With the AGM running concurrently to our Scout meeting, we decided to give the new Scouts a chance to talk about something they were interested in or enjoyed whilst the the older Scouts were assisting with some of the setup and prep for the AGM.
We first let the Scouts outside for a few games run by Emily and a bit later on Tegan, one of our senior Scouts.
Inside we set up a table for Scouts to bring up anything they had brought and then for them to stand behind and speak about it. They could have brought anything to speak about, whether that’s a topic they were interested in or a hobby they do. Here’s all the Scouts that presented and a little detail on what they talked about:
CJ – Spoke about his drumming and his Youtube Channel.
Haris – Spoke about his favourite football team, Manchester United.
Charlie – Spoke about Scouts 🙂
Aaron – Spoke about his time helping at his Church over the summer.
Abigail – Spoke about her art.
Tegan – Spoke about her time playing Dungeons and Dragons
Ruby – Spoke about her art.
Lottie – Spoke about her art.
Maiya – Spoke about her range of baking. She even brought in some tasters.
Lewis – Spoke about collecting Beano magazines.
As you can see there’s a range of different hobbies and topics. Large amount of artists in the troop as well. Well done to everyone that got up and spoke. Its very difficult to get up and speak and everyone did it wonderfully.
We closed off the evening with a game in the dark where blindfolded Scouts had to find everyone else around the room.
Our meeting tommrrow will be Scouting Basics for the benefit of our new members. What are those basics? Promise and Pioneering.
The 19th September every year is a special day. A special day that Chieftain Scouts choose to observe on a yearly basis. That day is ‘Talk like a Pirate Day’ and we choose to dedicate a Scout meeting to it every year by dressing up as pirates and doing pirate themed team building activities. We were planning to the evening on the 20th but it clashed with the Scout AGM.
I was very impressed to only see 1 or 2 Scout uniforms when all the Scouts fell in for flag. It was nice to see everyone taking to the occasion. To start off the evening we had a round of the boat game where the Scouts get to run around the hall and perform actions and I get to have a sore throat the next morning from shouting commands. 🙂
Bosun then divided the now very large troop into 6 teams who all competed in a range of team building activities ranging from a game of naughts and crosses:
And the snake/rock paper scissors game that I don’t think has a name:
As a final part to the evening we also did a ‘Crew Inspection’ where we judged each of the patrols for the best pirate costumes and got the Scouts to give their best ‘ARRRRR!’. This all scored points for patrols and got them off the mark for the year.
On top of the new Scouts from last week we had 2 more Scouts join us this evening, Zac and Alicia. I hope you a fantastic first evening.
We usually also have badges but we still need to order them. However we did have a certificate to give to Seamus for completing his shooting course he has been doing over the last couple of months. Well done!
This Friday coming, the Scout Group AGM will be running parallel to our meeting. We will most likely be having some of the older Scouts help with cooking among other things. The rest of the troop will be in with some of the leaders talking about things they are interested in.
I hope the summer months have created some great memories for both parents and scouts and that the scouts are ready for a great year of Scouting.
This week at Scouts, we decided to have a slightly more informal meeting than usual with some of the leaders still taking a break until we dive into the main programme next week.
A new year meant we had some new Scouts join us. We had 4 out of the possible 9 join us this evening. The new Scouts were Lewis, Lottie, Maiya and Ruby. The leaders thought it would be nice to do a ice-breaker so that everyone could get to know each other a little better. We played a form of ‘Never have I Ever’ where each Scout takes it in turns to say at statement which starts with ‘Never have I Ever…’. If a Scout had done that thing, they then had to run round the circle and if they were the last back to their position in the circle, they were out.
We then took a walk up to the park to play some games. The Leaders got the Scouts playing manhunt before we handed over to Gabriel (our oldest Scout ) to organise some games that took advantage of the dark such as Lighthouse.
Once back at the hall, our Young Leader Emily took over and organised a game of Splat. For our final game we played a game that doesn’t really ahve a name but involves getting over half of a collection of coins on to your teams chair.
For our meeting next week (13th September), we will be having our annual pirate night. Please feel free to send the Scouts in pirate costumes as some of the Leaders will also be partaking in this as well.
We think if its possible to get parents involved with the last meeting of term we should totally do it. Last year we were able to do an external event at an archaeological dig but when we don’t have such an option, we usually have a barbecue. That is exactly what we did this year.
We had some of the Scouts down earlier to help us with the setting up of altar fires and cooking of burgers and food. Unfortunately, the weather for the evening wasn’t exactly perfect, however we still persevered. After a small welcome from Skip, everyone was invited to grab a burger from indoors before we had our Group Scout Leaders Martin and Karen come down to invest 2 leaders, Neil and Myself, as we had passed our appointment process (hurrah!).
