Eagles as per usual had an inspirational time this second term. Our ever expanding patrol gained our newest member Claire, we went on an eye opening patrol activity to the NSRI and some cinnabons were created.

Our trip to the NSRI was accompanied by Matthew, Alex, Ov and Holly. We learnt about big maps that see ships and we got a tour of their really cool boat. They had these chairs that don’t move even when the boat is zooming at high speed, they also had a coffee machine and a really large engine.

Definitely one of the highlights of the term was the mobile cooking evening. Eagles made cinnabons and various other type 2 diabetes inducing treats and somehow came last [the marking was rigged I promise]. They even put the cinnabons in a cute bag, adhering to the wise words of Demi Demi…

All in all it was a spiffing term, full with strange activities like when Alex was rolled down a hill with scarves tied to him, when Louis somehow couldn’t manage to button his shirt properly and when our poor masking tape mascot was mauled by the big boss of Kestrels [James] and lost its second wing. 

Holly Raine

On the first of May, a handful of scouts, accompanied by a few scouters, embarked on an exhilarating climbing day at Lakeside Pinnacle. Despite the overcast sky, our enthusiasm remained unwavering. The craggy terrain, usually dry and inviting, now bore a subtle dampness—a challenge that only fueled their determination.

The brief walk up to the pinacol was steep and just off the road side of boys drive. In my opinion the walk to the rock faces was much more difficult than the climbs themselves. The climbs  were very fun and only mildly challenging, the wide variety of skill levels that of the scouts that attended the day was quite astounding.

The vibe was lit. Laughter echoing off the rocks, high-fives after nailing a move, and shouts of encouragement. Emily, the boss lady who organized the whole thing, deserves major props. Along with the other scouters who came along and supplied some of our tools.

Avila Van Bever Donker

Swifts this term has not been at its best performance however we are a reasonably new patrol so I’ll give us that. Next term however, Swifts is going on its “villain arc” where we will become the best patrol and definitely win M.O.S.C.I.P (deeeeeeeeeeeefinitelyyyyyyyyyy). Ehehe, we will do better.

Everyone seems to be doing really well (except Joel he still can’t win in Jiu Jitsu) and is insanely busy and I cannot wait to run patrol activities in term 3 and see the incredible outcome and see the Swifty Liftys bond really well.

I am proud of our new members Joncole, Mathilde and Jenny who are really keen to be doing badges and advancement and I cannot wait for the whole patrol to be advancing next term.

Enjoy the break for now yon swifties, I’ll be back for you dw 😈

(I’m only joking)

Peter Raynham

It’s been a moment since I’ve written an article for Smoke Signals, but I’m back with a whole lot of thoughts. I think this point in the year is a perfect time for some good old reflection, especially as we go into the new term. It’s always fun to look back and see what has been accomplished, as often the fast-paced nature of existence means we are so focused on the next thing that we forget to appreciate where we are. 

When we look back, it’s always fun to marvel at the myriad activities our troop gets up to. The landmark events that stand out to me as I write this are James’ Springbok Camp, Kon-Tiki and Winter Cederberg, and there are many more. 

But these are just large events that, whilst really cool, only represent a fraction of what the troop gets up to. We have scouts going on badge courses nearly every weekend, advancement getting done, patrol activities, competitions being (nearly) won, and then Thursday meetings that – in my opinion – are absolutely top tier. 

But what does this give us? Is this good? How do we measure all of these things and evaluate if the the troop is doing “well”? What even does “well” mean? 

For those who know me even a little, you’ll know that I love Data (not the Star-Trek character). I love numbers, graphs and trying to get things to fit into nice little boxes. If there was a number that I could get that said “your troop is 70% of the way to being a perfect troop” I’d be so happy. Unfortunately, those nice circles you see on Scouts Digital for your personal advancement don’t exist for a Troop Scouter, and I’m left here with these un-answerable questions. 

To save everyone from the long philosophical journey I went on, I’ll summarise my findings here. 

There are all these metrics, imperfect that they may be, which give us a glimpse into the functioning of the troop. From MOSCIP to Star Awards, Tonkin and regional competitions, all of these show us a part of the truth. In a way that you can kind-of figure out what something is based on its shadow, these imperfect metrics give us a view into what a “real” metric for the “goodness” of the troop is (akin to taking a projection of a higher-dimensional shape into a one-dimensional representation). 

When we do look at these metrics, we see a nice shadow emerging. MOSCIP results were high for most of our patrols. Three of our patrols and the troop got Gold Star for the last year, and we placed 5th in Tonkin and we continuously placed highly in competitions. 

But here is the thing. These metrics actually don’t matter at all. I know I’ve made the case for them, and gone on a long-winded rant about how useful they are even though they’re imperfect. But the truth of the matter is that no one in the troop should actually care about these. The real thing we should all care about is “getting out and doing scouting”. 

Now yes, this is a nebulous statement, and one that would look good on a bumper sticker (“I’d rather be scouting!”) but the underlying message is truer than any metric we can get to. 

