Caythorpe Scouts hit London!

What a day… Up at 0530 to make packed lunches, meet up with the rest of the scouts and Foston crew and catch the train from Grantham to London. From there, it was a quick underground train ride to Jubilee Park, where under the shadow of the London Eye we split into our teams, logged into the Monopoly Run app and set off on our quest to capture as many of the London locations from the Monopoly board as possible. Obviously, with the theme being Monopoly, we needed to catch the sights before an opposing team, otherwise instead of owning the property we ended up paying rent out of a mythical Monopoly currency. On this, our first occasion, the latter happened rather more than we had hoped.

The event took us all over London, through Piccadilly, Mayfair, all the way out to Fleet Street and Whitechapel and back into Pall Mall Northumberland Avenue, to name but a few. We found opportunities to use the underground system extensively, giving the young people the opportunity to experience something new and learn how to navigate the system, we used the buses (although it was quicker to walk) and we walked around 13 miles in total.

In all, there were reportedly 3,000 Scouts taking part in the event. The TFL staff were extremely accommodating from the moment we set foot in London, helping us safely make our way around and opening gates at stations to let us pass through more efficiently. Our young people were incredible, even towards the end of the day when we were all tired, but showing great resilience they pressed on to bag the last few sights finishing at the Leicester Square ODEON Luxe (site of many premieres!) before a gentle stroll through China Town. The team finished up with a well earned burger before catching the train home to Grantham.

A great day was had by all and the opportunities and experience will be remembered by everyone. We look forward to next year when we will can apply the lessons learned this time whilst passing on the experience to next year’s new Scouts, and earning a few more points.