11th Georgetown (South) Scout Group 54th Campfire

I didn't go camping with 17th pj, but.....Yesterday evening, I visited Chung Ling High School, 11th Georgetown (South) scout group 54th Campfire.
I must say, I had high expectations on their campfire. The 11th Georgetown (South) troop had very long history, it was formed 60-70 years ago (correct me if I'm wrong), and this is the 54th time, they are organizing a campfire!!!
Their campfire is very different from the campfires back in PJ and KL.


Here are a few photos showing their pioneering structure, a big complicated gateway.
Basically the pioneering structure is made up of 2 towers and they are combined at the center with small bridges, and some fancy-fancy stuff.
The total vertical stilts for this gateway is about 20+ ( if not mistaken). This structure is quite stable ( I only climbed half way up) because they actually dug a hole for each slits.

There are a few things to note about their structure
1. they are all bamboos, not bakaus
2. The lashings are tied with rafia then enforced with rubber strips.

right side of structure

left side of structure

to stabilize each slits they basically tied every single slits with diagonal bamboos.

If you think those are quadrapods, you are wrong, they are just diagonally crossed bamboo that looked like quadrapod. I think that using a quadrapod here, will be better/stronger.
see how they anyam...

the platform for the bridge, they used metal rod to connect and make it stronger.

So what's the theme for this campfire? It's cowboys and red indians. I found out that the campfire theme for Penang scouts are most about cow boys, red indians, pirates, fairy tale, sometimes if Emperor Chin 秦. So your roughly get the idea about the theme here lah...

the stage

back stage.
Actually, in Penang they usually have a scouts skills competition, and a campfire. And as far as I can understand, they have competition for basically every single aspect.

Like the banners below, they are banners of each troop. So you just bring what ever you need and set up our banner before campfires starts. These 2 are the few 'outstanding ones'

I found this banner particularly 'yeng' . The banner is just tied to 2 bamboos that acted as the supporting slits. At the bottom of the slits they just place a few tables to position it, and the rest of the support lies on the 6 ropes and packs. built by girl guides.Another different phenomena is that some troops come in a big group.Like this one here-

Actually, all these above are just thing b4 the campfire. the campfire haven even started...

Unlike the usual campfire in Pj, which is more formal. We start with speeches from the VIPs, fire lighting, then performance, games , refreshment more songs and games....

This campfire is more like a concert. The no. of performances is 300% more compared to PJ. The campfire started as early as 6pm ( our registration time starts at 7pm), performances were presented by both the organizer and the participating schools(mainly for Penang island and main land, some from Kerian, and Ipoh too).

For performances, there was solo singing, traditional dances, modern dances, and even a costume competition. Most important of all, they had an activities called - open dance. What's that you may ask. Open dance, the DJs just max the volume and play some hot, techno, modern song and everyone just dance. To put it in a simple form, it is basically a huge open air disco. Mind you, the open dance can just go on for hours, nothing can stop them, not even the rain!!! Well it did actually rain last night, but everyone just continued to watch the performance n dance..

open dance

Like I just said, it is like concert, so just look at the props they prepared for the concert. Outsiders may thought that Chung Ling was having an open air concert with some famous singer in there.

Ya for games, they don't really have much games, just performance, performance n performance.


They dun really a protocal to follow for the campfire, they started with performance, then speech, the fire lighting, performance n another speech by some one.


The fire was not good. Security was bad, hey I didn't pay a single cent to get into this campfire.
The 4 Emcees weren't so good. Basically, I wasn't 'in' the campfire, I dun even know what is happening most of the time.

some random Photos.
Assistant Scout Master of Chung Ling (Butterworth), yeah friendly people, they brought me in....thanks man. Look at their scout t-shirt...

BTW, i met few of my primary classmates there in the campfire..haha not bad right? the 'scouting world' is small.

Did I enjoy? not really, but it opened up my eyes, now I finally get to experience the Penang style campfire.

So whats different abt campfires in PJ n Penang? it is totally different. The culture, the performance, the way the campfire was ran, the way participants reacted( they are very sporting).....

How ever, there is just one particular thing that is the same for PJ and penang campfires - the cheap bread and mineral water for refreshment.

Next up! Chung LIng Butterworth campfire in 6months time.

Feel free to post some of your views, in the "comment box" or what ever you call it.