Endless committee meetings, planning, late night coffee sessions, running around, major and minor hiccups, bad weather. What most people don’t get to see behind the scene.
A unicorn campfire is a once every 2 years affair, and every year, we try to out-do the last campfire, making this bigger, better and more memorable. Fantastic Unicorn Scouting Experience or FUSE, the theme only came out less than 2 months before the campfire date. However, with the theme being established, other ideas start to pour in and things start to get moving pretty quickly. This year’s campfire was being spearheaded by SL Kenny Tan and SL Eric Ng, both former scouts of Dunearn Secondary as well as current scout leaders, though less active. (Kenny was Unity’s first Scout Leader when the unit was being established) This year’s campfire committee was especially large, with the programme being co-ordinated by SL Noel and with the various leaders and rover crew involved in the respective advisory roles.
Fast forward to the actual day, 7th April 2007. The day before, part of the V&R crew went back to school to help set up the campfire gateway. The key personnel from the campfire committee also stayed overnight in school to do the neccessary rehearsals and ensure that the program runs on schedule. Saturday morning was dedicated to the setting up of the stage as well as putting on the finishing touches to the gateway.
While most of the program could be controlled by us, we definately couldn’t control the weather. What happened during the last campfire repeated itself this campfire, with the heavens opening its floodgates and it continued to rain till 6.30pm. However, thank God that the rain stopped in time for us to start moving out the benches and chairs into the parade square. By then, a couple of schools have already arrived, but they were not kept waiting for long as we started to ursher them into their respective seats.
The campfire kicked off with a blast, and it was really a blast with the beat of the chinese drums as well as the tune of Escape by Craig Armstrong played by our Fusion Band bringing the crowd to their feet. Everything started to move quickly, with the singing of campfire songs, games, item performances, a ‘live’ rendition of the song An Jing by Jay Chou sung by Joel and Sunbear along with the accompaniment of the Fusion Band. The crowd barely had time to take a breather. It was hype all around. The mood of the campfire did tone down for a while, when the Scout hymn was being sung by the whole Unicorn family on stage, followed by a birthday song to commemorate 100 years of Scouting. Following that was the Jam ‘n’ Hop in which everyone was invited for a mass dance. The crowd really went wild after that.
All good things had to come to an end, however, I believe the spirit of Scouting, of friendship and camaraderie, following a good performance was firmly etched on the minds of every Scout and Guide present on that day.
Below are some videos taken before and during the campfire:
Fusion Band Practice: http://youtube.com/watch?v=7KjhAyDXzw8
Fusion Band playing An Jing Part 1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2GTvn5RvDV0
Fusion Band playing An Jing Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rxvLtvp_51k
Learning the Scout Hymn the Sunbear way: http://youtube.com/watch?v=u-paQ0mK3SQ
Unicorn Scouts Group - Unity 