Ellis Carne

Apologies for missing the blog last week however it worked out quite nicely as I now get to combine the 2 into an outdoors extended piece. Enjoy!

Directional Challenge – 3rd May

This week at Scouts, we decided it was best if we continued to scrub up on map work for summer camp. Neil planned a route for the Scouts around Sulham Woods all the way down to the massive incentive that is McDonalds.

Each Leader took one group of Scouts of a similar age group to work on their map skills. We also had various people from some of the Scouts families join us who tagged along with us.

The Scouts in my group specifically took it in turns to direct and lead navigation before coming together at the end to navigate the last part. They all navigated very well coming to justified decision about where they had to go.

As you can imagine, plenty of McDonalds was consumed during the space of time after the hike.

Camp Skills – 10th May

With camp fast approaching and some Scouts needing a run down of the basic camp skills and various smaller parts of some challenge badges to clean up on, we decided to get the best of both worlds and do both at once.

Ben organised a rotating bases evening in which the Scouts covered a varying amount of skills necessary for camp and that covered parts of the challenge badges that many of the Scouts had not achieved. These bases included:

• Effective Rucksack Packing (especially important for this Summer Camp!)
• Uses of Axes and Saws (including Safety)
• Route Planning
• Camp Hygiene and the Countryside Code

If you want to know more detail about the badges, you can look at the challenge badges in OSM or on the Scouts website. We covered criteria from the Outdoor and Expedition Challenge.

For next weeks meeting, the Leaders are taking a step back. Instead our resident PL’s and APL’s are taking up the challenge of running a meeting following the notion of Youth Shaped Scouting. I’m looking forward to see what they get up to and I’m planning on providing some feedback the week after.

Next week at the hall as normal,

Ellis

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!

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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

This week, Skip organised for the evening to be taken by DiveStyle a company that specialises in a giving people the opportunity to Scuba Dive.

The Scouts were split into 2 groups. Each group had one hour in the pool with each instructor managing 3 to 4 Scouts. The other group had to sit on the side in the mean time and have a chat with Bosun, Neil and Myself whilst Skip helped the instructors in the pool.

The Scouts were familiarised with the kit, how to inflate and deflate their vest and purge their regulator. They were also taught some general tips for any pool like how to equalise the pressure to stop your ears hurting and how to stop goggles or scuba masks fogging up. They were then taken into the water to practice breathing normally with all the gear on and using the hand signals they had been taught in briefing.

Those who then felt confident slowly swam to the deep end using all the techniques from above. Scouts were given flippers to assist with this.

I hope all the Scouts enjoyed themselves and will come again next time we do something like this!

Before I close this week I want to fast forward time from Friday evening to Saturday morning. For those that don’t know, Saturday 30th March this year was the date of the Three Towers Hike. This event involves teams of 3-4 Scouts tackling a 27 km hike that can take the entire day. We put in 2 teams this year and I saw them off with their parents on Saturday Morning.

I am super proud of both teams for participating and giving it a go. Unfortunately, the boys had to retire but congratulations to the girls who finished at 4:45pm which puts them at a rather impressive time of about 8 hours give or take. Well done! I would like to re-iterate that it is a very tough and there was never any shame in the boys resigning. It was not easy to reach any distance.

There is no Scouts next week but we will return one week earlier on the 26th for the Summer Term.

See you soon!

Ellis

On the request of some of the PL’s and APL’s from a few weeks ago, this evening we decided to let the Scouts looses with some ingredients to make pancakes. It was also Pancake Day a few weeks ago so we thought it would be appropriate the celebrate the occasion even if it was a little late.

Before I tell you what we did, its a good chance to welcome a new Scout into the fold. We had Samuel join us this evening. I hope that you enjoy your next few weeks to constitute joining Chieftain officially.

We don’t have enough equipment for everyone to do Pancakes simultaneously, therefore we had an evening of 2 halves all based around food.

The first half was indeed pancakes. We used a recipe from the BBC which you can find here, if you find your Scout wants to make some more themselves. We gave the Scouts the choice of Lemon, Sugar or Nutella for their choice of toppings.

The other half of the evening was based around part of the Outdoor Challenge Badge. This required Scouts to understand the fundamentals of how to make a successful camp meal plan. This involves what meals would you eat and why, and maybe the challenges you may face with some other suggestions.

As a final part of the evening, we had the pleasure of handing out a huge 45 badges. Now if you are a regular reader of the blog you will know I’m quite good at typing them out to organise them by Scout. On this occasion due to the sheer success of the Scouts and therefore amount of badges I am just going to place the report below for you to read:

As you can see a serious amount of badges this evening with some notable badges going to all our Cavers, Lyla and Freddie for the very unique Model Maker badge and finally CJ for his My Faith badge in which I very much enjoyed his take on his faith when he presented a few weeks ago.

