A huge welcome to Summer Term everyone! Summer Term is our chance to provide some of the best experiences we can for the Scouts and of course it all ends with Summer Camp after the school term ends with what is one of the best trips we get to run for the Scouts: Brecon. However, that is currently a few months away and we have plenty of other Scouting to do before then.
We had a few changes and additions to patrols tonight. One of our senior scouts, Evan is getting close to finishing his time with us but the Leaders thought it was fitting he got a taste of being part of the Leadership team. Please join me in congratulating Evan on his move to Senior Patrol Leader (or SPL for short).
With Evan moving up to join us, that leaves a vacancy for the Patrol Leader in Hawks. We thought is was only fitting it went to the now former Assistant Patrol Leader to take that position so congratulations Billy! In turn, that means that his position needs to be filled and we thought that would be no better suited to Johan. Congratulations as well!
We also had a friend of Izzy’s join us tonight to see what Scouting is all about. A huge welcome to Bethany!
This week, we decided to make use of the increasing evening daylight and play a Wide Game in Arthur Newbury Park. I organised a game of Postbox in which Scouts had to find multiple leaders across the park to collect all the parts of a ticket and then post it in the Postbox.
It was the first time both the Leaders and Scouts had ever ran/played the game and to say we may have made it a little too hard for the Scouts might be a understatement. One of our resident leaders, Neil, took it upon himself to hide up a tree so the Scouts couldn’t find him. For next time we will be sure to ease up the difficulty.
For the last part of the night, we divided the Scouts into 3 parts. I took the PL’s and APL’s to work on a secret project (more on that in a few weeks), Skip took some of the younger Scouts to talk about the badges that they may have to work on themselves and the rest of the Scouts were taken outside to do some oiling. What were they oiling you ask?
Fast forward to Saturday morning where some of the Leaders and Scouts took to the hall to put up a sign for the Scout group. With the freshly oiled sign from the night before, they were able to get the sign up during the duration of the morning. You can find a picture of the process below!
As a final part of Friday evening, I had the pleasure of handing out these certificates you can see below. These were handed out to the Scouts who participated in the Three Towers Hike a few weeks ago. They all did fantastically so well done!
I hope all the Scouts are looking forward to a jam-packed term!
Next week, Neil, Jim, possibly Bosun and myself are holding the fort whilst the others are away. We will be doing a hike around Reading. I will be sending more details out midweek so keep an eye out.
Also please read the email that the link to the blog was on as there are a few details regarding what is going with the topics discussed with all the Parents on Friday night if you missed it.
Until next week,
Ellis
