Running over a period of two full weekends (27th/28th April, and 4th/5th May), Sandringham and Jan Smuts Scout Groups ran extensive Pioneering Training at the Sandringham Hall.The main reason was to ensure all Scouts were up to standard on their lashings, and would then allow Jaryde from Jan Smuts to select his build team for his upcoming Springbok Construction Project (watch this space for the build)

Back to basics as they say, and Scouters taught all lashings to the PLTU standard, all knots, splices, whippings etc. There is so much to get through, that it’s impossible to run effectively in less than two weekends.

Each weekend, what was taught on the first day was used and built upon for the subsequent days, culminating in the final weekend of two larger builds using all the knowledge gained from the previous weekends.

The final builds were a 20-foot, 5 sided A-Frame tower on the Saturday, and a 15-foot Beacon Tower on the Sunday. This allowed the scouts to utilise all they had learned over the weekend, and implement using the correct safety procedures when using a Block & Tackle, correct anchorages, and putting all into practice. What was really entertaining was watching the scouts utilise two separate methods to move a heavy weight; a Spanish Windlass, and an A-Frame to move a 200kg+ weight.

The two weekends were well attended, and the majority of the Scouts who attended achieved the Pioneering Scoutcraft Badge for their efforts.