Skills Training, 1 March

Hello Guides!

In this 集合, we would be teaching some hard skills to the Year 1s, namely the tying of lashes and the building of basic structures!

Teaching of Lashes

The Year 1s will be learning the basic lashes such as square lash, diagonal lash, tripod and A架. The Year 2s and 3s in each patrol will be split and one Year 1, 2 and 3 will form a group in each patrol. The Year 2s and 3s will teach the Year 1s how to tie tight lashes and within the standard timing.

Reflection by a Year 3:

We were allocated time to teach the Year Ones basic lashes during 集合, which gave us time to interact as well as to teach them. Firstly, we were given time to teach the Year Ones a square lash. we tried our best to teach them so they would understand and take note of certain things such as to keep tension and how to tie a clove hitch. This allowed us to ensure that our juniors had a good foundation on basic lashing before progressing and learning how to tie structures. We taught them how to tie a square lash and diagonal lash and reminded them to take note of details such as not to overlap.

Building of Baggage Rack

The Year 2s and 3s will be guiding the Year 1s to build a baggage rack.

Reflection by a Year 3:

For the baggage rack, we did not do very well as the baggage rack that we made was quite unstable and the lashes were quite loose throughout the structure. We had also measured incorrectly and thus our baggage rack ended up a bit lopsided. We also did not have enough sense of urgency as we had to ask for a lot of time extensions. However, it gave the Year Ones a chance to apply their newly learnt skills for tying lashes and building the A-架 and it was mostly their first time. They also got to learn how a baggage rack is built and had hands-on experience in building as we tried to give as much opportunity for them to tie the lashes and that was something I feel we did good at. We will have to increase our sense of urgency as well as the standard of our lashes in the future.

Building of Basic Structures

After the baggage rack, the Year 2s and 3s will be teaching the Year 1s how to build an emergency shelter and a flagpole. Each patrol would be building 2 emergency shelters and 1 flagpole.

Reflection by Year 3s:

In the teaching of basic structure activity, we had to build 2 emergency shelters and 1 flagpole. Our patrol was split into 2 groups to build an emergency shelter each, then whichever group finishes first could do the flagpole. For my group, we were a bit confused on how to build the emergency shelter, and only figured it out at the end of the activity, so we didn't manage to successfully build the emergency shelter. However, I found this activity to be useful as it cleared many of our doubts on how to build this emergency shelter, and hopefully, the Year 1s were able to learn something new from this activity, since this is their first time building these two structures.

I was in charge of building one of the emergency shelters with some of my patrol juniors. We had to 打进 the 木 into the ground, but because of the dry weather, it was really difficult to do so. All of us spent a lot of time to tale turns to do it but to no avail. We also accidentally made a hole and tore a small corner of our poncho, making it harder to attempt to attach the poncho. In the end, we could not complete our structure as we had spent too much time revolving around the problem of not being able to have our support ready for the structure. I learnt that sometimes, no matter how much we have planned or expected, some things may not go according to our plan. We would also need to be more creative in solving problems when faced with them. We could have used water to soften the soil. It may not work, but it is worth a try as it is possible, although we would make the ground muddy and thus, the 木 will be dirty too.

Afterwards, the patrols had patrol corner to help the Year 1s know the rest of the patrol better, and also to strengthen the bonds within the patrol.

Hope that the Year 1s gained valuable experience from this 集合!

Published by:

Hoong Yu Ning

50th Batch Secretary