A very well done to all!

Next week, we will be going Scuba Diving. An email about it will follow at some point this week covering the arrangements for the evening.

I have also sent out one final email about the Three Towers Hike to those who had initial interest. Please give it a read!

Until next week,

Ellis

Last week, we took the Scouts on a little excursion to Denefield School to take part in the Scout District Dodgeball Tournament that was organised by 1st Purley and Pangbourne.

We made up 3 out of the 16 teams there. The 16 teams were divided into 2 leagues in which a Round Robin style was conducted. Every team played every other team in their league to accumulate points. Below you can see the first match which was a Chieftain Mirror Match between 2 of our teams. No hard feelings as you can imagine :).

All teams were then seeded based on how well they did into a single elimination knockout round! For example, the top team in a league would be placed against who came in last in their league, 2nd with 7th and vice versa.

All of our teams put in a great effort with one team coming top of their league and then pushing on to come 4th after competing in the quarter finals.

I want to make a special mention to Seamus who organised his team one game to conduct a strategy that was carried out rather successfully I may add.

No notices in the blog this week apart from we are back at the hall this coming Friday.

See you then!

Ellis

To conclude what we were doing before half term, we decided to do the final part of the teamwork challenges. This was to see how the patrols had improved over half term due to their newly educated patrol leaders.

For the first part of the evening, we had a redo of Hungry Hippos. I would like to make a special mention to Hawks who I thought had the best strategy during the course of the game.

For the second part of the evening, the Scouts had the challenge of crossing the hall using crates and benches. If the Scouts touched the floor they had to go back to the beginning.

The first round, any of the equipment was allowed to touch the floor. For the second round, only the crates were allowed to touch the floor.

Of course, with any competition, points are available for the winners. I would also like to point out that this weeks inspection was one of the highest. All patrols scored higher than 10.

To also finish our investitures, Haris was welcomed into the troop. I hope you enjoy your time with us!

There is no Scouts next week as we are all off Caving with the Scouts who decided to go. We will be back on the 15th March.

Sorry for the short blog!

Have a wonderful week!

Ellis

Hello!

I hope everyone is enjoying half term. Apologies this is later than the normal time, I just haven’t had a spare moment to write.

This week at Scouts, we decided to give the patrols a challenge to see if they could use their team initiative to build a pioneering build that could carry some Scouts on a rope.

We finished up hobbies this evening. Anya brought in her lovely coin collection whilst Kerstin talked about her fantastic sharpie based drawings.

The main event for this evening was the stretcher challenge.

The challenge was simple. Take the parts out of the back hall to construct a stretcher like a device that is able to carry a Scout without them touch any of the wooden pioneering poles. Anything they took out would have to be used therefore careful planning was required.

The results were very impressive with each patrol adapting a different design with one patrol even choosing a triangle which I personally had never thought of. I, however, forgot to take photos. 🙁

As part of the large change over of PL’s and APL’s, we also after Scouts ran a weekend for the PL’s and APL’s on Leadership. However, I’d prefer if you heard that from a Scouts perspective so you can find Gabriel’s account below:

https://chieftain79.com/2019/02/22/gabriels-blog-spot-feb-2019-leadership-weekend/

Gabriel like anyone who contributes to the blog will be getting badge credit towards Digital Citizen Level 1 which is not only a really easy badge to get but I really nice one to have in today’s evolving society.

If your Scout would like to contribute to the blog even for a section of an evening they are welcome to send me an email with their contribution.

One notice before the end this week:

We also had some Scouts invested tonight. Please welcome into the troop Abbie, Anna, Max, and Freddie!

We will be back at the Scout Hall after half term. Details, as usual, to come in an email a few days before. Enjoy the rest of your break!

Ellis

Sometimes we as Leaders don’t get to learn about the people behind the Scout. We prefer to isolate Scouts and keep anything not Scout related on the outside. For example, we tell Scouts to keep any problems on the playground on the playground and come with the mentality to have a good time.

However, sometimes we do like to hear about some of the things that the Scouts do outside of Scouts. That’s exactly what we decided to do tonight. We asked Scouts to bring what interested them or something they do in their spare time. All in all, the results were varied and exciting.

I do believe that the story of this evening is best told in pictures with little commentary. I would like to say a huge well done to all the Scouts that presented. You brought a fair amount of confidence to your speaking and it was lovely to see you all passionate about something you love.

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If you didn’t see what all of this is there’s a wonderful list below with everything the Scouts bought. Absolutely brilliant!

