Hampshire Scout News - May 2016

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Winchester Scouts Face All Weathers

www.hampshirescouting.org.uk

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Will you be ready for these two events in 2016?

Cub Scout Centenary Celebration Service & Festival Of Flags At Winchester Cathedral.

Hampshire Guiding & Scouting ‘Making A Difference Together Week’

Date: Friday 3rd June 2016.

All Districts will receive invitations in March to bring 30/40 members (Cub Scouts/ Leaders) to represent their Cub sections.

The invitations will come from Ian Sims (County Cub Scout Leader) via their Cub Scout Leaders, Assistants, Helpers and Commissioners, so watch out for these.

Hampshire’s Guides & Scouts are again working together to make a difference in 2016 during ‘Making a Difference Together Week’ which is Saturday 24th September – Saturday 1st October.

Districts will also be asked to bring as many Cub Scouts flags as they can, so they can be part of the ‘Festival of Flags Parade’ through Winchester to the Cathedral.

Cub Scouts will be totally involved and some chosen to take part in the service – more about this at your County Cub Scout Leaders meeting on Sunday 13th March.

Main timings of evening (can be subject to minor changes): 18.30 Parade/flags form up in Colebrook Street Car Park 18.50 Parade leaves 19.10 Parade arrives at Cathedral 19.30 Service starts 20.20 Service ends

More details coming out in leaflet and webbased format over next few weeks, which will be base on joint activities focused on a selection of Hampshire Charities that support young people. This will include sample activities to work together on and details about our chosen charities: The Rainbow Centre, Spotlight, Jack’s Place, Honeypot, The Elizabeth Foundation, Toy Library, Step by Step and B-eat.

Although there is a designated week at the end of September, we have no problem in Groups/Sections working together at any time in the year. It should be noted however that any press or media coverage will focus on the designated week.

This joint project has been endorsed by both our President, The Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire and Hampshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner.

Martin Rudd Director of Community Involvement

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Contents

Welcome to the May edition of Hampshire Scout News 2016 4

Future Leadership

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A New Adventure

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Beaver Leaders Log Chew

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Winchester Scouts Face All Weathers in Snowdonia

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1st Aldershot Take Part In The District Night Hike

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8th Aldershot Celebrates 50 Years

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Scout Active Support Hampshire Roll of Remembrance Service

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14th Aldershot Scouts Group Family Founders Day

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Have You Seen This Cyclo-Cross Cycling Trophy

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3rd Romsey Scouts Access All Areas At St Mary’s Fire Station

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Not-so-wide Game!

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1st Whitchurch Frosties Scottish Winter Camp

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Basingstoke West Annual Swimming Gala

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Gang Raises £1,210

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1st Romsey Cubs Say Thanks You To Past Leaders

About Us

Hampshire Scouts provides adventurous activities and personal development opportunities for over 17,500 young people aged 6-25, promoting the physical, intellectual, social and spiritual well-being of the individual, helping them achieve their full potential.

In Scouting, we believe that young people develop most when they are ‘learning by doing,’ when they are given responsibility, work in teams, take acceptable risks and think for themselves.

Get Involved

To join the adventure of Scouting whether as an Adult or Young person then contact us at: www.scouts.org.uk/join e: county.office@scouts-hants.org.uk or t: 023 8084 7847

U Got news For Us?

Do you have a story or success that you’d like to share? Help us to highlight and celebrate your achievements in growth, exclusivity, youth shaped and community – email us your team’s successes along with any photos to: county.office@Scouts-hants.org.uk, please keep emails less than 30mb, if they are bigger we can share our Dropbox link with you, please get in touch.

Photography Acknowledgements

Where we can, we strive to acknowledge the owner or source of pictures used in this publication.

We use them under the terms ‘for Scouting use only’. If you would like pictures acknowledged, please let us know the owners name when submitting. Thank you.

www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

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Future Leadership I’ve just come back from supporting our latest Future Leadership weekend at Ferny Crofts – where we brought together nineteen young adults for an amazing weekend of developing leadership skills, encouraging team work and inspiring our next generation.

