dunman high chapter

29 January, 30 January 2016 - YA Camp

Hey everyone!

On 29 and 30th January 2016, the YAs had their annual YA Camp! Before the camp, we executed a Guides Leadership Training for DHSCOY during their 集合, hence our camp started off only in the evening on Friday and lasted till night the next day.

Day 1

This year, we decided to base our camp on reliving fond Guiding memories and focussed on bonding within the YAs. Our first activity after dinner was 盲人打帐, where we split into two teams and pitched dome tents with our eyes closed, with only one person in each team being able to see. But this came with a twist - our tents would be pitched in the classroom! While we had originally planned to sleep at the Field D Area in tents, it had just rained rather heavily before and we were unable to pitch tents on the wet ground, thus resulting in a last-minute change of plans. However, we did not let this dampen our moods and had a lot of fun pitching the tents, especially as this activity reminded us of our Combined Obstacle Journey (COJ) 3 years back, when we were only Year 3s.

After that, it was time for our night run! We planned to run to Marina Barrage from the school (around 5 km) - this activity was also inspired by our Patrol Leaders' Training Camp (PLTC) in 2013, in which we had walked the same route for our Morning Hike. While the run was definitely tiring especially as some of us had never run more than the required 2.4km for NAPFA, it was still very satisfying, especially as we were greeted and rewarded by the beautiful night city skyline at the roof of the barrage! After a short break at the Barrage, we brisk-walked back to school, our morale significantly lifted as we admired the view by the river on the way back to school :)

Upon reaching back to school, it was time for our mini Campfire! We brought down a kerosene lamp and gathered at the elevated court to have our Campfire session, singing our own campfire favourites like Red River Valley, 细水长流 and Rock A My Soul. We then ended the night with a heartfelt talk with the Guiders :)

Day 2

Our second day started off with a short PT session followed by breakfast. After which, we built a kitchen shelter, kitchen table and fire altar in preparation for Outdoor Cooking later.

Then, it was time for Outdoor Cooking! Everyone was looking forward to this activity as it had been a long time since we last used kindling to start a fire and cook. Thankfully, our skills were still retained and we were able to start a fire without much trouble! Additionally, we also learnt a new method of Outdoor Cooking using a pit!

After our hearty lunch and cleanup, we had a short initiatives session where we learnt to sew a shoebag! While some of us were amateur at sewing, we found out that there were also a few of us who were really great at sewing!

Unfortunately, we were unable to finish our shoe bags, as it was time for the next activity - treasure hunt! The treasure hunt was planned by Chelsea alone and was kept a secret from everyone else, hence we were all very curious as to what she had in store for us.

We were first split into 2 groups, where we played a few games in order to get hints for the main activity, which was the hunt itself. The games included Captain's Ball, Tug-of-war, as well as our favourite Quiz Game, where Chelsea would pose a Guides-related question to us and we would have to tie a lash first in order to answer the question.

After which, was the actual hunt for the treasure - we were now on our own to find the hints, and we could even put others to jail temporarily or gain more hints by completing IQ tests! It was definitely very exciting, especially towards the end, when we realised that the game was about coming together with all the hints to form a sentence clueing us to the final destination. Thanks Chelsea for planning such a cheesy yet fun-filled activity!

As we neared the end of the camp, everyone was in high spirits from the fulfilling activities we had the past 24 hours. We had dinner with the Guiders (Ms Sim and Ms Ng), including Ms Kuah, who came just to see us despite no longer being a teacher at Dunman High! After that, there was a short reflection session where we reviewed the activities and discussed how we could improve as YAs from here on.

Overall, the YA Camp was definitely a great time for us to not only relive our Guiding memories, but also a time for us to catch up with one another amidst our busy schedules :)

Labels: Initiatives, Outdoor Cooking, Skills Training, YA camp

Hello! :)

This week's activity was Outdoor Cooking - the first one for the Year 5s!!

Below is a blogpost by Rui Qi :)

On 22 April 2015, we had Outdoor Cooking which was planned by the Year 5 ICs (Wen Ting and Natalie), as majority of the Year 6s had to attend the speech day rehearsal.

The menu consisted of Nasi Lemak as the main course, potato salad, and pancakes with fruits for dessert.

Lynette mixing the pancake batter

Pancakes!!

Looks good? :)

We started off with preparing the rice for the Nasi Lemak as this would take a longer time to cook, then began to work on the other dishes simultaneously by splitting up our manpower effectively.

The recipes were relatively simple to follow, so we did not expect many difficulties along the way. However, one major challenge we faced was that the heat from the gas stove was not high enough, so it took a very long time to cook. Thankfully, we had a rather strong fire from the barbecue pit which helped to speed up the process.