We also had a Scout that managed to get through their Chief Scout Gold. A huge congratulations to Evan Melleney! We had Martin and Karen present an imaginary award only because we didn’t manage to get hold of the badge and certificate in time. We will make sure we get that to you through Explorers or other means in the future.
Following that, the leaders had organised some games for everyone to participate in. We had a few rounds of tug of war with varying setups including Scout v Scout, Scout v Parents and Scout v Leaders. The adult:scout ratio was about 1:3 to make it a fair fight. The Leaders luckily won their bout against the Scouts otherwise we may have never heard the end of it. 🙂
After that, we had a slightly lower key game in the form of ski racing. This involves teams of 4 working together to walk round a course on a pair of skis.
As the penultimate event of the evening, we had some of our Scouts talk about the year (albeit at very short notice) and Anna to do her Digital Citizen presentation to complete the badge.
The final part of the evening was a celebration. Over the course of the year we have awarded about 201 badges to Scouts for various reasons which we think is amazing. If you want to look at all the badges awarded, please take a look here:
There is also the matter of the badges that we awarded on that evening which you can see here. Congratulations to the following!
Next, we invested Samuel who we should probably of invested a little sooner. This was led by Cobra Patrol Leader Alex as his new patrol leader was non-attending. Welcome to Chieftains!
Lastly, we announced the winner of the patrol competition. The standings were as follows:
1st – Hawks
2nd – Otters
3rd – Wolves
4th – Cobras
Well done Hawks! We will be discussing with you want you want to do for your prize in the coming term! We are back to zero. Remember everything you do at Scouts can have an impact on the standings. Be an awesome person and a top Scout and points will just flow into your patrol and you won’t even know it.
Unfortunately, events like these do mark a sad moment as well because we usually have Scouts that have grown to old for Scouts and their time with us has ended. Unfortunately, we do have to say goodbye to Evan and Alex… You both have been amazing over the years you have been with us and Bosun and Myself look forward to working with you in Explorers for a few more years. 🙂
That’s us done for this school year. We will see everyone back after summer. However, for some of the Scouts, all the Leaders will see you for Summer Camp where I certainly do hope we can give you one of the best but also most challenging experiences of your entire lives. I stress this so much but Brecon is such an amazing trip. Nearly all the Scouts will get to do it before they leave us if they are with us from beginning to end and it encompasses so many aspects of Scouting but most of all the Scouts get to spend a week with their friends that they’ve made here. Even the leaders get to have a great time. We will be hiking, mountain biking, cooking, rafting, kayaking a few more surprises where a few groups of the leaders get to fill some evenings and afternoons.
Scouts: thank you for making the Leaders time some of the most enjoyable of our weeks. We really do appreciate it and glad we can have a good time with you!
See you in a few weeks and to another year of Scouting!
With 32 Scouts in the entire troop, the leaders were very surprised to find only 8 of them turned up this evening for our annual cycle ride. As we soon found out, this smaller group size has its advantages.
This years cycle took us along the river into town and Christchurch meadows identical to the route we did last year. Whereas last year it took us much longer to reach out destination due to the range of cycling ability, the Scouts that turned up this evening were all very strong riders and therefore we were able to reach our destination in record time.
On the way down, we came across a wild Ben along the river without a bike so Skip offered a little bit of a lift:
Upon reaching our destination, the Scouts had the opportunity to play Frisbee. Seamus had also brought some balloons that he promptly filled with water and started throwing at the leaders and scouts alike. Hugely appreciated all round as you can imagine.
Next week will be our final meeting of this school year and everyone is invited. Come down and join us for our End of Year BBQ in which we plan to have an evening full of celebrating this year of Scouting with a few other games and things mixed in. Skip will be sending an email soon with all the details.
If you are wondering why we have skipped a few blog posts, that’s because I’m still working on getting everything together for the huge water sports post I plan to do. That post should be with you before Summer Camp.
This week at Scouts, we decided to do a little preparation for the cycle ride we will be doing after our little marathon of water activities over the next few weeks.
Before I go on to talk about Friday, I would like to mention the very successful Frome Expedition we had over the weekend. All the leaders who attended came away very impressed by the attitude of the Scouts. If any of the attendees would like to write a blog post to start their Digital Citizen badge, please do drop me an email!
We invited Scouts to bring their bikes down to get a little TLC. Skip and a few of the other Leaders checked over the brakes and other aspects of the Scouts bike.
Those who did not have a bike were able to help set up a bike course in which the Scouts who did have a bike were able to navigate. I’ll let the below speak for itself.
We gave some patrol points this week those Scouts that could clear the ramp with a decent amount of height.
Scouts is on Thursday this week as we will be doing some Stand Up Paddling. Your Scouts must have already paid for this event. If your Scouts is not going on Thursday there will be no meeting on Friday.
