remembered to duck to avoid falling objects and also crawl on the floor and cover our mouths and noses. Our patrol lacked communication and we ended up taking quite long to finish our tasks in the gas room. We transported the casualties out before treating them, but did not ask if they could walk and hence had to carry both casualties out instead of supposedly only one as she was supposed to be able to walk on her own. Also, some people were left behind as our patrol did not really communicate with one another and ended up doing our own things, hence the scene was rather chaotic. We then treated the casualties after we left the gas room. One had a rib fracture and we bandaged her rib instead of tying an elevation sling, which is the correct method. The other was unconscious and had a head injury and we put her in recovery position and bandaged her head injury. For the second part of the station, we had to build a stretcher and transport the unconscious casualty as many rounds around the level as we could. We cheered constantly but could have had a greater sense of urgency. At this station, we should have taken better care of our things as our haversack got taken once. Also, we should have had better communication among the patrol and as the PL; I should have given clearer instructions and made the patrol work together to complete the tasks faster and more efficiently.
Our third station was at the obstacle course. We had to cross a series of obstacles to the other side where all our patrol logistics were confiscated and placed. Every time we touched the floor, we had to do 10 sit ups. We passed the first obstacle by crawling over it and we attached a green spar to help us cross more easily where the gap was slightly bigger. Some patrol members passed the obstacle very quickly, while some took very long to do so. As a result, our patrol seemed to be more like two patrols as there were two distinct groups. For the second obstacle, we had to cross over to the other side via a few dangling ropes. Only one person from my patrol managed to cross this obstacle and the others were stuck at the other end. We took very long to decide how we were going to cross the obstacle and some of our methods failed, hence resulting in our failure to cross over to the other side.
Our fourth station was the survival skills station. We were asked to set up a signal fire and build a structure to elevate our patrol logistics. My patrol managed to set up the signal fire (three small fires forming the shape of an equilateral triangle) and make use of the benches and red spar to tie a structure to elevate our logistics. However, we failed to react quickly enough during the hornet and wild boar attacks. We also had to set up three distress signals and build hike tents to shelter our patrol logistics. Our hike tents failed to shelter our patrol logistics as they were not taut enough and immediately sagged after water was poured on it. Our patrol worked rather slowly and we also worked in two distinct groups and did not have communication among one another. We should have worked as a patrol instead of breaking up into two groups and not communicating between the two groups while completing the tasks. Also, our patrol morale was very low.
At our fifth station, we had to pitch a dome tent while being blindfolded (except the PL), as well as decipher messages written with guides code. We managed to decipher the guide’s code quickly and did caterpillar walk and commando crawl to get the logistics required for the dome tent. We did not take care of our patrol logistics well and also left the haversack to the PS alone. We failed to pitch the tent in the end and our actions were also very slow. We also had to cross a pathway on fire and we made use of chairs to help us cross the pathway. At this station, we should’ve had better communication among one another and helped one another out. We also should’ve cheered more to boost the patrol morale.
This COJ has been an enriching experience for my patrol as we have bonded more as a patrol and learnt new skills. However, there are a lot of improvements to be made such as cheering constantly, working faster, taking care of our patrol logistics more, having better communication among one another, and being surer of our skills. We will try our best to improve before PLTC. Lastly, thank you Y4s for planning this COJ for us! :)
We love guides! :)