As I write this, @hampshirescouts is trending on UK Twitter at #16, so there’s a lot of people commenting about the event on social media – including many of the participants.

During the weekend, they learnt about personality types, leadership styles, and team roles. They put this into practice on the high ropes and in group exercises - and learnt much from each other. And then on the Saturday evening they took part in a simulation as a District team with multiple concurrent problems to handle.

Why are we investing so much in our Future Leadership Programme ? I think there’s three key reasons: 1. In the past, Scouting has thrived on developing leadership skills in young people – think Patrol Leaders, think Unit Executive Committees. Through Scouting we can offer young adults the chance to have a go at being a leader and gain practical experience.

2. We often struggle to find new managers in Scouting – DCs, GSLs, ACCs – and also expedition leaders and event managers. To sustain

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Scouting into the future we need a pool of good people “on the bench” who already have leadership and management skills and are motivated to take on these roles.

3. Leadership and Management are transferable life skills, which can be learnt in Scouting and used at work or in other voluntary roles – and vice versa. Organisations and businesses today are looking for employees who can take the lead, who can work in teams, and who can overcome challenges.

Following on from this weekend, we’ll be spending the next year supporting these young adults through mentoring and developmental experiences so they can get the most out of the Future Leadership Programme.

As with most other areas of Scouting, this should be about the “many” rather than the “few”. We’re not looking to create an elite, but to help as many young adults as possible develop their leadership and management skills for the future.

And we’ll be running this weekend again in a year or two – so please start thinking if there is young adult you feel would benefit from the weekend – or if you yourself would like to take part in the Future Leadership Programme.

Adam County Commissioner, Hampshire Scouting

Take The Challenge Become a trainer Trainer Taster Day, 15th May 2016, 10am to 4pm

Come along and learn more about becoming a trainer in Hampshire. This is a rewarding role which can take up as little or as much time as you can give.

No commitment if you come!

Lunch will be provided and there is no cost.

Hampshire Training Team, Falcon House, Monarch Way, Winchester, SO22 5PL email: adult.training.hants@gmail.com | www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

A New Adventure Since its foundation in 1986, Hampshire Scout Expeditions (HSX) have successfully run over 20 international expeditions for Hampshire Scouts across the globe. In 2017 we’ll be breaking new ground and heading to the Patagonian Andes!

Patagonia is a sparsely populated region located at the southern tip of South America, shared

by Argentina and Chile.

The region comprises the southern section of the Andes, characterised by granite pillars, deserts, steppes and grasslands.

Over the course of this six-week expedition the participants will experience

Chile’s unique culture, incredible sights, stunning scenery and a fascinating history. All elements that we will explore as we work with its warm and welcoming people as part of a community development project. The expedition will draw upon participants from across Hampshire who, with the support of an experienced leader team, for this once in a life time experience over the winter of 2017/18.

Prior to the expedition the participant will undertake an 18 month training programming focusing on teamwork, personal development and leadership skills to ensure that members gain as much as possible from

the experience. The hope that as well as being a life changing experience for those involved, such experiences and contacts will bring greater understanding and tolerance, of the multicultural society in which we live today.

The expedition aims to continue the HSX tradition of being a life changing experience for all involved and inspiring the next generation of expedition leaders.

If you’d like to know more about the expedition please feel free to contact the leader team: patagonia@hsx.org.uk or stay tuned to the blog for more details.

www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

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Beaver Leaders Log Chew 6

Here are a selection of pictures from the Beaver Leaders Log Chew held at Littleton Village Hall on 12th March. Included is a picture of Millie Callum who unveiled her winning design for our Hampshire Beavers 30th Birthday Badge. The badge and the associated Challenge badges are available to order from: http://goo.gl/9kGPfO The event was opened by Teresa Ginn, and included presentations from Sara Sullivan on both Hospital Scouting and ideas for themed evenings/meetings/events.

Michael Collins on the 30 Challenges, things you didn’t know about your County Team, and ideas for adventurous days out for Beavers.

Wendy Turner ACC Beaver Scouts, Hampshire

Ash Wilson gave a fantastic presentation on his adventures in Australia and the Indian Ocean. and Ron Dear from the Heritage Team took us back to our past with wonderful stories and a display of a selection of items and memorabilia from the heritage collection.