Dexter – Plays Clarinet (grade 2)

Alex Reed – Keyboard & Drawings

William – Kayaking

Charlie – Cricket

Abbey – Climbing & Street dance

Evan – Pin badges

Freddie – 3D printing

George – Man Utd

Lyla – Model making

Anna – Aerial hoop and silks

Seamus – Swimming

CJ – Faith presentation & plays drum & guitar; theme parks & streetdance

Haris – Football trophies

Anya – Football & streetdance

Aaron – Stamp collecting

Arran – Drawing

Gabriel – Rowing

As you can the variety was insane with every Scout bringing something different. The confidence and ability to stand and speaks volumes about all the Scouts so well done!

The new woggles that I mentioned a few weeks ago have arrived. They have been distributed to the Scouts. Big thank you to Bosun for finding and ordering them. Scouts, please keep them safe as they belong to your patrol, not you.

We also had some badges this evening. Please join me in congratulating the following:

Congratulations to all!

That’s all for this week. Same place same time on Friday for the last meeting of this half term.

Ellis

Originally this week, we were planning to do some team building and talking about what makes a good team. However, the whole of Tilehurst woke up to Snow on Friday morning. Therefore, we had to adapt our plans slightly. That’s not to say we still kept the theme of Teamwork hidden throughout.

This evening, we had another new Scout joining us. A big Chieftain welcome to Abbie!

To start off the evening we took out the wheely boards we made as a troop a few years ago and played Hungry Hippos. If you don’t know what Hungry Hippos is I urge you to watch this advert from the 1990’s.

Imagine the game above but the hippos are not actually hippos but Scouts. The mechanism is instead a patrol of Scouts pulling and pushing the Scout on a board.

A few weeks ago you’ll remember we took the Scouts on a hike. On the hike, we took away the luxury of a compass and focused more on relational navigation. Tonight we decided to make sure that the Scouts compass skills were up to scratch making sure they could navigate in a direction if need be. This also included the compass directions that are not listed on a compass e.g. NNW or North North West.

After that, we decided to make use of the Snow. We decided to have a Snowman Competition. We had some varied designs all with different advantages. You can see the Scouts mid build below.

We broke flag a little earlier this evening to finish off with what appeared to be the only thing on Scouts mind all evening. A Snowball fight. Apologies if any parents cars got a little wet from a snow-covered Scout.

Before closing this week, I want to make a mention of the following Scouts: CJ, Dexter, George and William. These 4 came down Saturday morning to assist our Group Quartermaster Gary and Ben look through a majority of the gear in the back hall. Great job boys!

It’s nice to have snow every once and a while and I hope the Scouts enjoyed themselves over the course of the evening. Next weeks plans will follow in an email soon.

Until next week,

Ellis

A few weeks ago, Bosun managed to get in contact with St Michaels Church about possible Bell Ringing. Lucky for us, they were very happy to accommodate us. We had nothing to with what you about to read apart from getting this to happen and supervision so a big thank you to everyone at St Michaels Church who accommodated Chieftains on Friday this evening.

Before I go into what happened, we have some new Scouts. A big Chieftain welcome to Anna, Freddie, Max, and Harris.  You will all get organized into your Patrols next week.

Now let’s talk about what happened at the Church on Friday.

The Scouts and Leaders were taken into the main church where we were introduced to the people who would be taking the evening. They were all Church members in some regard that had given up their time.

The troop was divided into 3 groups with the Leaders all following a specific group.

The first station was up in the tower where the Scouts were given a rundown of the history of the bells (300 years old to my recollection), why they were rung, how they are rung and ultimately a chance to have a go themselves. You can find pictures of most of the Scouts having a go below.

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The next station was handbells. This station aimed to mimic the kind of music you can out of the bells in the tower on a smaller a scale. The Scouts were taught rounds to begin with and they were slowly worked up to a kind of song. This was only done via learning through positioning in a line. You can find some pictures below:

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The final station was a little bit of a break from bell ringing. The Scouts were given a history lesson about the Church with the main focus being on general facts and information behind the tomb of a family that used to live around here. If you ever visit the tomb, all of the children holding skulls never lived past their father. The hands are cut off the children due to Oliver Cromwell hating what praying hands stood for and there were rumors of him visiting. They were cut off the parents as well but they were re-attached since Cromwell never turned up but the church could never find the hands of the 2 children.

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After the tour, Scouts were given an alphabet quiz to fill in about the Church.

Information about next week will follow soon. However, we will be doing an inspection for definite. We are not worried too much about our new Scouts but everyone else needs to be in best bib and tucker as the point system is now coming into effect.

Until next week,

Ellis