Group (All sections)

Adult support

Across the group we have a lot of young people; we’ve got lots of wonderful volunteers who freely give up their time to support them – we are very grateful of them, but we do need more adult support so that we don’t burn out the existing team. All sections, and therefore the young people, would benefit from additional adult volunteers. If you could become either an occasional helper (non-uniform) or regular leader (uniformed) we would love to hear from you, please. We are currently running a “four-week challenge” where you can see if volunteering in Scouting is for you. We also recently mentioned that we would be expanding the premise of the parent rota used in Beavers to all other sections to help out. This has taken a little longer than planned to pull together, but is something I’m aiming to make live from after the Spring Bank break.

Penistone Gala and Mayor’s Parade

Our group are joint organisers of the Gala and Mayor’s parade weekend. A post will be published in the next few days outlining the event and our engagement within it. We have a number of areas that we will be seeking support from both the young people and their parents/guardians/grandparents. Typically, in the form of manning the gates for the event on a rota basis, plus staffing a catering stall in the Scout’s area. We will need cakes and buns baking too, please – so if there’s an avid baker within the family, we’d welcome items we can sell – the home-made items always sell far better than the shop bought items.

Jamboree Quiz night

Our World Scout Jamboree contingent members will be hosting a Quiz Night at the Scout Hut on the 18th May. It’s open to families, friends and everyone – scouting or otherwise. For full details, please see the event poster or dedicated page here.

Joint fundraiser for local and charities and Silverwood Scout campsite

We have teamed up with Barnsley West Guides and the Stainborough Rotary Club to host a charity fundraiser out of Penistone Community Centre on the 1st June. This is an over 18s event, with alcohol and soft drinks available to buy. Teams of 4-6 people taking part in a multi round quiz night and enjoying a pie and peas supper. For full details, please see the event poster or dedicated page here.

Armed Forces Day 2019

The group will be supporting Penistone Armed Forces Day (29th June). Part of this will include supporting the car parking for the event, as well as a small team of trouble shooters for the four zones that the event will be running. We’ll have further details about what adult and youth support we’ll need shortly; however, in the meantime, please stick this fabulous event in your diaries. Here’s the dedicated page where you can find event organiser details and a round-up of what to expect on the day.

Back in the here and now, let’s take a look at the coming week:

The week ahead (5th May 2019 onwards)

Beavers

Section meetings

Castors will be making fires then cooking s’mores on Tuesday. No uniform required, just your necker, so your Uniform stays smoke free for camp. If wet we will do something inside. Remember, it may be cold so you may wish to bring a jumper. Any extra parents who can stay and help would be welcome.

Boomers will be practicing putting up and taking down tents ahead of this weekend’s Space Camp where they’ll use those skills when they pitch and pack away their tents for their weekend accommodation. Coats needed please given the temperature is dropping off early evening.

Millstones will meeting at the Scout Hut. The weather didn’t work out for us last week and therefore we’ll be cooking on fires outside. Normal times, and please wear a coat. No need to wear uniform, just your neckers so that your uniform is fresh for Space Camp the following day.

Future Beaver events

Space Camp – The countdown has entered single digits – this Saturday sees the launch of Beaver Space Camp! The kit list and all event details can be found on our dedicated event page. Please remember, during the event, if you need to contact the team to use the specific event telephone number on the event page and not details of a leader you may have to hand.

Cubs

Section meetings

Bella Vista – will be meeting at their usual times at the scout hut but will then be playing wide games in the park amongst other badge work this week.  A jacket is essential but uniform not required just your neckers.

Alegre – will be meeting at their usual times, at the scout hut. The programme will either be cooking on fires or a local hike (leader numbers depending). Please plan to wear a coat and have suitable shoes.

Raptors – will be meeting at their usual times, at the school, with the programme being linked to the Cub’s nature badge plus a step through some basics of scouting, particularly around Cubs given we’ve several Beavers having moved into the Cub section.

Future Cub events

None to highlight at this time

Scouts

Section meetings

Enigma – will for the next two weeks be visiting the Games Workshop store in Sheffield to take part in an exciting new partnership between the Scout Association and the Warhammer Alliance.  This will be to undertake our builder badges.  There are a couple of spaces left for either week, please text Shauna direct to secure one of these. The dedicated calendar entries can be found here and here.  Please remember that as we struggling with adult leaders at the moment, the week your scout isn’t taking part in the builder badge will have to be a week off.

