The week ahead (16th December 2019 onwards):

Section meetings

All groups will be having their last meetings of the year (except for Raptors and Viernes, who will next meet in the new year).

A few reminders:

Beavers

Castors, Boomers and Millstones will all be meeting together on Friday at the scout hut from 6.30 to 8 p.m. for their Christmas party. No uniform this week – come in your Christmas jumper or just looking festive! Bring some food to share (no nuts please) – drinks will be provided.

Scouts

Enigma will be doing their air activities badge – with a Christmas twist. Please remember to bring any donations that you can for making blessing bags for the homeless.

Wibbles will be playing party games and saying goodbye to our three eldest scouts who are moving on to Explorers after the holidays. No uniform this week, so feel free to wear your Christmas jumpers and hats etc. The scouts have been asked to bring in some snacks and nibbles to share. Please don’t bring any nuts due to allergies.

Future Scout events

Scout Christmas Camp starts in Castleton this Friday at 7 p.m. Please check that you’ve paid fees to the right account and filled in the consent and medical information forms. You can find all the details in the event briefing letter here.

Explorers

This week is a relaxed, informal evening where Explorers have asked for time to chat and play daft games. Please bring snacks to share and dress in a Christmas theme.

Previously:

Unfortunately, several section meetings had to be cancelled last week due to leaders being unavailable because of weather/traffic disruption.

Luckily, Enigma scouts were still able to go on their night hike. They walked all the way to Millhouse Green along the Trail without torches. Then they walked back via Thurlstone, calling in to see Brian at home for a quick rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. After that they had great fun at the park on Wentworth Road, sliding down the frosty hill in various guises – the penguin belly slides were awesome! Back at the hut they talked a little about homelessness and are hoping to make a few blessing bags next week.

Wibbles scouts made wooden Christmas ornaments and tasty homemade pizzas last week. Thank you to parents Clare, Sylvia and Julia for helping out.

We added some more photos to the post from Cubs Abseiling at Miller’s Dale.

Santa’s Sleigh Run

Despite the wet weather, the scouts who supported the Round Table Santa Run were in great spirits. The Run raised £230 for Penistone Scouts – thank you and well done to you all!

For safety, numbers were limited and we could only take the oldest scouts and explorers this year. Thanks to everyone who volunteered to take part. If you didn’t get a chance to join in the fun this time, you’ll be top of the list for future Runs.

Theft on Thursday evening

The group were subject to some thieves stealing some of our gas bottles, unbelievably whilst people were in the Scout Hut, on Thursday of this week. We made an appeal via social media and are pleased to have retrieved four of the missing bottles. There are still a few unaccounted for – if you happen to see large red propane bottles abandoned in Penistone, please let us know. Thank you.

Christmas Tree Collections

We would have like to have carried on the tradition of Christmas Tree collections in the New Year. Unfortunately, as we shared in this post, doing so would put too much load on our already stretched volunteer team. The last thing we want to do is burn out the team. We would like to reinstate the collections in January 2021 – to do so we need more adult volunteers as part of the group. We will be shortly announcing an open evening in mid-January 2020 focused around both volunteering and the continued development of the group. It’ll be at the Grammar School and will be open to interested members of the local community as well as parents/guardians/families of our existing members.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!