Reminders & key information:
This edition’s reminders:
Beavers
All three Beaver colonies will be joining together for the last week of term – meeting on Wednesday 19th December. We have booked the Barn at Cubley Hall from 6-8pm. We are going to have a buffet tea, along with some fun and games and a bit of a disco! There will be no meetings on Tuesday or Friday of this week. Its a non uniform night, Christmas jumpers/outfits/trimmings(!) are optional!
You can see the full post for the event here. Please contact Laura if there are any questions about the event.
As a reminder, unfortunately, our Beaver Christmas party clashes with the “Heads Together” charity event hosted by Springvale Primary. We recognise that many of our Beavers, therefore, have a clash. We will hold a collection for the charity which we will pass on. Please, could everyone bring along some loose change to donate to this worthwhile cause? Thanks in advance ?
Cubs
Alegre and Bella Vista – both packs will be meeting on Thursday at the Scout hut for a slightly extended meeting time of 6.30 – 8.30pm for a festive film night. There won’t be a meeting on Tuesday this week. Cubs are asked to come along in their Christmas jumpers rather than their usual uniform.
Can parents from both packs please confirm attendance to Shauna in order for leaders to be able to cater for all attending? Because the event is being subsidised by section funds, if you confirm and then do not attend, a fee of £3 will be payable to cover costs incurred.
Raptors – After the Swegway party last week, there is no cubs meeting for Raptors this week. See you all for the first meeting back in 2019!
Scouts
Enigma and Viernes – will be having a joint sleepover on Friday 21st for the people who have booked on already. Please, can parents ensure they have paid any outstanding monies ASAP? To see more information and copies of the letters, please see the dedicated event page. Any queries to be directed to Shauna or Rob, please. There won’t be normal meetings for either troop this week.
Wibbles – next week scouts are having a Christmas party with games so remember Christmas hats and jumpers.
Monies for SCUBA and abseiling are due or overdue; please can the balances be cleared down? Within chase emails, we’ve provided a couple of options to aid completing this given the Christmas break. We have a handful of spaces available for the Monopoly Run – Enigma / Viernes scouts responses are required by New Year, please. Wibbles, in January we’ll get the information out to you. There are only 30 places total so rapid responses will be necessary if your scout wishes to secure a place!
Explorers
Adult volunteers
Leaders
Everyone
- There will be an EGM (Extraordinary General Meeting) of Penistone Scouts’ Scout Council on Saturday 5th January 2019 at mid-day. This will be held at the Scout Hut to allow the Scout Council to receive and consider the financial report for 2017-2018 as we were unable to table this at the recent AGM.
- Our group maintenance weekend will take place over the weekend of 5th to 6th January 2019. We’d love your support; please see the link for details and to let us know if you can help. We have a BBQ on Saturday night of the weekend as a thank you / social. Leaders, please send through to Laura and Rob details of things that you believe should be tackled during the maintenance weekend.
- We recently kicked off Penistone’s World Scout Jamboree 2019 contingent’s Christmas Tree collection service bookings system. If you’d like your Christmas tree to be taken away and recycled on the 6th January, please see this post for full details.
With the reminders out-of-the-way, let’s recap the week.
This week:
Penistone Christmas lights hike
Although only 8 Beavers came along to the Boomer’s meeting this week, we still had lots of fun out on a night hike! We walked around Penistone and surrounding areas to see how people have decorated their homes for the festive period. We saw some brilliant lights and thoroughly enjoyed being out and about in the community.
Scouts try Christmas crafts
Enigma Scouts had a very crafty evening on Monday. We had the opportunity to create tree decorations, cards and a few felt brave enough to create holly wreaths.
Sergeant Hepplestone visited Castor Beavers
Castors had a visit from Sergeant Hepplestone this week from South Yorkshire Police. He explained to the Beavers what policing was about and then showed them his riot gear and the items he carries daily. One of the young leaders was modelling the kit for us. The Beavers had a great time, thank you for coming along Sgt Hepplestone. Additionally, we are proud to have presented two chief scout bronze awards this week, they will get called for their certificates at an event in Barnsley early next year; well done to Hamish and Lenny.
Raptor’s Swegway social night
Alegre’s fire station visit
On Tuesday, Cubs enjoyed playing some games at the Scout hut before going on a visit to Penistone fire station.
Viernes final meeting of the term
Viernes Scouts had a talk by Richard Galliford about Ghana Outlook. A fabulous local charity that was born out of Penistone Scouts’. Richard explained how the charity started with the mantra of young people helping other young people. It was great to see the work the charity has been achieving over the last 20 years. Thank you for coming down Richard; the troop are looking forward to being able to help raise more funds to support our Ghanian brethren.
After the talk, the scouts had an introduction to map reading and compass work. It was a bit of an eye-opener for many of the scouts; we will be working on this, and many core scouting skills, in the new year.
Wibbles Christmas Cooking
Wibbles made some yummy Christmas treats to take home this week. With great skill and some teamwork, they produced lovely decorated Christmas Yule Logs and the smell and taste were amazing.
Many thanks to the parents that stayed to help out – we hope you had fun!
Croistrees
This week at cubs we made Croissants Christmas Trees, first we drew pictures of how we wanted to decorate the Croistrees, then we had fun decorating the trees with icing, glitter glaze & stars ?
Scorpion casino night
Scorpion Explorers tried their hand at casino night this week, some with more success than others. Card games have always been a favourite with Scouts and Explorers and everyone enjoyed the socialising as well.
Beavers plan for 2019
The beaver leaders got together on Monday to go through all the ideas from their recent log chews at the three colonies to come up with a plan for the Easter term – there were some common items across all three so it looks like we will be having another exciting term. Next week will be the Christmas Party for all three Colonies and then we will finish for Christmas. We will let you know what is happening in Fast Forward after Christmas. We also have sleepovers and camps to plan for next year, watch out for details.
Raptors thanks
Jamboree fundraising
Jamboree team are still working hard with fundraising and were out and about with Penistone Round Table on the sleigh run around the scout hut this week. Everyone had fun including the few extra scouts and parents that joined in too.
Next weekend they have a bag packing marathon at Penistone Tesco on Sunday and Cortonwood Morrisons on Monday. Give them a wave ( and some loose change) if you see them around.
And finally:
In case you missed it
Our group Christmas Newsletter
We have a handful of paper copies of the group Christmas newsletter left. If you’d like a copy, please let us know.
Alternatively, you can download the online copy here, or read online below.
Penistone Scouts’ Christmas Newsletter 2018
Originally shared in a printed format during the annual Carol Service, this is the digital copy of our group Christmas newsletter.
