Hi all, my name's Brendan Grice and this is my first blog on this website. Today i'm going to talk about the last camp our 180th troop went on.

On the 17th of October, a Friday, we went to Larch Hill, Larch Hill also happens to be one of the National Scout Centre's of Scouting Ireland! Every year we go down to Larch Hill as our first camp, most new scouts are invested on the first camp of the scouting year. This camp gives most new camps experience they use later on in their scouting career.

Regretfully, our storage container beside Lucan Scout Den was broken open this week and the majority of our tents and cooking equipment taken.

Following the break-in at the Scout’s storage container beside St Mary’s School in Lucan Village in March, the scouts have been fortunate to recover some of the lost camping equipment, receive donations of equipment worth at over €1500 and raise almost €1000 from the local community to help replace the remainder.

Hi! My name is Cathal Greene and I am the Senior Patrol leader in the 142nd/180th Esker Lucan Scouts. Recently, I, along with 7 other people took part in a county camp craft competition called The Shield.

The first thing to be done for the shield was to pick the team. We held a training day in which everybody who wanted to go to the shield could come. Everybody practised knots and lashings, and showed me what they could do. For the day, I had to plan what we were going to pioneer. I spent some time with a pencil and some paper and eventually came up with some designs that I like.

Last weekend, Sat 6^th and Sun 7^th June, our Beaver section of 6 to 9 year olds held an overnight camp at the Larch Hill campsite. For many of the Beavers this was their first time camping outdoors in a tent, and for some even their first time away from home overnight!

Friday, 19th of June: 

Approximately 17:00

We left Lucan for the Dublin Mountains. We got there by mini bus. Along with myself, Teelan, Anda and Eimhin were on this trip. Some of us were excited, some of us were nervous and some of us tried to get whatever last bit of sleep we could on the bus. We arrived at Rathmichael Church at 18:00. Tonight, we were going to trek two peaks, Carrickgollogan (252m) and Barnaslingan (238m). We might have only been walking for 20 minutes at our first resting point, but the sweat was coming out of us faster than a bullet coming out of a gun. But we still had another hour of walking left. We stopped at the foot of Barnaslingan for the night. We lit a fire and just relaxed for the night. We went to sleep under the tarp at around 23:00. 

Our Venture section recently took part in a Venture Island Camp, this camp is organised and staffed by the venture's from our provence. Venture leaders attend these camps to assist the Venture's if needed.

As part of the "Plan, Do, Review" process Irish Scouts operate, our Venture Scribe has written the following diary entries for the recent Venture Island camp.

Hi Guys! Platypus Patrol here to tell you about our annual summer camp 2015! This year we went out to Lough Dan for 3 Nights. We all met at Heuston Station and got the Luas to Connolly Station, the DART out to Bray, and then finally a bus to Lough Dan. Our equipment was brought down to the campsite for us in a van. Once the van arrived, we unloaded the equipment and got started on our camp.