Over the weekend of 25-27 January the party for this summer’s District trip to the Kandersteg International Scout Centre had the first of their get together weekends.

With a mixed party from different Groups taking part in the trip it is a good idea to get them together a few times beforehand so they know each other a little, and it gives a chance for the young people to get involved in the programme planning.

The party spent the weekend in the Seeonee Lair centre at Kettleness on the coast north of Whitby, a converted railway station. The only problem with the weekend was the extremely strong wind, which howled noisily around the building from us arriving on the Friday until Sunday morning. We did wonder at one point if the flag pole was going to last the weekend.

This gave us rather noisy nights, and caused the cancellation of the hike to Whitby on the Saturday as there were fears of people being blown over the edge of the cliffs. With a minibus available we managed to run the party into Whitby for a few hours, and then came back to the centre to do some further planning work for the trip.

The weekend allowed us to complete the provisional programme for this summer’s trip.