Bushcraft - Survival
What does the Survival Team do?
The role of the Survival Team is to enable Scouts Victoria to deliver safe, adventurous and engaging survival activities at every level in Scouting in order to build individual and community resilience.
How do we do it?
As well as supporting major events around the state, we offer a few different options for units and individuals to develop their skills and challenge themselves.
Courses
Survival School. This 5-day/4-night experience for adults, Venturers and Rovers provides the survival skills required for Trained Participant. The full qualification requires additional units of competency not delivered on the course.
Basic Survival. This overnight course for adults, Venturers, Rovers and Scouts provides the survival skills required for Basic Survival.
Click here or more details, including a schedule of events and OAS statements covered by each course.
Survival As A Service
If you want to run a Survival activity but don't have the equipment or the instructors then Survival as a Service might just be what you're looking for! Whether it's an evening, a full day or a weekend, we provide the instructors and equipment, you provide the youth members and logistic support and together we create a memorable and impactful activity.
Some popular themes for the evening activity include:
Spoon-making. This teaches safe knife use in a fun way and the best bit - you get to keep what you make.
Shelter-building. Apart from learning to tie knots, participants get to learn how to turn a simple tarpaulin into a shelter.
Fire-lighting. Whether it's a ferrocerium rod, a (real) flint and steel, a bow drill or even just a match, we can even tailor this to the mix of existing skills.
Contact the State Leader for more details and to book your session.
Survival Snippets Online
These free monthly evening sessions, delivered over Teams, will cover essential theory that will help you to plan and run unforgettable (for all the right reasons) survival camps. Sessions are open to all youth and adult members.
And no, we won't be getting you to light fires in your living room.
The 45-minute sessions will run on a different night each month to allow leaders to schedule around Unit nights and over time we'll build a library of recorded sessions. Each session begins at 8pm.
Click here to see the upcoming dates and topics.
Merchandise
Ferrocerium is a man-made metal alloy that creates very hot sparks when scraped. It's a mix of iron (about 30%) and rare-earth metals called mischmetal (mostly cerium, lanthanum, and neodymium). They're sometimes mistakenly referred to as a "flint and steel" and if you want to learn the difference, book yourself onto one of our courses...
They're the mainstay of just about every survival kit for one simple reason - they're reliable. Even when they're wet, they'll still produce a spark. But, like most things, there's a bewildering variety of styles, sizes and quality on the market.
We've tested almost all the common brands and finally, after an extensive search, partnered with a manufacturer to design and import our own ferrocerium rod kit. It's the one we use ourselves and on every event and course we run.
It comes in a Scouts Victoria Survival Team-branded box which contains a 12.7mm (great for cold hands) ferro rod, striker and linseed oil-infused match which makes firelighting easy on even the worst days.
Price is $15 per kit - bulk discounts available. Contact the State Leader - Survival to place your order.
Contact
State Leader - Survival
Adam O'Donnell, state.survival@scoutsvictoria.com.au
Facebook - Scouts Victoria Survival Team