Christchurch (Hitchin) Scouts and Guides

Welcome to the virtual camp fire!

Pull up a log and sit down - unless you're singing something with actions of course!

We are starting with just a few items on the programme. We hope you enjoy it; if you do, why not tell us about your favourites, or just leave us a message? Maybe we could add them in. If this is your first visit, please check these notes.

• Camp fire's burning
• Heads, shoulders, knees and toes
• He jumped from 40,000 feet
• Fred the toad
• In praise of woad (What's the use of wearing braces?)
• Do your ears hang low?
• Scout Vespers/Canadian Taps
• Taps
• No yarns here (sorry), but you could join in the Interactive Camp Fire Story at ScoutNet UK

Notes for visitors

• MIDI files
• Credits and copyright
• Organising real camp fires

MIDI files

The music is in MIDI file format. You will normally be able to play the files as long as you have a sound card and the necessary drivers. We can't give much more help than that, but you could try The MIDI Home Page or The MIDI Archive

Credits and copyright

We are very grateful to Paul Arnold of the Christchurch Song Group for creating some of the MIDI files for us. The copyright is his; if you would like to put them on your site, please include a statement that they came from this site, and tell your visitors they must do the same if they want to copy them.

We took the others from music archives which permit copying provided that the source is credited; we have done so and would ask you to do the same.

We have tried hard to avoid infringing anyone's copyright in the words of the songs themselves, and as far as we know all the ones we have included are in the public domain. If we have made an error, please tell us and we will remove the offending material. There are some songs which we would like to have included, but avoided owing to copyright, for example Ewan Maccoll's Manchester Rambler.

The large animated GIF of the camp fire comes from Phil's animated GIFs page. The JavaScript on our home page which plays a different tune each time you visit is Alan Simpson's JavaScript Random Background Sound Picker

Organising (real) camp fires

Take encouragement from this; we don't know anything about the subject, but we have a go anyway! Most of the leading at our camp fires is done by people who can't sing a note, so you can't use that as an excuse either!

Here are some of our favourite books, most of which will be known to UK Scouts and Guides; the first two have guidelines on organisation if you're a novice:

• The Scout Fire and Folk Song Book, ISBN 85165-126-7, The Scout Association, London, UK
• The Campfire Pocket Book, David Saint, ISBN 0-948834-02-1, Printforce
• Campfire Songs, David Saint, Printforce
• Campfire Songs 2, Paul Taylor, ISBN 0-948834-46-3, Printforce
• Music Time for Brownies, The Guide Association, London, UK
• Musical Fun with the Brownie Pack, The Guide Association, London, UK
• Girl Guide Song Book 1, The Guide Association, London, UK
• Girl Guide Song Book 2, The Guide Association, London, UK
• The Beaver Scout Song Book, Tracey Hodson, ISBN 0-85165-291-3, The Scout Association, London, UK

For sources, see our Scout and Guide links. Contact your local Commissioner if you need to know the nearest shop. Printforce books are available through Scout Shops Limited. Printforce Ltd are at Drovers Way, Ugford, Wilton, Salisbury SP2 0EB - Tel/Fax 01722 743295.

For words of more songs, try our links.

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