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The Ted Ryan Log . . . . . . . . . by Stephen

FRIDAY

This year, between 20th and 22nd May, the Ted Ryan competition was held in the Scout Dens around town. We couldn't hold it in a field as usual due to foot and mouth disease. Somehow people thought that a load of people from different areas being together in a field could be a potential risk, while lots of people from different areas marching from Scout Den to Scout Den around town was not. I suppose the stereotypical image of scouts must be of sly, conniving little boys running around in fields rubbing their boots off sheep and then running all around the country side wiping their feet on all the grass.

Anyway, it was held in town and Tramore Scouts were to stay at the De La Salle hall on Patrick Street. We were given a list of games to play, but as we were the only troop on our own (everybody, aaaawwwwwww), games like 'The Introduction Game' didn't hold much promise as we knew each others names already. So, while PL & APL (Cathal & Myself) worked on our route between the bases for the next day, the rest played a game of crab soccer, then Ruairi & Colin played a strange card game and the rest (Matt, Dara & Martin. Andrew decided he'd be sick, very convenient) play a game of handball with a pingpong ball. Cathal and I worked on the route card, well I worked on the route card and Cathal nodded his head and pretended he knew what I was talking about, after all I was using complicated vocabulary like "lines goin' uppy-downy" and "lines going lefty-righty". Anyway we needed to make 2 copies so when Cathal was writing out the second, I decided to try my hand at a bit of handball. The lads had started off hitting it against a wall and when you missed or it bounced too often, the winner stayed on and a new challenger stepped in. But then they got a bit adventurous and decided that if you hit some of the pictures on the wall or the bench or the door etc etc. you were out so nobody lasted very long, especially me because I couldn't hit the ball in the first place even when I was serving.

As Martin kept complaining that he was hungry (might have been a bright idea to have dinner BEFORE coming on the weekender. BE PREPARED!!!), we decided to cook and we had chicken burgers. Then Billy Collins (the host with the mostest!!!) Showed us this trick involving a balloon, some sisal and a box.

When we settled down we didn't go to sleep (despite the best efforts of Cathal) until about 5am. EXCEPT for Matt who slept like a log and whom we woke at 3am telling him it was time to get up and who believed us despite the rest of us were in our sleeping bags and it was dark outside.

SATURDAY

Anyway we got up @ 7.30 (all our alarms were set for 7, but Cathal the Generous said, [between yawns] we could have another ½ hour and then he conked out) and cooked breakfast and ate breakfast and washed up after breakfast and then it was time to start the bases. Our first base was at the Sacred Heart Scout Den and it was tent pitching. Handicapped Tent Pitching!! Cathal, as PL< was not allowed touch the tent and instructed us as we went around legs bound, hands bound, or in the case of Colin, BLINDFOLDED!!! He had great fun holding the poles and although we lost marks for it, none of us could miss the opportunity of taking advantage of him. Dara was confusing him when an inspector came over and Colin, meaning to get Dara, elbowed the poor fella full force in the stomach (we probably lost points for that too!!!!!).

Anyway, we got the tent up and then we took it down wile singing the welly song and telling the other team there that there was not any flies (or winged creatures of any variety) on us. Our next base was the First Aid base at the Order of Malta in Poleberry. This base we made a complete dogs bollo , eh............ dinner of. Firstly, Colin and Dara were the only people who knew much about first aid, our first aid kit was, to be frank, ****ing useless, and although I made about fourteen hundred neckerchief slings and Colin had the time of his life giving Mouth to Mouth resuscitation to a topless female mannequin, we let one victim die and several others will suffer from extreme physical and mental disorder for the rest of their lives. But, to be fair, the plot of the accident wasn't great. Firstly, we just happened to be passing, and heard a loud bang (later we were told it was someone falling off a ladder???), we went inside, and despite the fact it was the ORDER OF MALTA building no-one knew any first aid so it was down to us and our trusty Savlon First Aid Kit (One free with every 2 Frosties Tokens) to save the day. There were broken arms and burns and very strangely, a boy unconscious in a ladies bathroom full of gas (maybe he was too embarrassed to fart in the little boy's room). We were also docked points for not calling the ambulance quick enough, although at one stage Colin said we needed a hundred ambulances.

Moving swiftly on, our next base was the computer base in the enterprise centre in New Street. We did really well at this base although Ruairi tried to sabotage our success by deleting some of Colin & Cathal's information on a holiday to Orlando. It wasn't the last time Ruairi would vandalise our chances before the day was over........

Then we walked out to Waterford Crystal, eating our packed lunch on the way except for Matt, whose packed lunch was "misplaced". Anyway, we got a cool tour of Waterford Crystal where we saw lots of robots whizzing about and breaking glass. There was also a huge furnace for melting all the ingredients. Then, due to a lateness on the behalf of a leader who wanted to be on the tour but arrived late ( I won't mention John Culbert's name), we had 10 minutes to get from Waterford Crystal to Cathedral Square, a distance of about 3 miles.