In the afternoon we had an indoor snowball fight and literally threw our ideas for activities and events around the room before sharing them. These will be available on the website very soon.

This event is held annually and is open to ALL who are connected with Beaver Scouting in Hampshire, so put the date in your diary 11th March 2017 Littleton Village Hall, Winchester.

Hampshire County Beaver Leaders

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www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

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Winchester Scouts Face All Weathers in Snowdonia 8

Driving rain, sleet that stung your face, wind that blew you off your feet, sunshine that made your arms pink, snow visible on the mountain tops, muddy bogs that would readily consume boot and gaiter ... Snowdonia threw it all at us and gave us more tales to regale when we meet up again than we could possibly have hoped for.

The annual Winchester district Spring trip ran like clockwork, due to Richard’s years of experience, Helen’s ability to turn out wonderful food for a party of 40 ravenous scouters, Pete, Ed and Mark’s climbing skills, alongside a whole raft of other scouting skills that the scouts and leaders brought to the party, and a CAN DO! attitude from every single person. We were a varied lot, scouts young and old, explorers, and a motley bunch of leaders.

Six of the Explorer Scouts and 2 leaders were on the trip fundamentally for the purpose of carrying out their practice hike for their Duke of Edinburgh Gold award. With just snippets of information coming in about those

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scouts during the week, the next we saw of them was when they came back to the lodge, tired, hungry, happy and in desperate need of a shower. All appeared to have gone well with their hike.

As for the rest of us, our plan was to get in as much hiking in the mountains and climbing as we possibly could.

As soon as we could after our arrival in Snowdonia we braved the elements and went for a hike around Llyn Idwal. This was a test of everybody’s mettle. Not only did it require donning (and soaking) our full wet weather kit, that kit was put to the test by atrocious weather and by the need to cross small streams and waterfalls.

The morning of the following day was also forecast to be wet.

Having used the drying room and every radiator of the lodge to attempt to get our wet weather kit dry, we invoked part of the wet weather plan and went to visit the hydroelectric power station at Llanberis.

After that we were somewhat luckier with the

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weather; we got a lot less rain than the forecasts would have us believe.

We split into smaller teams for the rest of the days; some walking and some climbing. The first climbing team went to a lovely rock called Lion Rock above the Brynrefail end of Llyn Padarn. It had been planned to return there with the rest of the group later in the week, but the forecast did not look good for climbing there, so we hatched a plan to visit Barmouth, for which the forecast seemed much better. Not only was the weather better there, but the hillside permitted use of much longer ropes.

As the Young People’s climbing skills progressed rapidly we needed to find new ways to make the climbs continue to be exciting and challenging.

Once a particular ascent had been mastered the scouts had the option to try to make those ascents whilst blindfolded. Members of their team called up instructions on where the best hand and foot holds might be to complete the ascent.

Reviewing the trip on the penultimate evening, we

did a “best bit/worst bit� activity with all members present. High on the list of best bits were the climbing, the food and the hikes. Surprisingly the group was roughly evenly split on whether the challenging hike on the first afternoon was a high point or a low point.

A couple of the leaders who arrived later were very disappointed not to have had the opportunity to face that challenge.

We should perhaps have had a further round of the activity, because a number of us might have wanted to change our high points following some beautiful guitar playing by a few of the explorer scouts after the review activity. In particular, we were treated to very accomplished renditions of some old Dire Straits numbers.

All-in-all it was a stand-out trip that will have created lifetime memories for all concerned.

By Kelvin Goodson 11th Winchester

www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

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1st Aldershot take part in the District Night Hike Five youngsters from 1st Aldershot Scout troop (based in North Lane, Aldershot) partook in the annual incident ‘night hike’ competition organised by the Blackwater Valley Scouting District.

The Scouts would be competing against various teams from local Scout troops across the District to earn this year’s title.

It was a very wet, cold and muddy night but the Scouts were in great spirit and gave their all to navigate to various bases offering various teambuilding challenges. The Scouts at 1st Aldershot had been practising mapreading, navigation and hiking in the lead-up to the competition.