The scouting system works not when we fixate on metrics and measures of performance, but when we send our scouts “out” to fully experience being independent and responsible. What is “out”, I hear you ask. Well, there’s the piece of this sentiment doing the heavy lifting, and the crux of everything I’m getting at. When we leave scouts to their own devices, fully leveraging the patrol system which, at its core, is about trusting in young people’s abilities to make good decisions on their own, then that’s when we’re doing scouting properly. 

In a nutshell, we can determine how well we’re running the scouting programme by “vibes”. Yeah, it’s a cop-out. But in the end, it comes down to what we feel is right as adults in scouting. Because we’re essentially large AI models trained on many years of good and bad scouting, able to accurately label any particular instance of scouting as “good” with fairly high confidence (can you tell I have a computer science degree yet?).

So, to close off, I want to summarize what I’ve rambled on about in a neat little takeaway. 1st Claremont is honestly doing some of the purest scouting that I have seen, and I am incredibly proud of what our scouts get up to. I say this not because I’m looking at the number of badges people are earning, nor how many events are being run. I say this because it feels like we are doing something right. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t care about these metrics. Just that – and this is addressed to all the scouts – you should focus more on doing things in the spirit of scouting, rather than chasing a certain number of events/badges/positions/other metrics for the sake of it. 

Phew – thank goodness Daniel has finished his waffle (as the scouts would say). Wrong! I have one more thing to add since I’m making up for the past few editions where I contributed nothing. 

All of this scouting would not be possible without our incredible Adult Leaders. They put so much effort into this movement whilst all being volunteers. They do this for their own reasons I’m sure – and I encourage people to talk more about this – but one of the overarching reasons is this sense of giving back. Personally, I benefitted incredibly from this organisation, and I saw it as only logical to give back. 

Thank you to my fellow scouters, most of whom are in this photo. Without you we would not be able to create an environment that is so conducive to such high quality scouting.

Daniel Le Jeune
Troop Scouter

Troop Scouter Peter Raimondo – 1980-2024

Peter Raimondo became a Scout around 1991 and he was probably one of the first Scouts I invested. The programme at the time was rather unstructured, a lot of fun, and heavily outdoors, all of which suited Peter perfectly. At a camp in Elgin, he set off to see how far he could swim down the Palmiet River, which turned out to be quite a long way, and quite alarming to the leaders since we didn’t know where he had gone. On backwoods camp, he built his shelter at least 6m above the ground in an enormous tree. He was also part of our first winning Upton Shield team in 1994. As Kon-Tiki PL, he pioneered a canoeing route through several hundred metres of reeds to do some late night shopping at a cafe on the far side. 

Peter went on to become Troop Scouter, a role he held from 1997 to 2005. He brought his spirit of adventure to the role, sending Scouts on solo survival hikes in the northern Cederberg (with Peter following them at a distance), building Kon-Tiki rafts, and leading a Drakensberg tour for a group of senior Scouts. 

Peter’s passion for the outdoors then became his career as he moved full time into wilderness guiding and coaching roles in the Wilderness Leadership School and then in his own Wild Life Foundation.

Tragically, Peter battled with leukaemia for 2 years, and died peacefully in April at the early age of 44. His colleagues posted in tribute: “It is with great sadness that we inform you about the passing of our beloved Peter Joseph Raimondo. He was a great man, and an inspiration to many who met him during his lifetime. Peter spent most of his professional career in the wilderness. His love for the natural world and wildlife was unconditional.” 

As someone who worked with Peter as a Scouter, it was an enormous privilege to have been part of his journey and to have seen him take his foundation in Scouting, which made such a difference in his own life, and share the same passion with so many others.

Ian Webb
Scout Group Leader

Term 2 has been a fun term for Boks, there haven’t been that many events, but our attendance at weekly meetings is growing which is a very good sign, recently Tristan ran his discoverer hike on a route up table mountain that nobody in the troop had ever done. We hope to see more events in Term 3 and hopefully we can climb up the leaderboard. I know that Boks is capable of a lot, and hopefully we can see that coming through in the coming months.

Tim Begg

For my Discoverer environmental community service project, I decided to do a fundraiser for The Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary, which is a non-profit organization that rescues, rehabilitates, and releases orphaned rhinos, in KZN. 

On the 4th May we had a Prep Day for the market where we made some absolutely delectable baked goods, ranging from cake pops (made by the wonderful Malaika and Harry), cupcakes, and chocolate brownies with a tad more salt than the recipe suggested (*cough cough-Oliver Ringrose). We also made handmade beaded and plaited bracelets. 

We had a stall at the Rondebosch Craft Market the next weekend, and sold out almost completely, thanks to all the support we got from Scouts and parents, as well as people interested in the Scouting organization. We had many conversations about what Scouting is all about, as we proudly represented Scouts wearing our uniforms. Thanks to everyone who supported us and made the fundraiser such a success!

Julia Webb