Wibbles – will be geocaching. Please make sure your young person has a coat with them.

Viernes – will not be meeting because Friday night will be when our Scout group will be taking part in the CentrePoint sleepout  at Silverwood.

Future Scout events

CentrePoint sleepout – Friday sees representatives from our three troops and some of the Scorpion Explorer unit heading to Silverwood to sleep rough for the night in aid of the youth homeless charity CentrePoint. The event briefing pack can be found on the dedicated event page here. We would love to hit and exceed the £1000 fundraising goal we’ve set. This is entirely possible with each attendee needing to get about £25 worth of sponsorship each. We’ve a dedicated JustGiving page set up for the event given that this is the charity’s preferred collection method. Unfortunately, some event fees are still unpaid – these need to be bank transferred please in-line with the chase emails Shauna sent out late last week. Please remember, during the event, if you need to contact the team to use the specific event telephone number on the event page and not details of a leader you may have to hand.

Explorers

Section meetings

Unfortunately, due to a change in personal circumstances, Paul has had to take a step back and will no longer be a leader at Scorpions. We would like to thank him for his time and contributions – we wish him well and hope to perhaps see him at County events in the future. We are working with the District and County teams to address this renewed gap in the unit adult leader team.

Explorers this week has been cancelled – several of the leader team have external commitments and therefore we wouldn’t have enough adult numbers to make the session viable. With the reduced adult headcount, we urgently need regular (or even irregular) adult volunteers to please support this fantastic youth section. If this is something you could support, please get in touch.

Future Explorer events

CentrePoint sleepout – Friday sees representatives from our three Scout troops and members of the Scorpion Explorer unit heading to Silverwood to sleep rough for the night in aid of the youth homeless charity CentrePoint. The event briefing pack can be found on the dedicated event page here. We would love to hit and exceed the £1000 fundraising goal we’ve set. This is entirely possible with each attendee needing to get about £25 worth of sponsorship each. We’ve a dedicated JustGiving page set up for the event given that this is the charity’s preferred collection method. Unfortunately, some event fees are still unpaid – these need to be bank transferred please in-line with the chase emails Shauna sent out late last week. Please remember, during the event, if you need to contact the team to use the specific event telephone number on the event page and not details of a leader you may have to hand.
With the reminders out-of-the-way, let’s recap the week.

This week:

Fresh air

Last week Enigma Scouts took full advantage of the later sunsets and improved weather and took part in a number of team games in the local park.

Scouting history

Bella Vista Cub’s had a history lesson in the Cub movement and came up with ideas for the autumn program. Thanks to Alison for coming down and supporting us whilst Shauna had external commitments.

Town planning

Wibbles troop was supported by Sharon (from Explorers) this week, whilst Alison attended the District Awards night. The scouts enjoyed an evening of town planning game; designed to make people think about where best to place things based on a growing population.

Pack forum

Alegre pack held a pack forum, looking at ideas that the young people would like including in their programme, plus many “getting to know you” games given they welcomed a lot of new faces (8!) to the pack this week.

Photography

Richard brought his camera equipment down to Friday Scouts, giving them another opportunity to try some of the practical skills they’d need for their Photography badges.

Plan B can be awesome too

Rain threatened so Millstones went to plan B – decorating sheep marshmallows buns, problem solving and tying themselves in knots! Plus new colour team groups were picked for this half term.

District Awards

On Wednesday evening, several of our group’s young people were recognised for their achievements against the top awards for their respective sections. Absolutely fantastic efforts and wonderful to see so many of the young people able to attend the Town Hall to be awarded by the District Commissioner, Tina Langley.
And finally:
This week we came across an application we’d encourage everyone, including the young people, to download to their smart phones. It compliments the 999 emergency text service well, and is useful for being able to provide details of your location even when there are no landmarks or items nearby. It’s called What3Words:
what3words is a really simple way to talk about location. We have divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3 word address. It means anyone can accurately find any location and share it more quickly, easily and with less ambiguity than any other system.

The local BBC featured this on their Facebook feed with an accompanying example scenario video demonstrating its value:

Video link here

999 text service: https://www.ngts.org.uk/how-to-u…/contact-999-using-ngt.html