The Scouts would be accompanied by leaders but on this occasion they would not be able to offer guidance. A route plan had been decided before-hand using grid references provided by

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District but the challenges remained a secret until arrival at the bases. The team headed out from Harpers Road in Ash (HQ for 2nd Ash Scout troop) wearing hi-vis jackets heading to their first destination.

The first base gave them the opportunity to put pioneering skills into practise. The team were given rope and poles and tasked with making two gadgets (the first being a wash-stand for a bowl and the second being a scraper to wipe mud off their boots). The team soon realised that time would be a vital element in the competition.

As the Scouts journeyed through the muddy footpaths and the routes planned they discovered several more bases where they would have to move balls using guttering, hoop horseshoes, throw balls down a tin-can alley and cross a large muddy

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puddle without getting their feet wet using only planks and crates.

The last base gave our Scouts some local history about Ash and Normandy on which the team would asked questions about on arrival back at the hut. They took off their (very) muddy boots and were treated to hot dogs, soup and hot drinks to warm themselves up. The Scouts completed the quiz answers and had a nice rest before pick-up time.

Results were collated by the District team and to be given out at a later date.

“The Scouts from 1st Aldershot who took part this year had a great time despite the weather. They all gave their all on the activities and had a lot of fun. We look forward to next year’s competition.”

Nathan Barham, 1st Aldershot Scouts Assistant Leader

8th Aldershot celebrates 50 Years at the church of the Ascension. by every invested member of the group during 2016. A competition was launched and the two winning designs by two scouts were merged together to create the badge which shows the Church of the Ascension and our blue necker with its yellow border. The winning scouts were presented with a framed certificate to recognise their achievement.

50 years ago in 1966 8th Aldershot Scout Group (Church of the Ascension) opened with a wolf cub section for boys aged 8 to 11 years old. In 2016 we are celebrating our 50th Birthday and have a Beaver colony, a Cub pack and a Scout troop offering traditional and modern scouting to boys and girls between 6 and 14 years old.

To celebrate, a special birthday badge has been designed and is being worn

To celebrate our 50th Birthday we are holding a birthday camp reunion in June. It will be a weekend of camping, campfires, fun and games for all current members of the group. We would like to extend a warm invitation to all past members to come and join us for a reunion during the camp and share past photos and memorabilia, chat to old friends and have a go at scouting activities from past and present. Then join us for a BBQ and camp fire to finish the day. If you would like more information about the reunion please contact: the8thaldershotis50@hotmail.com.

Scout Active Support Hampshire Roll of Remembrance Service 3pm, Sunday 8th May 2016 St. James’s Methodist Church Shirley, Southampton. www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

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FERNY CROFTS IS 40!

This year, Ferny Crofts Scout Activity Centre is celebrating its 40th year as the home of Hampshire Scouting.

As part of the celebrations, we are looking to create a collection of images and memories of Scouting at Ferny Crofts through the years. If you or your Scout Group have any photographs, images and/or memories of Ferny Crofts that you would like to share with us, please send them to us using the details below. e: fernycrofts@fernycrofts.org.uk

Painting has now started on our Hampshire Zebra.

We still have some badges left. The badge sales are funding a large Hampshire Scouts Zebra, going on display this year. Everyone who purchases one will also go into a prize draw to win a family ticket to Marwell, or one of 15 pairs of children’s tickets!

Get in touch to get yours, before it’s too late! youth.council@scouts-hants.org.uk

Only £2

p: Ferny Crofts Scout Activity Centre, Beaulieu Road, Brockenhurst, Hampshire, SO42 7YQ. If you are sending photographs, please provide details of the event, group, date of photo, and any further information known.

If you would like the photograph to be returned to you, please also provide details of a return address.

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14th Aldershot Scout group family founders

Have you seen this Cyclo-Cross Cycling trophy?