BBQ Pit set up by Chelsea and Lynette

Here are some of the recipes we used:

Nasi Lemak

Ingredients

2 cups of uncooked rice

135 ml coconut milk

135 ml water

1 pandan leaf, split and tied in a knot

½ tsp salt

2 packs of sausages

Dried Ikan Bilis

4 eggs

A few teaspoons of Vegetable Oil

Instructions

1. Rinse rice

2. Place coconut milk and water into a large pot.

3. Heat it on high heat until mixture boils.

4. When mixture boils, place uncooked rice, salt and pandan leaf into the pot and let it simmer.

5. Cover the pot with a lid and turn the heat down to low.

6. After 16-20 minutes, check on the rice.

7. When rice is no longer crunchy and is slightly sticky, turn off the heat.

8. Drain any excess liquid and fluff the rice with a spoon.

9. Prepare sausages by slicing them with small diagonal cuts

10. Heat up a pan with some vegetable oil.

11. Fry sausages until crispy.

12. Beat eggs

13. Add a little more oil if necessary.

14. Fry beaten eggs into a thin pancake.

15. Fry Ikan bilis and serve.

Nasi Lemak, missing the anchovies!

Potato Salad

Ingredients

1 bag of potatoes

5 tablespoons of Mayonnaise

1 teaspoon of Sugar

Sufficient Bacon Bits

1 Onion

4 eggs

Instructions

1. Mix mayonnaise, mustard and sugar together

2. Place potatoes and eggs in a pot of water and bring up to a boil.

3. Peel potatoes and eggs

4. Cut the potatoes into cubes and eggs into slices

5. Chop onions

6. Lay potatoes, onions then egg slices into an aluminium tray

7. Place sauce into aluminium tray

8. ‘Bake’ using barbecue pit

Ruo Rou checking the potatoes and eggs

Potato Salad!! Best dish of the day :)

We took a longer time than expected to finish everything due to the weak fire, but at the end of the day, we were happy with our food as we had put in a lot of effort into it while also enjoying the process. :)

After all the food was prepared, we also had a mini competition between the Year 5s and Year 6s to see who could make whipped cream the fastest! Although all of us were very excited about it at the start, the enthusiasm died down when both sides still could not produce whipped cream even after 15 minutes. Despite so, it was a great bonding session for us as we all had fun in the process.

This activity was definitely a very fulfilling one as it was a good opportunity of us to put our cooking skills to good use, and also to learn by sharing our cooking know-hows with one another. :)

Labels: Outdoor Cooking

27 August 2014: Cooking!

On 27 August, we had our first cooking activity of the year!

Excited to start cooking!

Ingredients :)

Here's our wonderful menu of the day:
Spaghetti in Tomato Sauce
Tomato Soup
Campbell Soup
Eggs. Sausages, Crab Sticks

Scrambled eggs in a heart shape because we love YAs <3

BBQ-ed

Looking good?

S'mores, Roasted Marshmallows

S'mores are great because of the melted chocolate :)

Perfectly roasted marshmallows! Yum

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal

No bake :) Easy to make and very good!

We first used portable gas stoves as well as Ms Kuah's instant BBQ set to cook our food. First, Ms Kuah taught us how to set up the BBQ set and and some of us got the chance to use a type of lighter that we have never tried using before to start the fire. It was an interesting experience because it was actually quite different from using the usual charcoal to bbq the food.

Fire!

Next, we boiled the spaghetti. Because the fire from the gas stoves was not very strong and we only had 2 gas stoves, we decided to use mess tins as well. This was truly a test of our firelighting skills since we had not had such activities in a rather long time! Of course, we still managed to start the fire and cook our food rather quickly :)

At the end of it all, we sat in a circle and enjoyed the yummy food, which tasted even better because it was cooked by us and we had each other's company :) Not only was this a great bonding activity for us, we also had loads of fun and got a chance to refresh our firelighting skills!

Delicious Food

Enjoying our food

Chefs of the day :)

Labels: Outdoor Cooking

14 August: Outdoor Cooking

We had our first outdoor cooking as YA chapter today! It has been a while since we last practiced our fire lighting skills and this activity had definitely helped us revise and improve on our fire lighting.

We split ourselves into two teams, one in charge of the fire and another in charge of food preparation. While the team was preparing the food, the fire team dug up two pits for the fire.

In each pit, we arranged the kindling in an arrangement of a wigwam, with 木麻黃 in the middle of the twigs. Next, we lighted the木麻黃 which will spread the fire to the twigs.

We fed more twigs and after a while, we had our fire ready for cooking! We decided to switch to amber cooking so as to reduce the amount of smoke.

food preparation

cooking the breakfast eggs in foil bowls

The outdoor cooking this time was slightly different as we decided not to cook our traditional instant noodles. Instead, we explored different types of food and tried a few new recipes. One of the most interesting recipes we had was cooking bananas or apples marshmallows, chocolate chips and raisins in the middle. Our food turned out well, much as we expected! :)