With spring well and truly upon us and St George’s day burning a hole in the diary the group celebrated in style with a camp including 45 Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers at Tolmers in Hertfordshire.

Rafts under construction

All at sea, scouts take to the water in hand made rafts.

The camp had a back to basics theme for the program with all ages learning new or improved old skills including first aid, pioneering, (where some fantastic rafts and bridges were built), navigation and the use of axes and saws. This culminated in the explorers felling a tree for the scouts to use as fire wood later!

Cubs cross a “friction bridge”

They built it themselves as well!

For many of the Beavers it was the first time they had slept in a tent and certainly the first time that it was a tent they had put up themselves! Some of the scouts and explorers may want to take note of the speed they put them up as well 🙂

A fantastic weekend hopefully to be repeated this time next year!

While most teenagers were enjoying their Sunday lie in last weekend the group’s young leaders were being trained in the art of advanced first aid.

Young Leaders are Explorer Scouts (14-18 year olds) who volunteer to effectively become apprentice adult leaders with Beavers, Cubs or Scouts and are our next generation of leaders. The first aid course is just one part of their training and equips them to deal with a broad range of emergencies including major bleeds, choking, loss of consciousness and CPR/mouth to mouth.

The course gives YLs a recognised Red Cross qualification and the skills and ability to cope with any emergency they might encounter.

Any 14-17 year olds interested in getting involved with the Young Leader programme should contact the Group Scout Leader Colin Sills.

Happy Founder’s Day! (And happy Thinking Day to our friends in Girl Guides)

Today is the day that scouts and guides across the world celebrate what would have been the birthday of our founder Lord Robert Baden Powell. In the early 1900s he was a complete maverick and his idea that young people were of real worth, that they worth developing and could be capable of serving their community was in complete contrast to the attitudes of the time when its was said that “children should be seen and not heard”.

Today the Scout Association is remembering BP with the theme of My Scout Hero where scouts are remembering the people in scouting who most influenced them with lots going on across youtube, twitter and the rest of the internet

Right now as a group we are looking to recruit new adults, in particular with our cubs and beavers. Heroes come in many shapes and sizes and it can be the most unlikely people who are capable of being someone’s hero, sometimes for doing the smallest of things, teaching them to light a fire or taking them on their first night away from their parents. You certainly don’t need to be superman to do it!

If you want to be someone’s hero then please get in touch. You don’t need experience or qualifications, just a sense of humor and few hours to spare each week.

So what are you waiting for? We’d love to hear from you……

Well that’s not quite true. However, you might now be able to talk without having to shout!

The weekend of the 8th & 9th February saw some great team-work in the HQ.  Volunteers young and old assembled early in the morning to set up a factory producing sound-absorbing panels.

The team sawed, glued, stapled, drilled and drank tea all day.  The GSL handed out biscuits and tried in vain to remove glue from his hands.

Finally, the Quartermaster had a stock of 40 padded panels ready for mounting.

Sunday saw deployment of the scaffold tower, drills, screwdrivers and long-forgotten knot-tying skills.  Slowly, the echoeyness diminished until you could actually hear your own blood pumping (according to our Group Secretary).

Thank you to all our volunteers: John, Rob, Michael, Roger, Eliane, Leonie, Mark, Max, Lucas, Neil, Catherine, Rebekah, Sophie, Issy, Valerie, Jamie, Robin, Graeme and Gregor.  [Editor: If I have missed out anyone, please let me know!]

If it’s too quiet now, the Cubs will just have to practice louder Grand Howls!