Section Reports

Since our last report we continued online activities until September 2020. We had a number of great programmes during this time. We were lucky enough to restart for a few precious weeks, even though we were facing the global pandemic, many new Beavers joined us. We did lots of great things during this time, for example we played running around games in nature and explored the local area enjoying a treasure hunt following a map in Letna Park.

We were fully protected from Covid, wearing masks and cleaning our hands, but our Beavers smiles and happy voices made us forget we are in the middle of the pandemic. One of our Assistant Leaders, Grey, joined us and gave us great support. He planned games and activities. It was so much fun! Also our young leader Natalie joined us for her Duke of Edinburgh award. She is amazingly great with children.

We had a great opportunity to go on a hike in the beautiful Czech countryside with some local Czech Water Scouts, getting there by an old special Czech train. Most of our Beavers can speak Czech so they made friends very quickly and we enjoyed the activities with them. Thanks to Josef for organizing it and giving us an amazing day.

In November we faced another national lockdown. This time we had Em and Grey from the Scout Troop join us. From then until May we were back online and we took part in some more fun activities, maintaining reasonably good attendance each week. We ran sessions to achieve a number of badges and awards including some activities with some UK groups from 1st Croydon and 21st Craigalmond Scout Queensferry Beaver Colonies. We also had a great evening being shown round a Czech helicopter rescue centre. Our thanks to Paul for making this happen.

We would like to congratulate Oliver Wait and Victor Dranch who gained their Chief Scout’s Bronze Award in August 2020. They did a fantastic job getting their awards completed.

Finally, I would like to thank the members of my team who have been invaluable in delivering this year’s programme: my Assistant Beaver Scout Leaders Petra, Charles, Marta, and former ABSL Mauro who moved to the Cub section in September.

Chisato Hashizume (Bambi) Beaver Scout Leader beavers@praguescouts.cz

In the last report written, there was a joke made about the end of COVID situation in summer 2020. Rereading, seems a little naïve and premature to have written that.

We’d like to first thank the parents, for continued support of the section, preparing the materials in advance of the online meetings, and being ready to jump in to fix technical problems and orientate your Cub in our physical absence. We couldn’t have done it without you ��

This year, we welcomed Aidan, David, Iskender, Jasmina, Loki, Oliver, Max, Maria, Thomas, Loki, Oliver, Noel, and Victor to the pack. They have been engaged, in regular attendance, and are now valued members of the Cub pack.

While we can’t meet physically today as normal, this AGM report is the opportunity to award 2 Chief Scout Silver awards to Sixers Tudor and Matthew. They have completed the Chief Scout Silver award. This gives the Cub leadership team an enormous sense of pride and achievement. Their participation, the energy they have brought to the pack, and the example and leadership qualities they have demonstrated as they’ve developed over the last two years has been a good example for the younger ones to follow.

These 2 are part of the 10 departing senior Cubs who will graduate to Scouts in September. We wish them success in their continuing development personally and as Scouts in an exciting new environment. They will all be sorely missed.

In spite of the complex epidemiological situation this year, we still managed to enjoy an off road bicycle trail ride, we had the opportunity to try footgolf, and had some great evenings learning hands on bike maintenance and camp skills in Letna park in the autumn. It’s a shame that Autumn Cub camp was cancelled on the eve of the event. It’s a shame we couldn’t do everything we’d planned. But Group Summer camp is a few weeks away in July and we look forward to seeing as many of the Cubs as possible.

The split of responsibility and onus of running an enlarged Cub pack has become more distributed across the Cub leadership team: we collaborate and work together to share the burden, and this approach has fortified us as a group during this difficult time. The Cub leadership team benefited greatly from welcoming Bagheera into the team. His enthusiasm to produce a quality program, and his hands-on attitude to assisting with pack administration are much appreciated. Akela, Winifred, King Louie and Baloo have completed their wood beads leadership training, an achievement to celebrate and recognize the dedication in keeping the children safe, engaged, and learning new skills. Raksha, Kaa and Ikki have all stepped up and excelled in contributing independent, planned, new, engaging online program for the Cubs. We are really fortunate to have formed such a committed, enthusiastic team of volunteers. Highlights of the year for the leadership team include Winifred’s online Science experiments, Bagheera’s Astronomy evening, a creative evening with Lego organized by King Louie & Akela, and the games evening Ikki organized.

We are eager to get back to business as usual. We are full of (delayed) exciting ideas to get the Cub pack back to what we are all involved for: hands on, practical, face to face fun. We want to get back to delivering a good quality and variety of program, but we strive to keep on delivering a better learning experience for the Cubs. The leadership team is meeting in June 2021 to set out the program and weekend events well in advance for September, so you know, as parents, what the program will be and when to block the calendar out. The standard of behaviour needs work, we will be working to re-establish a clearly defined hierarchy of the 5 ‘Six’ groupings, and the use of points. We would like to further focus and develop these areas to make it clear and transparent to the Cubs what we expect from them, and that good behaviour and effort is rewarded. The departing senior Sixers/ Seconders mean we will be looking to restructure and promote new junior leaders in September. We will look to them to work together, to show leadership and to set a good example for their younger peers over the next year.

COVID has meant we are yet to meet some of you face to face. The growth of the group in recent years has meant meeting and bonding with more parents, with a few of them actively involving themselves in the group. If you aren’t yet involved and would like to be, we would encourage you all to participate in future events as they come up.

