Amazing Trail 2010

[This blog was written by Marcus Choo, one of our Scribes] "Heavy rainfall over most parts of Singapore" was the common refrain over the radio for the last few days. Therefore, I was praying very hard that the weather will hold up for our annual Amazing XXX Trail! The rain would definitely dampen the fun of our race around Singapore! I woke up bright and early on the day of the Trail, looked out of the windows and thanked God for the blue skies and cool start to the day! I headed off to school to meet the rest of the team with much anticipation and excitement! On the way to school, I wondered aloud, "What is the theme of this year's Trail? What would the XXX stand for?" All would be revealed soon…. The theme for this year's Trail is "Amazing Eco-Home Trail". As we gathered with our Six (which was renamed Group I for the Amazing Trail) and family members who were joining us in the Trail, we waited patiently for Akela to brief us. We soon found out that we were supposed to go (by public transport, except taxis) to Home-Fix stores all over Singapore to do certain activities there to earn points. We also had to complete a compulsory picture puzzle (with puzzle pieces collected from different Home-Fix stores) and an optional crossword puzzle (with clues from different Home-Fix stores as well!). If the picture puzzle was not completed, the team would be disqualified. That sounded very serious! Another new rule was that only 2 groups would be allowed at one stop at any one time. Akela also told us there was a Home-Fix store at Jelita. While planning our route, our team decided that we would visit the Jelita store first. We had a gut feel that the other groups would avoid Jelita as they were likely to think that the Jelita store, being nearest to school, would be every team's first stop. When we arrived at the Jelita store, no other team was there! We were right! Yeah! A good start for Group I! After that, when we arrived at the bus stop opposite Jelita, we found out the bus that we wanted to take had just left! So we decided to take a bus to town and take the train from there to City Square Mall. While on the bus, we discussed the route to take. I was quite good with the MRT routes, while the accompanying parents were better at the buses. We make a good team! At our second stop at City Square Mall, our task was to count the number of eco-kiosk and the number of solar panels on the green roof (level 1 outside the mall). At first we thought it was quite an impossible task to count the numerous solar panels but as it turns out, we were quite close to the correct numbers! Way to go, Group I! Next stop, Marina Square. This is a large mall and we had to be careful not to lose any of our team members. We also had to stay focused with our task instead of being distracted by the many interesting stores at the mall! Our task here was to find the price of certain items at the Home-Fix store, which was quite easily done. Being rather satisfied with our progress so far, we decided to stop for lunch at Burger King at Marina Square. During lunch, we again reviewed our plan to see whether we had enough time to visit all the stores we had decided on earlier…we had to return to school by 5pm or be penalized 1% of our total score for every minute we are late! We decided to head for Harbourfront next. At Harbourfront, we had to hand out stickers and flyers with eco-friendly messages to passer-bys. There were about 100 stickers and flyers to give away so we split up the load to all our team members. Most of the people I approached were friendly but some were hesitant and rather suspicious of us. Some even refused to take our stickers and flyers. I felt really lousy to be rejected by these people! Now I understand how those students feel when they are trying to sell flags for charity during Flag Day and are avoided like plague by some members of the public! Seeing our problem, the parents suggested that we give our flyers to tourists instead. It's sad that Singaporeans can be less accepting than the foreign tourists! One of the main tasks of the Trail is that each group is supposed to make an item which will be auctioned off later at the Gala dinner. Our group decided to make a lamp. At our next stop at Anchorpoint Home-Fix, we were given instructions to buy a $4.90 lamp at Ikea and decorate it with an eco theme. We discussed how to decorate the lamp and then proceeded to buy some recyclable decorative materials and a energy saving light bulb back at Home-Fix with the $10 voucher which was given to us, with compliments from Home-Fix, at the start of the Trail. After Anchorpoint, we decided we had time to visit one more store nearby at Tanglin Mall. Unfortunately, our facilitator had a very bad pain in his leg and could not proceed further with us. So he gave us the worksheet meant for Tanglin Mall, which meant it saved us a trip there! I felt sorry for our facilitator as he was rather in pain but I can't help feeling happy that we had saved a fair bit of time! So we headed back to school. We reached school at 4:20pm and were the first group to arrive. Not wasting any time, we started to decorate our lamp for the auction later. In line with the Eco theme, we decorated our lamp like a tree, with the lamp stem as the tree trunk and the lamp shade as the tree branches and leaves. We stuck paper leaves on it and were finally satisfied with the end product after an hour of work. I liked our lamp a lot and made a mental note to ask my Dad to bid for it later – I wanted to bring it home as a souvenir of the memorable day! As we were quite early and had ample time to work on the lamp, we also had some time for fellowship amongst the group members. It struck me then that we had, subconsciously through the many scout meetings, built up a very good team which gelled together very well. We had worked very well together throughout the Trail, with each member doing their part and there were no major disagreements whatsoever. The parents participating in our Group were also very encouraging and they had faithfully upheld the spirit of the Trail, which was to encourage family bonding and allow the team to make our own decisions under the leadership of Moses (Sixer), Jong Xiang (AS) and me (Of course!). I think this was what made the Trail so fun and memorable for me! Now, back to the events of the day. We gathered back at the Hall at 6:45 pm for the Gala dinner. Once the Guest of Honour, Asst. Chief Commissioner Malcolm Tan arrived, the much anticipated Gala dinner commenced. After the welcome address by Akela and the Guest of Honour, we had our traditional yarn throwing to kick start the evening. I love yarn throwing – it's the only time we get to throw yarn around without being scolded by any adults for being naughty! I even brought some pieces of the yarn home as souvenir! Baloo, our emcee for the evening, led us in songs, games and dance. My favourite game was the typewriter game where the participants were to pretend to be typing on the typewriter to the accompaniment of "typewriter sounding" music. The "ting" sound that the typewriter made every now and then sent almost everyone laughing! It is such a strange sound as most of us cubs had never seen a typewriter before! How's that for generation gap! Some of the cubs also put up a Chinese dance item during the dinner. It was fun and entertaining at the same time. I understand that they had put in a lot of time to practice for this item during the June holidays – well done, fellow cubs! Appreciate the effort! Mr Ng, our principal, also gave away prizes for the top earners for Job Week. Souvenirs were also presented by Akela to the special guests and the hard-working facilitators in appreciation. Soon, it was time for the highlight of the dinner – the auction of the items made by the Groups. It was the first time I witnessed an auction and it was full of action and fun! Even the cubs joined in the fun by shouting their bids, much to the chagrin and amusement of Baloo, the auction master. Most of the parents bid for the items made by their respective Groups. When it came to the lamp made by my Group, I urged my Dad to bid for it. However, Moses' Mum was up against my Dad and she finally got the lamp for $38. I was so disappointed! However, looking on the bright side, the money from the auction would be going to charity and that cheered me up! Towards the end of the dinner, Akela announced the winner of the Trail. My Group didn't even make it near to the scores of the winning Group! However, I was not terribly disappointed as the whole Trail had been very fun, memorable and rewarding for me. I especially look forward to next year's Trail as it would be the last Trail for me as a Pelican Scout. Until then, I shall treasure the memories of this Amazing Eco-Home Trail!