Cathedral Square was our estimation base and we had to draw an elevation of the Cathedral, and a plan of the area around it. However, it was urinating from the heaven and the one place we found shelter the walls were covered with another type of excretion. So we were a bit slow to get started off. When Cathal was drawing the plan, Colin, Ruairi and myself went around using bizarre schemes to measure distances which we thought might be helpful. Using the estimation stuff we'd worked out before we came, we knew how long all our bits and pieces (hands, feet, steps, etc) were. Anyway, with about 2 minutes to go Cathal finished the plan, and I drew a rough sketch of the estimation using the figures we'd worked out earlier, and although we were soaked, the paper was soaked, the table was soaked, our spirits were not and we made a mad dash through City Square, losing Colin and Dara along the way to the clutches of Burger King bathrooms, until Cathal, Matt and Myself ran up Patrick Street, and although we were fit to collapse, we moved out our table and cooking stuff so Cathal & Matt could begin the test meal.

Tom had gotten us all these groovy aprons except Cathal, who wore Michelin Man-esque overalls. We also had cool chef hats and we know all those people were laughing WITH us, don't we?

When Cathal and Matt were cooking, and the rest were standing around pretending to be useful in order to impress the inspectors, Ruairi and me went off to do the report on the visit to Waterford Crystal. I wrote and Ruairi nodded his head and agreed with me. My job was incredibly hard as I had to decipher Cathal's handwriting to read the notes, truly a fate worse than death. This was all well and good so then we went down and ate our test meal of:

- Melon Boat

- Mincey Stew

- Stewed Apple and Custard.

Unfortunately, Ruairi believed he was a member of another team and decided to (once again) sabotage our efforts by dumping the examiner's desert before she came around to try it. When we were washing up, we couldn't find the washing up liquid so decided to live without. Then when the inspector went complaining about the greasyness of our 'CLEAN' dishes, Matt went rooting and found it and declared "LOOK! We have some afterall", which had more or less the same result as if he had said "HA! LOOK, WE'RE REALLY STUPID AND WASHED OUR DISHES IN DIRTY, COLD TOILET-BOWL WATER, WHILE WE HAD WASHING UP LIQUID THE WHOLE TIME. THE WHOLE TIME!" and then "I REPEAT, THE WHOLE TIME!!!". (I knew I'd get him back for that anti-gravity pun in his comeragh's log. Te he he!!!). When we were all tidied up it was nearly time to go to St. Paul's Den for the seanachies. Ours was about a cultchy alcoholic called Paddy, who moves to England. Anyway Ruairi had the part of a Garda and Tom had managed to "ACQUIRE" (Acquire: when used in conjunction with the noun Tom this word changes its meaning from "gain, get" to "beg, borrow indefinitely, steal) a garda jacket for him. If Ruairi had put that jacket up for auction he could now easily afford a small Carribean island, such was the interest in it. The most interesting character, however, was Martine, Sorry, Martin, who participated in a bit of cross dressing to become a prosti, em..........lady of ill regard. Cathal donned an apron, as did Matt, to become bar ladies and Co-Op workers, while myself and Colin donned tweed jackets and caps to become Paddy. I was narrating and he was acting. The others were holding up these cards which showed the background to the scene. We think it went OK but there was a bit of confusion as the judges were on one side of us and the audience at another and we felt it would have worked better if everyone was together as it was hard to allow everybody to see the cards. Anyway, it was a great laugh. When we got back to the hall,we played a few games and went to sleep a lot quicker than the night before. This time most of us were sound asleep by 2 a.m.

Sunday

We got up, got dressed, piled into Tom and Ashley's cars and headed out to the De La Salle field for the 3-pole challenge. These are psychopathic bases where you have to build stuff using, you guessed it, three poles. These included a flagpole, a giraffe, a swinging derrick, a ballista, a nuclear waste carrier and an alter fire. During our first base, the flagpole, Matt decided to liberate the sisal, he was running after us as we went to erect our pole, but he was holding the ball of sisal upside down and after about 20 foot he noticed he had created a beautiful sisal trail and everyone in the entire field was laughing at his misfortune. We did fairly well on this base and then there was the Volleyball competition and we sucked. Mainly because we had practiced with a light ball and the one being used in the competition was made of solid lead. So we would have been knocked out in the first round except we went straight into the second round because of the number of teams.

Anyway, then Tom, Colin and Martin went and got everybody ham and salad sandwiches, except hardly anyone liked salad, although somehow they managed to get themselves ham only sandwiches. What a coincidence.

Then there was a uniform inspection and I had Tom's belt which was a few sizes too big. It's the first time I've ever had to tuck in a belt. Anyway, our uniforms were pretty dire. Then there was a mass. The Scout Chaplin was the same guy running the first-aid base yesterday. Then a load of stars were given out to leaders who'd been scouting a very long time, and wood badges and such like, and then they burst into the results. They only did the top 5. St. Pauls won followed by De La Salle, but we had to wait until the next day to learn that we had come 7th. We were very happy with this result, because on Saturday night we were in 3rd. Tom started pulling his hair out (but gave up, it would ruin his hippy image if he was bald) when he learnt that we could have been 5th or 6th if we'd made a cup of tea Sunday Morning. But, c'est la vie.

Anyway, we all had a great time on this competition, and we hope our junior team will do will in the upcoming Louis Murphy Competition.