Kerie Wallace DC of New Forest North, is looking to locate this cycling throphy that his father Bob made. The Trophy was presented to the winner of the Cub Cyclo-Cross Cycling Championships held at Ferny Crofts’ if you have any info on throphy please contact Kerie at: dc.newforestnorth@scouts-hants.org.uk On Sunday 21st February around 60 beavers, cubs, scouts, leaders, parents and dogs walked from the Duke of Wellington statue all the way to the top of Ceasers camp, Once there the beavers, cubs, scouts,and leaders all renewed their promise. After a group photo and a chat with parents we all made it back down to the Duke of Wellington. The feedback was good and a lot of parents said it was great and would like to do it again next year.

day hike

The scout section also entered two teams into the District night hike competition the week before. Both teams done very well and came 1st and 6th.

www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

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3rd Romsey Scouts access all areas at St Mary’s Fire Station 16

The Scouts had a brilliant evening at St Mary’s Fire Station, we were shown around by Green Watch and got to see from the top to the bottom.

We saw the leisure rooms, the gym, the kitchen (curry for dinner!), the training classroom and then down to look around the engines. Slight change of plan when some of Green Watch were called out on a Shout - but we carried on regardless. We climbed all over the fire engines, tried on uniforms, wore breathing apparatus and asked to go down the firemans’ pole - but they wouldn’t let us! The Scouts then took over one of the vehicles - but they did remember to give it back.

The best bits.....

We had fun visiting the fire station it was very big. We got to go round in a van and they talked about actual fire drills, and showed us where they sleep. They have a kitchen where they take turns to cook, but they

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have to be ready to drop everything for a shout at any time - they can get changed and on the engine in less than a minute.

We enjoyed going in the fire engine and we went round the block in the van. Checking over the breathing apparatus. It was cool looking down the fire pole. One of the guys got called out on a shout.

We loved sitting on everyone in the fire engine, watching TV in the bar, wearing the breathing apparatus, dressing up was great and trying out the beds in the dorms.

What was good? Seeing the pole.

Smelling the chicken. Watching You’ve been Framed. Seeing the nice fireman. Sitting in a fire engine!

Thank you so much to Green Watch - it was a fantastic evening, informative and good fun!

Sarah Beaman 3rd Romsey Scout Leader Ashanti Troop

Not-so-wide game!

A special science-themed wide game was due to be hosted by 3rd Portchester on Monday 8th February for Scouts in Fareham East district. Unfortunately, the wrath of Storm Imogen forced a quick change of plan.

Undeterred, the Scouts crowded into 3rd Portchester’s HQ for some not-so-wide games instead. These had a digital theme and all those that took part achieved their digital maker stage 1 badge. Badge details: https://goo.gl/ZnRF00 The SPLs from 3rd Portchester’s Ellen MacArthur troop did an impressive job in organising nearly fifty Scouts (and all the Leaders!) for the obstacle course and games. www.3rdportchesterscouts.org.uk/gallery/districtdigitalgames2016. They will, no doubt, make very effective Young Leaders in the future.

Despite the bad weather outside, everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. We’re looking forward to seeing all the other Troops again. This time we’ll try to organise the wide game on a day without a storm!

Zak, 3rd Portchester

HAMPSHIRE SCOUTS

Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Diamond Celebration Hampshire Gold Award holders, the county DofE Forum would like to invite you to celebrate 60 years of DofE with an event in Winchester on 30th September 2016.

To receive your invitation, please send a scan copy of your gold certificate to: diamonddofe@aol.com

www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

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1st Whitchurch Frosties Scottish Winter Camp We arrived at Lyons Copse, Southampton on a very chilly Friday night in January. We found our rooms in the lodge and unpacked all our sleeping bags and organised ourselves.

Once everyone had arrived, we were called down and we opened our Scottish winter camp by breaking the Scottish flag. We were arranged into our groups for the following day and after some hot chocolate we went to bed in our dormitories.

On Saturday morning we woke up to find the

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field outside our lodge was covered in a very hard white frost, it was really chilly. We dressed up warm and went for a good Scottish breakfast, we had porridge, cereal, toast and really yummy Scottish pancakes covered in maple syrup.

After this we had a big treasure hunt around the whole campsite, which was great fun, as we made lots of footprints in the frost! We then made some Viking helmets for our campfire later on.