Baloo, (Chris Wait) Cub Scout Leader, on behalf of the Cub Leadership team cubs@praguescouts.cz

The scout troop started Summer 2020 on a happier note as we were able to meet face to face for one great game session in Letna Park after almost 4 months online. This allowed scouts and leaders to meet again, remember what scouting really is and have some great time together. Due to the summer holidays we couldn’t organize another event over the summer, but leaders used this time to organize our first camp in 2020 that took place in Bechyne (close to Tabor). We used these 2 days to meet some of our new members who had just joined, and former Cubs who came of age to be Scouts. Our GSL had a great time using this camp to try out our brand new Patrol Tents and all their functionality. After so many months of online activities, I dare to say that everyone had a great time being a scout whether it was during the hike, the campfire or the games. We continued through September and October to have weekly meetings outside in Letna, to have games, orienteering and even one fantastic class on how to play cricket! Unfortunately, from mid-October the situation in Czech Republic with the coronavirus didn’t allow us to meet face to face. We had to resume our online activities. This time, we focused on having fun with scouts and leaders rather than typical scouting activity. Though everyone would prefer to meet face to face, the situation allowed us to meet online with another scout group: 44th Tarleton, from the UK. They contacted us as they wanted to achieve their World Challenge Award, and we started meeting them on a monthly basis between December and March. As we wanted the scouts to interact between each other, under the parents’ supervision, we created some temporary email addresses for the young people to mail their “digital pen pals” and try to make some friends in another country. Although not

all the scouts really participated in this activity some did, and most importantly the leaders did ! We are hoping to meet them face to face some time soon, whether here or in the UK, and share some great memories. As the scouting year ends, we are now looking forward to the week group camp in July. We already have 10 scouts signed up and hope for more. Last time we saw the full troop was at Christmas for a joined sport field session with the Cubs Pack playing footgolf together. Having online sessions instead of face-to-face is not anyone’s first choice, but we had to do so, like everyone had to do their part over the past long months. However, through it all, the Scout Leaders have kept on going, and tried to help however they could to the best of their capacity. I want to thank them as I know I can count on them the day we return to face-to-face sessions. Manon Frot – Scout Leader

scouts@praguescouts.cz

The Bohemians

The summer of 2020 started with renewed hope and enthusiasm for Scouting after the earlier lockdown in the spring. The Explorers settled into their new “home” in the corner of Letna Park, enjoying new found freedoms running around chasing frisbees, each other, orienteering, tracking, slack-lining and perfecting their wide game tactics. It was not all frenetic activity. Jonathan Ledgard, a former Foreign and War Correspondent for the Economist and a thinker and commentator on disinformation, delivered a session on “How to Read the News” – a guide for teenagers to choose what news to read, how to spot fake news, and how to handle news on social media. And seven Explorers got stuck into planning their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award (DOFE) Adventurous Journey (Expedition)in and around Kokořínský Důl and Kokořín Castle north of Mělník, which had been postponed due to the extension of the lockdown affecting BSO. In late June, five Scouts moved up to the Explorers (Alex, Atreyu, Eva, Sisi and Sofia) to add to our new addition (Kris) who had joined during lockdown and finally got to meet his fellow Explorers. Our numbers were further increased by an addition of three more joining in September (Hannah, Thomas and Kadri)- doubling the size of the Bohemians in just a year from being formed.

The seven successfully completed their Bronze DOFE Adventurous Journey in late July. The weather played its part, being very hot, challenging the adventurers’ resolve and stamina. However, they stuck at it and completed their expedition, recording the wildlife they came across on their journey. A big thanks to Charlotte, who was the DOFE Assessor for their expedition as her final act for the Explorers before moving on to new challenges elsewhere. Next up was the Explorer Summer Camp in late August. A two-day canoe expedition on the Otava river; camping on the river bank, mastering the art of canoeing in a straight line and navigating a weir, sometimes followed by practice emptying the water from their canoe! Nine Bohemians attended and thanks to our new Leader, Tim Cranton (a qualified paramedic trainer and former British Army), they all completed their Advanced First Aid course (to the same level as the Scout Leaders) and practiced some survival skills and casualty recovery (in the dark!). In September we were back in the park, with the welcome support of two new leaders, Rachel and Gretchen. We had planned, with great excitement, a Survival Camp for the middle of October but unfortunately Scouting activities were suspended at the same time as schools had to return to on-line lessons. We reluctantly returned to online scouting, with the Explorers attending regularly and even organising sessions for each other. We had a new game designed by Kris, regular entertainment provided by Games’ Master Francesco, an escape room, a visit to the Army Royal Flying Museum, learning sign language courtesy of Rachel, a session on building selfconfidence from Andra, and the DOFE Adventurers made their presentation to complete their Adventurous Journey. Culinary skills were tested too, artisan bread making and also pancakes on Pancake Day (of course!). December allowed us to meet briefly and we managed an informative night-time historical tour of a deserted Prague (blissfully quiet due to the lack of tourists). 2020/21 has taught us many things, presented huge challenges to young people and those older. None of us has been immune from the impacts of isolation and lack of other human interactions. This group of Explorers have amazed me with their solidarity, their support for one another, their determination to get on with it, to stick with online scouting, and to look forward to better times. Our first session back, just a week or so ago, was both humbling and exhilarating as we had a 100% turnout – 19 Young People determined to get back to Scouting and to embrace life and its challenges - together. A big thank you to our Leaders, Andra (for being there always), Rachel and Gretchen, and our new addition Chris, and of course Simon and the other Section Leaders, who all help make 1st Prague the wonderful community it is. We look forward to many more adventures, learning more #skillsforlife, to our first Group Camp (with all sections) in early July, to finally doing our Survival Skills camp, and many more fun, challenging and interesting things together.

Alastair Hammond (Colonel Hathi) Explorer Scout Leader, Deputy Group Scout Leader and D of E Manager explorers@praguescouts.cz