Action Pact
| 09 December 2009
The County’s Action Pact is now an established annual weekend for adult leaders. It switches venues each year and in February returned to Cantref in the Brecon Beacons, a riding school which also has comfortable bunkhouse accommodation. It was a reunion for me, as I took my troop there in 1973 for a day’s riding. It has changed considerably, but the same couple are still in charge.
Action Pact was fully subscribed with 36 leaders who had the opportunity to take different walks on the adjacent mountains, which still held winter’s snow in the gullies. It is a social relaxing weekend, well organised by Ian Lamb, with good food produced by Fiona Fisher and Glen Downs.
I travelled down with Dave Hunt and Alex Gaskin, and, as in 2008, we arranged to have an extra night. We were able to have a full day’s walking on the Sunday, south of Hay on Loye on Offa’s Dyke Path, above the Gospel Pass; windy but delightful country.
Our B & B was in the Welsh border town of Chepstow, within view of the northern most Severn bridge, and in conversation with the owner, Mike Potts, we learned he had been a member of the 42nd Brighton Scouts at Saltdean in the 1950s, about the time their HQ was built. I later found Mike’s name in the programme for the opening of Little Gilwell. He was then an honorary PL with a younger brother, C. Potts, in the Eagles. He was pleased to have a copy and four us an interesting chance meeting after a good weekend.