After lunch we either made shortbread or helped to build the boat

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which we would burn in the Shetland Island ceremony ‘Up Helly Aa ’ at our campfire later on. Once this was done, those of us who wanted to camp outside to complete our ‘frosties camp challenge’ put up some tents and brought down all our warm sleeping bags and blankets for later. Then we went to get changed into our Scottish outfits for dinner.

Dinner was amazing we had Haggis, Lorne sausage, neaps, tatties and gravy. It was really, really tasty and a lot of us had second

helpings of haggis and sausage. We also had a cup of Irn Bru too!!

We had pudding called cranachan, this was very yummy too!! After dinner was cleared away we had a fiddle man come and play some music and we danced a ceilidh, this was very funny as we all got in a big muddle!!

After the dancing we then went to our campfire which was to celebrate the Viking

festival of fire, we sang some songs and then brought in the boat to burn, the festival is called ‘Up Helly Aa’.

The boat burned really well.

After this we had hot chocolate and went to sleep in our tents (they already had frost on)!! It was a chilly night to start but ended up wet! I was lovely and warm.

In the morning, we had breakfast and completed

an alphabet matchbox challenge, we helped to clear up the lodge and packed all our bags, ready for the trip home. After lunch we made some plastic cup snowmen whilst we waited for our parents to pick us up, they were cool.

I had a great camp, even though it was very chilly!!

And I was really tired when I got home!!

By Ed Spencer, Age 13

www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

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Basingstoke West Annual Fun Swim Gala

As we know Beavers are generally social creatures and live in large family groups called Colonies. They are also shy and quiet creatures when it comes to other beings. However, this is not totally the case with the Beavers of Basingstoke West. On 19th March they held their annual fun swim with some 50 Beavers taking part. I think it is true to say they were very enthusiastic and let’s say the decibel level probably exceeded the recommended level by health and safety executive. The fun gala started over twenty years ago a ’one off’ event and somehow it has become an annual event.

There are a number of fun races run as relay races, such as the Water Woggle race, what is that you may ask? Well the woggle is a 1.5m x solid tube of polystyrene which the beavers can walk; swim, with or in some case sit on. Then there is the candle race this one is where each team has to carry the candle as a baton the last one in the team hands it to their colony leader who now has the job of lighting it! Camp fire skills come in handy for this one. I think the favourite of the Beavers is the hat race; the hat by now is very wet and has to be handed

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to the leader who has to place it on their head. As you might expect the element of competition soon becomes apparent, the object is for all teams win. Having said that, we have one tried and tested competition which is the ‘Treasure Hunt’ for which the Margaret Shepperd shield is keenly fought over.

The Treasure Hunt is held between races where each colony in turn has to collect as many objects as they can from the pool and place them in the in the nest in two minutes. In case you are wondering we do have some Beavers who are nonswimmers. Happily, we have a safety team on poolside and more importantly a team of Scouts from Brighton Hill who look after the Beavers in the water on a one to one basis in all the races. Without them the gala really could not take place.

In fact, I am aware the some of the Scouts who as Beavers had previously taken part took part in their own right. So a big thank you to them and the organising team, sorry about not having ear plugs for you!

By Mike Levett, part of the organizing team

Gang Raises £1,210

for Chosen Charities and ‘helps others’!

Basingstoke Gang Show, the longest running and best selling amateur production in the region has just finished a highly successful run of 11 performances, as the cast of 64 local Cubs, Scouts, Guides, Explorers and Young Leaders entertained 3,125 people at the Haymarket, Basingstoke from the 11th – 20th February 2016.

Saturday 5th March 2016 marked the end of Basingstoke Gang Show 2016 with the official after show party with a ‘something silver’ theme to celebrate the 25th show. The Cast and Volunteers had a lovely evening celebrating the 25th Basingstoke Gang Show as well as raising an amazing amount of money £1,210 for Basingstoke Gang Show 2016’s chosen Charities Naomi House and Sightsavers.

The event involved the presentation of cast awards and charity cheques

with lots of dancing inbetween! Steve Edney Chairman of Basingstoke Gang Show said “A core value of scouting and guiding is ‘helping others’ and the audience donated £1,210 to support two incredible charities after being entertained by our talented cast”.

