A Scouts Life in our Quiet Town

Over the years we have done a lot of useful volunteer work in the community. Including:

• Painting a kindergarten classroom for our local grade school.
• Cleaning up a local park of dead branches and at the same time planting new trees.
• Lending a hand at the work weekends at Tamaracouta Scout Reserve in Bellefeuille.
• Going door to door during the can-o-thon to raise food for the needy in the area.
• Being assistant leaders for other groups in Candiac, such as the Beaver Colony and the Cub Pack.
• Assisting church services in the community as leaders, readers and altar servers.
• Baking Christmas cookies for Christmas baskets distributed annually to the less fortunate.
• And much much more!

To accomplish the tasks mentioned in the previous column and the following column the scouts in Candiac have to participate in many fundraising activities to acquire funds. The group committee which we report to monthly to explain our goals, accomplishments and failures, manage the money collected through fundraisers or registration fees and allocate the necessary funds to our group. The parents and friends of the scouts also help raising money by buying the many products sold by the scouts for fundraisers. Many generous residents of Candiac also offer help financially.

The main fundraising activity held by the group committee is the annual Talent Show. Initially started by the Venturer troop, it brings in approximately 800$ a year. The scouts help out in this event by helping in the hosting, doing coat check and also by participating in the acts.

The main fundraiser held by the scouts, with the help of the group committee members Marcy Bennett and Lorraine Cera is the bottle drive.  Once a year, all section cooperate to collect empty cans and bottles and return them to Pepsi.  This fundraiser nets us about $1500

Other fundraisers include selling:

• Chocolates
• Oranges
• Christmas Decorations

Over the course of the year, the scouts attend various types of camps. The first camp is usually held in the middle of September and is called the BP camp. During this camp the seniors scouts are given the challenge of impressing the younger scouts by showing off their building the largest fire possible in 3 hours and by lashing together something interesting, like a watch tower or a catapult. In the mean time the junior scouts are taught how to saw, use an axe, build fires in different weather conditions and other basic camp craft skills.

The second camp held every year, is hiking camp. The scouts are split into two groups, those who are mostly inexperienced are required to do an 8km hike over the course of the weekend and have their trip already planned out for them by leaders. The senior scouts have the option to choose which trails they wish to take, as long as they do over 16km in the weekend. The groups meet up at night to camp and split apart in the morning.

The next camp is Senior Camp. At this camp the leaders join into the troop and the older scouts become the leaders. This camp is especially fun for all, as the scouts get to tell the "leaders" to clean the dishes, do push ups and to cook.

After the Christmas holidays a winter camp is held. The kids learn how to snowshoe, cross-country ski and how to make snow shelters. The kids then sleep in the snow shelters overnight.

There are 2 camps in April, in which the scouts polish their camping skills in anticipation of the Tri District Competition camp in May.

Tri District camp is a camporee with troops attending form Quebec, Ontario, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.  1st Candiac always places well in the competitions, being among the top 5 troops in the last 3 years.

The last camp of the year is always canoe camp. The kids learn their basic canoe skills on Saturday morning and are then sent out to their camping area. The next morning they set out to go back to their starting point.

Since the leaders all have summer jobs and cannot take a week off for camp in summer, the kids are invited to go up to Tamaracouta Scout Reserve as composite campers.