Third place finish for Katanning Chaos scout team at Scouts WA Operation Nighthawk event in Wandering

The combined team of young Katanning, Donnybrook and Plantagenet scouts achieved a bronze placed finish out of 50 teams at the annual Scouts WA Operation Nighthawk competition earlier this month. The team of six, Katanning Chaos, received a third-place certificate and camping dinner sets after proving their scouting knowledge against 300 participants from across the State in the 11-14 year-old division at Wandering on August 2 and 3. Starting at 6.40pm, the budding leaders completed the 14km course by 12.45am, successfully following their navigation sheet in the darkness and accomplishing tasks testing their first-aid skills, scouting trivia, codes and signals, physicality, leadership and teamwork. Katanning Chaos team member Zavier Potter said the years of practice paid off. “It took us six hours to complete the course, getting back into camp just before 1am, luckily before the rain started,” he said. “We’d learnt a lot from the last few years and put that into practice, it paid off.” After placing fifth last year in Jurien Bay and seventh in 2023 at Byford, this year’s effort was one Katanning Chaos were proud of. Scout leader Ella Maesepp said the team put in a stellar performance to get them on the podium. “I was very proud of them,” she said. “This is the third year we’ve gone and they’ve climbed the rankings each year so you can really see that they’ve learned each year and put them into practice. “They’ve worked hard and they’ve got there, which is fantastic.”