It had been a while since we had a 3day/2night track camp. We had chosen the MacLehose Trail Stages 1 and 2 for our event. After a 2-hour hike, we camped at Tai Long Sai Wan (a beach). It was very windy that night and a couple of tents collapsed although the occupants did not notice such mishap when asked the following morning!

Day 2 involved another 2.5 hours of hiking to Chek King. As part of her Voyager Award, Wendy Tang Won Lam organised a drawing competition for each patrol. She provided some canvas and crayons and the topic was objects/scenary at the camp site. Eagle and Lion became the joint winners of the competition.

Although a little celebration was planned at midnight to mark the New Year, all the Scouts had been sound asleep by 11pm!

Although the journey was relatively short, the Scouts had a taste of track camp. A few of them had already acquired the skills of pitching the tents as they had practised it a couple of times over the three days.

Tis the time for our Chirstmas party and we had the usual delicious food and snacks.

23 Scouts, 4 Venture Scouts and 2 Leaders set off on a fine December day from Tai Po to Plover Clove Reservoir on bicycles. Apart from the fun they had on that day, all the Scouts were awarded the Cyclist Badges.

As part of the requirements of the Chief Scout Award, Patrick Lam Pak Yuen (SPL) and Natasha Lee Chun Yi (PL of Tiger Patrol) organised a visit to RTHK where they learnt the basic theory of broadcasting.  They also had a chance to record a radio drama in their studio!

It had been two years since we organised a night track. This year we specifically chose the day to coincide with the Trailwalker event. Trailwalker is a charity event in which walkers have to walk 100km within 48 hours. This gave the Scouts a chance to see serious hikers in action.

We helped the Catholic Cathedral to run a game stall at the Caritas Bazaar. We were very fortunate to win the "Best Game Design". Our game utilised pulleys and ropes to manoeuvre a long acrylic tube and guide a ping pong ball inside to land at specific targets.

The stall designed by the Cathedral also won the "Best Stall Decoration".

As part of their progressive badges training, each patrol rehearsed a play and performed in front of other patrols. The theme of the plays was how Scouting affected your everyday life.

Another requirement was to understand the work done by two local environmental organisations. Each patrol also prepared some exhibition materials and presented them to other patrols. The organisations they had studied were:
 

• Conservancy Association
• Green Power
• World Wide Fund for Nature
• Agricultural, Fisheries and Conservation Department, Hong Kong Government
• Environmental Protection Department, Hong Kong Government
• Environmental Campaign Committee

Hoi Ha is one of our favourite campsites. We visited Hoi Ha again this year. For those who haven't read our previous actitivities, Hoi Ha is the first Marine Park in Hong Kong.

We don't seem to grow tired of Hoi Ha although the activities are more or less the same ie enjoy the sun and sand!

Our Group celebrated our 54th Anniversary by attending the mass on the 3 September 2000 at the Catholic Cathedral. We had a small party after the mass. Fr Chan (the parish priest) and Fr Ngai (our Spiritual Director) also attended our party.

As part of the requirements of the Chief Scout Award, Lam Pak Yuen (SPL) and Natasha Lee (PL of Tiger Patrol) organised a patrol camp at Tai Tam Scout Centre. This was the first time for the seven Scouts to camp by themselves, without leaders, and they said it was one of the best camps they ever attended!!

The service was organised by the Catholic Cathedral's Youth Association. Our Scouts visited the elderly home in Fanling and helped with some games and led a few Scout songs. Although the visit was short (about 1.5 hours), we believed we had brought some fun to the elderly people at the home.

We had a three-week break in June due to examinations. On 1 July, we had a short hike just to get some fresh air. We started from the Peak and hiked all the way down to Aberdeen. Although it was an all-downhill hike which took about 3 hours, we had one of the hottest day so far this year (33 degrees C). Most of us were exhausted after the hike due to the hot weather.

We stopped for about half an hour so that we could learn map reading and use of compass - the old and new ways! The Scouts were introduced the latest GPS technology (See Photo A) as well as the trusty map and compass (See Photo B).

Natasha Lee Chun Yi (PL of Tiger Patrol) and Lam Yan Yu (APL of Lion Patrol) organised a trek camp to fulfill the requirements of their Explorer Badge. Wendy Tang Won Lam, Patrick Lam Pak Yuen and Mr Nam joined their camp which was a 2 day 1 night trek camp in Sai Kung.

We had a joint troop camp with 21st HKG at Tai Tam Scout Centre on 13 and 14 May 2000. The aim of the camp was to let Scouts from both Troops learn how other Scout troops are organised and operated. Hopefully, they would learn the strengths of another troop and improved themselves.

The first day of the camp consisted mainly of practising camp crafts and we also had a campfire at night. We had a little birthday party as it was the birthday of one of our Scouts.

The second day mainly consisted of Scouting skills where we had six bases:

compass, emergencies handling, semaphore, fire lighting, Kim's game and pioneering.

The response of the Scouts from both Troops was good and they had made some new friends.

We had the second joint meeting with 21st HKG. We started off with a game for members from both Groups to be better acquainted.

We were honoured to guard the relic of St Therese when the relic visited the Catholic Cathedral on 16 April 2000.

When Brother Mario founded our Group, he envisaged that we could act as the "Guards" to the Catholic Cathedral, similar to the Swiss Guards to the Pope.

We had a joint meeting with 21st HKG, which was the first of the two meetings aimed at introducing the Scouts before a joint Troop camp in May.

Instead of regular meetings, we took the Saturday afternoon on the 14 March and practise our backwoods cooking skills. We baked cakes using cookie tins, cooked rice using coconut and pineapple shells. We also had fish and quail as the main course.

Our Group visited the Fire Station at Central on 29 and 30 January 2000. Since there were over 100 of us, the visit had to be broken up into two sessions. The Fire Officers at the station demonstrated how to operate the fire fighting equipment to our Cubs and Scouts who were totally amazed.

We called this camp the Millennium Camp as this was the first camp we had in the new Millennium. The highlight of the camp was the camp fire and the pioneering projects on the second day. We built two Roman Catapults and an aerial runway.

If you look back at the events in 1998, we had a similar camp around the same time of the year. However, the main difference was that the new members at that time have now become the Patrol Leaders. Their roles have changed from participating (ie standing around and doing nothing) to organising and leading.

There are no better rewards for the Leaders than seeing the boys and girls grow into responsible young adults during their few years with the Scout Troop.