Bangsar District Scouting Centenary Camporee Part 1

Last-minute preparation by a Tsun-Jin Rover at VI on Friday night

Kids practising for their Scout's Cultural night

I made a bee-line towards Victoria Instutition on Friday night to meet up with the organisers of the Bangsar District Centenary Camporee.
Met Assistant District Commissioner Chai Jiun Har who is also my wood badge trainer and saw a bunch of kids practising for their cultural night on Saturday.
My co-trainer Bob Lew told me about some potential danger lurking at the school's campsite.
This is apparent with the 2nd KL boys especially the Senior Scout who are kicking so much shit about their sovereignity and tradition.
Bob and I are training some kids from Form 2 and 3 for their merit badges.
Tales of bullying, intimidation and isolation became even more apparent when I saw a few of the Form 4 boys at the school.
Seems that the best course of action is to completely discard the older boys as they are beyond redemption.
Coming back to the camporee, I also met up with Bangsar District Commissioner Kenneth Soh who is the man behind the event.
Soh and Chai were instrumental in setting up the pace for the scouting event and attendance was also encouraging.
There were about 200 Boy Scouts and Senior scouts who took part in the three-day, two-night camping activity.

Speed P8 gets a tune-up

Rodalink mechanics attending to the bike..

It's been more that a year since I purchased my Dahon Speed P8 and its never been serviced since it left the bicycle shop where I bought it.
I've been troubled by some squeaky noise coming from the bike's handlebar and thought the bearing cone may be damaged.
So, after much deliberation, I took the bike to Rodalink's branch in Bandar Botanic in Klang to have it serviced.
The mechanics at this outlet took more than two hours to fine-tune the problem.
Handling was much better when I rode it in Putrajaya today, but there were still some noise coming out of the front section of the bike.
They also fixed my front touring rack, but the right hand side came out after I found out that the screw that attaches it to a mount was not long enough.

Lencana Usaha - Broga 6km Hike

Hiking up Broga Hill

This was the toughest section of the hike

The Boy Scouts and their testers

Bob and me at the second peak

The boys, successfully completing their journey test

Slow and steady was the pace of our 'Patrol X' experimental troop for a three-year King Scout programme initiated by Datuk Bob Lew, my ex-schoolmate.
We planned it in such a way, the boys would have to go through a series of training and tests before they could qualify for King Scout assessment.
So far, we've had a decent run with four boys from Patrol-X.
They've been committed and our first series of merit badges conferred to the boys were their Lencana Usaha which was completed yesterday.
This includes a 6km hike which I had designed to incorporate a mini-expedition to scale Broga Hill.
The programme includes map reading, bearing marking and taking geographical information on the location.
Bob was instrumental in rounding up the boys which he had hand-picked.
With patrol-X progressing to their first Boy Scout merit badge, there were some resistance from some older boys in Victoria Institution's 2nd Bangsar Troop.
Some of the seniors demanded to be trained. This is something that I would not condone because their level of committment has never been assessed.
Besides that, their clickish behaviour is something that I would not tolerate.
At the end of the Broga hike, the boys were also issued with their personal Mora knives as a reward to their effort.