During the run of the show £1,210 was raised to be split between the two charities. On Saturday Brett Lovegrove the Ambassador for Sightsavers and Olga Woodcock who represented Naomi House each received a cheque for £605 to help others within their charities.

ABOVE: Cast of Basingstoke Gang Show with Charity Representatives: Brett Lovegrove from Sightsavers and Olga Woodcock from Naomi House More information available from: www.basingstokegangshow.com

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GONE HOME

Don Fern, 1930-2016

It is with sadness that Eastleigh Scouts record the passing of Don Fern. Don first joined Scouts at the age of 10 and having enjoyed his Scouting to the full as a Scout, Senior Scout and Rover Scout, went on to become a leader in both Troop, Group and District appointments over many years. In his many years with the 4th Eastleigh he was responsible for relocating the Group following a fire at their old HQ, and managed the building of a new HQ on Southampton Road. Despite his investment and commitment to this project, he actively supported a recent project to relocate the Group again, seeing his old HQ recycled into a Pre-School whilst the Scout Group enjoyed brand new premises as part of a community project. Sadly Don died the weekend before the official opening of the new premise, but we all knew he was with us celebrating as usual. Don left us his own message which was read out at his funeral attended by nearly 300 people, “Baden Powell said ‘Try to leave the world a better place than you found it’ and to that end I have tried to live my life. God bless you all.”

LOVE ADVENTURE? Wanted, Scout Leaders & Assistants Would you like the chance to go camping, climbing, potholing, lead community projects while transforming young people’s lives? Being part of scouting, you will do all of this and more, using your skills and learning new ones.

2nd Bentley Scout Group is well established with over 100 young people enrolled across all sections and has a rich and successful history.

The group continues to grow and is looking for new volunteers to join its dynamic team in delivering fantastic opportunities for its Scouts.

You’ll use your energy and creativity

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to help young people have fun, develop their potential and earn a wide range of badges and awards, including the prestigious Chief Scout Awards. But it’s your enthusiasm and sense of fun and adventure that will inspire them.

Scouting offers fun, friendship and life changing adventure to over 450,000 young people across the UK. But this is only made possible by our talented teams of volunteers.

Be part of this team for a new challenge that is as rewarding as it is fun.

INTERESTED? Contact: Bob Wilson at bobs.car@sky.com or call 07769 906 745

The Mayor of Winchester’s Community Awards Here are pictures two of my Leaders, Marie Carter, Beaver Scout Leader and Jackie Norman, Cubs Scout Leader at the Mayor of Winchester’s Community Awards on March 2nd. Along with a host of other amazing volunteers, they received certificates from Cllr Angela Clear at the Guildhall. The citations on the back of their certificates mentioned their amazing work with Young People in Hursley Parish running the Beaver Colony and Cub Pack despite having their own young children, running a business (Jackie) and being active supporters of the John Keble School PTA and helping with Parish events such as the Hursley 5K Run and Parish Walk. They are usually to be found running a stall selling cakes and biscuits to support the Scout Group! They are a credit to the Association and I am very proud of them both!

Yours in Scouting Cecily Casey GSL 1st Hursley Scout Group

Hi, I am running the London marathon this year in aid of the Scout Association and would appreciate the county spreading the word to support me. http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/HelenCoyteScouts Many thanks Helen Coyte

www.hampshirescouts.org.uk

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1st Romsey Cubs say thank you to past Leaders Three months in the planning and after an hour it is all over. Since January the Cubs have been making invitations, bunting, a totem pole, a banderlog tree, gift bags, taking photos with Mowgli our lego mascot to make a slide show, practicing songs and sketches to perform in front of 30 guests plus parents to celebrate 100 years of Cub Scouting.

Everyone was given a bingo card and a name badge to kick the evening off so lots of discussion of who has climbed Snowden, can speak a foreign language and juggle (not all at the same time). There were photos & books from the archive to prompt memories and they created a few laughs as Akela had hair once upon a time! After some refreshments each six performed a campfire sketch involving wheelbarrows, an invisible bench, brains and snot (typical boys). The evening finished with 4 songs for all to join in and many Cubs were still singing when they got home.