Queens Badge weekend 12th-14th September 2014

Queens Badge weekend 12^th-14^th September 2014

Ashley and I set off for the weekend on the Friday after sixth form and college, admittedly it wasn’t off to a great start; no train tickets and no Queen’s badge book. (Not mentioning any names: Ashley). Never the less we got there in one piece, even with delays on the trains. It wasn’t long before friendships had been formed, even before the ice breaker’s and ‘getting to know’ each other session. After this we had a task to do. We were split into teams of three, the task was to get a bping pong ball into a cup with just some sellotape, duct tape and string. Tyler from the Plymouth battalion, who was in my team, got the ball into the cup before the other team. This task was surprisingly amusing to watch each other try and get the balls in the cup. Ed then asked to do presentations on the work we had done so far for our queen’s badge.

The adults disappeared off to bed, but all of us kids stayed up and watched Harry Potter. This was a great opportunity for us all to spend some time together and make the friendships stronger.

Saturday was the day of the walk that we all dreading. We didn’t walk anywhere near as far as we all thought. It was typical that when I woke up on Saturday morning I had conjunctivitis, ended up in a trip to the hospital. We started off on our walk, split into teams, teams that we hadn’t been working in before. There was one navigator who had a map and we were given different grid references on the map.  We finished the walk after 3-4 hours. We then had a nice relaxing evening, with a BBQ on the beach, the only catch was we had to cook the food ourselves on disposable BBQ’s.  Saturday evening was another evening of Harry potter films on the sofas. Just chilling out and talking together.

Sunday came and we had one final task to do. We worked in two’s for this task. We had to produce a rocket for an egg pilot to sit and launch it across the tarmac. We were given basic materials and if the teams wanted any other resources you had to bargain with the other teams. Trying to persuade a team that they would need the same resources as you was hard work; it took a lot to persuade one team in particular. We then had to launch them across the tarmac, the egg that was the least cracked was the team that won. After we had done this is was time for everyone to say goodbye. A weekend of fun and laughter was had by all.

If you are doing your Queen’s Badge I fully recommend carrying on with and putting in the hard work because it will all pay off after. From this weekend I have made lifelong friends, which I hope I will see again in the future. I recommend the weekend fully, It was a great experience that I would do over again.

Staff Sergeant Becca Goldsworthy.