Reminders & key information:
This edition’s reminders:
Beavers
Boomers and Castors – Over the last month the beaver leaders and their families have been saving two-litre plastic milk bottles, this week we will be converting them into bird feeders. All being well, they will come home with a bird feeder that they have made and a bag of wild bird seed for them to put in. They can then see what types of birds visit. We asked some of them this week to come up with the names of five birds that they might see in their gardens or in the park; so if you can remind them to come with their ideas on their meeting night that would be helpful.
Millstones – will be meeting at the school working towards their International badge.
Reminder – All the Beavers are meeting on Wednesday 19th December at Cubley Hall for a joint Christmas Party. As per Laura’s email, the places need to be pre-booked by the end of November. Please email [email protected] to let her know if your child will be attending or not (regardless to which night they meet).
Cubs
Alegre – please look out for an email about your programme this week.
Bella Vista – we are at Pets at Home, Fox Valley, please note adjusted meeting time of 6:30-7:45 pm. Thank you to leaders from other sections for helping make up adult numbers for this.
Raptors – will back in the school for the Astronomers’ badge work.
Scouts
Enigma – will be spending their meeting preparing for our Enigma Scouts “Come Dine with me” Challenge night.
Wibbles – please look out for an email about your programme this week.
Viernes – will be taking part in rifle shooting at the Scout Hut. It is essential every young person brings with them a fully completed consent form. Without it, they will not be able to participate. If you don’t have a printer, please let Rob know and he’ll have a copy you can complete on the evening.
Following the success of our recent SCUBA taster session, a second date has been added for January. Eligible scouts have been emailed the opportunity to book on.
Several events have deposits or balances due in the coming weeks. Please, if you are uncertain what is owed, check with your section leader.
Explorers
Explorers, please look out for an email about your programme this week.
Executive Committee
Members of the Executive Committee have an exec meeting at the Dog and Partridge from 19:30 on Tuesday 20th November. Neil McKay (County Commissioner) will be in attendance.
The exec also have a training session booked for Saturday 24th November between 9 am and mid-day at the Scout Hut.
Leaders
The next leader meeting will take place at the Scout Hut on Thursday 29th November at 20:00 (once Cubs are done). Neil McKay (County Commissioner) will be in attendance; we’d like as many of the leader team to please make this session as possible, please.
With the reminders out-of-the-way, let’s recap the week.
This week:
Games in the dark
Millstones have been trying and playing lots of games in the dark with torches and glow sticks!
Skills challenge / Home help badges
Bella Vista Cubs spent their evening working towards their Skill challenge badge and Home help Badge. They excelled at cleaning duties and the leader team were very impressed at how well they cleaned windows, polished and mastered putting a duvet cover on a double quilt and sewing. The biggest surprise of the evening by far was their ability to iron their neckers. Parents you should be very proud.
National Parliament week
Wibbles scouts joined in with the National Parliament Week activities on Wednesday evening.
They had a guest ‘speaker of the house’, our very own group chairman Andrew Millner who explained all about the voting system, previous and current parliaments and the different political parties. We also discussed the suffragettes but most of the scouts were well aware of this already, which was impressive.
The troop divided into 2 main parties, the Go Cadbury’s and the Out of this world Galaxy party and they held a debate to explain why their party should be in power. Thrown into the mix were the Tang Gang who supported neither party and who proved to be the all mighty power when it came to voting.
Go Cadbury’s were the overall winners of the secret ballot and will hopefully govern the land well with promises of free chocolate for all!
Log chew and s’mores
This week Boomers and Castors cooked s’mores on a fire, had a log chew where they came up with lots of interesting ideas for next year, and in the spirit of Children in Need had a go at spelling BEAVERS out of alphabet spaghetti. We discovered that a couple of our beavers agree with Brian and don’t like marshmallows.
Cycle Penistone
Raptors went to ‘Cycle Penistone‘ for bike safety and maintenance. Many thanks to the team there.
Oooops – forgotten update
Castors extended their evening (last week) by half an hour so we could film the beavers asking questions that will then be edited into a 60 second quiz with the guest presenter on one of the upcoming Scoutadelic videos. We will let you know which month and provide a link to it. The beavers who wanted to ask a question spoke clearly and Scoutadelic were pleased with our part of the video. They get to select which of the questions they use. We think it will be in the December edition. Additionally, on the Wednesday we also invested two beaver leaders, one for each of the colonies, as they had also been coming a while and wanted to make their promise.
Sorry, we didn’t get a picture:
- Viernes Scouts had a taster session at Quest Taekwondo. Many thanks to Mike for having us. If you’d like details of when Quest Taekwondo meet, please see the following flyer.
- Enigma Scouts were at Hesley Wood Scout Activity Centre taking part in campsite maintenance as part of the Activity Centre Service Award.
- Explorers went to Woodlands Driving Range to practice their golf swing
- Alegre explored the local area
An appeal
Rob and Shauna met with Richard Galliford (of Ghana Outlook) to discuss how Penistone Scouts’ can get back involved in supporting their wonderful efforts; in particular, their most recent project to purchase desks and chairs for 400 young people who currently have to sit on the floor of their school.
Penistone Scouts’ was previously involved in work building the school and more widely within the community. We’ll have a series of dedicated posts on this in the near future; in the meantime, if you would like to, and can afford to, please buy a double desk for just £16.
Donations via their website or cash in a marked envelope via your section leader to Rob or Shauna, please. If you are eligible to use Gift Aid, please also complete and provide the following form so Ghana Outlook get an extra 25%
At the time of writing, 40 desks out of the 200 needed have been funded. We’d love to help Richard (a retired Scout Leader of Penistone) achieve Ghana Outlook’s goal ASAP.
If you could also like the Ghana Outlook Facebook page, we’d be very grateful. Their efforts go way beyond the desks; much of their time is spent getting fresh water supplies through Aquaboxes and boreholes (£4k a pop!).
Thank you!
