Newsletter March 2009

Busy Little Beavers

Well where do we start........Since the last newsletter, the youngest section of 5th Sutton (St Barnabus) have been busy little guys and girls!

Amongst all the normal early evening fun and frivolity, badge work, games and exercises the Beavers have been busy with a number of extra curricular activities.

Shortly after the last newsletter, we had the Harvest Festival, with the usual generous donations to our church of canned foodstuffs. Marcus Whitehead and Craig Driver did themselves proud with their first readings to a busy congregation. All the Beavers who attended looked really smart, and were an asset to the group!

Next up came a busy afternoon at Westcroft where the children had fun on the trampolines, played badminton, basketball, tennis, football, table-tennis and a free-for-all in the “kids kingdom”.

Unfortunately, the Halloween Cinema, hosted in Wallington, where we watched the “Halloween Tree” was not as well attended and so, unfortunately is unlikely to happen again this year. Those that did come along had a great time, and their fancy-dress costumes were tremendous.

Only two Beavers, Alfie Wilkins and Craig Driver volunteered to represent us at the District Swimming Gala in the middle of October. Both boys swam magnificently entering every race between them, to gain enough points to come 7^th in the District, and a very sound sleep that night, I am sure.

Only eight of our boys and girls managed to team up with the Cubs for and Astronomy Roadshow, kindly hosted by 5^th Carshalton Cubs. Peter Bassett of the Royal Astronomical Society brought his mobile planetarium service to Westmead Road and everyone enjoyed a performance that was literally out of this world! Everyone who entered the dome was enthralled by the spectacle and later received a certificate as a memento.

Remembrance Day, was another well turned out event, for the Beavers, as they joined the group for the Annual Parade of Remembrance at St Barnabas Church.

In early December, on St Nicholas Day, a small number of our Beavers joined the District for the St Nicholas Service at St Nicholas Church in Sutton, and we all learned about the life of St Nicholas, and also sang songs and played games. Those that attended all enjoyed themselves, and hopefully more will join us this year, when we have a similar experience.

The District Pantomime, arranged towards the end of January, when the cast had finished all their performances for schools, was enjoyed by those that attended, but as the numbers from the whole district were so few, this year, we are probably going to arrange to attend a special “uniformed” show night in Wimbledon Theatre

this year, closer to Christmas....further details will be provided, when I get them.

A special thank you to two of our newest Beavers, Billy Jellye and Sam Chandler for sending their parents, and sister, down to help with hall painting and to Sam Cooper, who joined in, himself, and painted for hours and would probably still be going if his mum hadn't got cold! :)

The time and effort spent has made a huge difference to the hall.

A huge number of badges have been earned, since the last newsletter report, including four of the six available Challenge badges, 7 of the 12 available activity badges, with another one (safety) being earned by a large number of Beavers, as this goes to print. Also 2 of the available 6 Staged activity badges have been given out in this period.

Note please, that a number of these badges can be worked on, and earned, at home (with the details of all of them on the Scoutbase site, which has links from our main website and on our blogsite), which can be a fun, learning time at home with the family.

Before the next newsletter comes out we will have been to the District Camp Fire, the 150^th Birthday Party at St Barnabas Church, Mothering Sunday Parade, St George's Day Parade, another District Sports Day, Annual family Camp and, numbers dependant, a day trip to Chessington World of Adventures.

Our normal craft work, badge work and games will obviously be continuing on Thursday late-afternoon/early evenings, with parental support being essential for the smooth running of the Colony.

I would like to thank Toni, for all the help she has been able to offer us in the past, whilst her boys were in the Beavers, and know how much she is now doing for the cubs on a Tuesday evening.

Thankfully, we still have Sharon helping us; and I would like to once again thank her for all the immeasurable help, especially over the last couple of terms, without which, Michelle and I would not have been able to offer all the above to the Beavers.

Eddie

PLENTY HAPPENING DOWN AT CUBS

The Pack joined the other sections at the Harvest Festival, Remembrance Sunday and Mothering Sunday parades at St.Barnabas church. The next parade is St.Georges Day and Promise renewal in Manor Park Sutton with the rest of the Scout District. Please encourage your children to attend these events.

Cubs rode horses at the “Race Night” and attended the fireworks evening. Both the Beavers and the Cubs were invited by our temporary tenants; 5^th Carshalton to join them for a super informative evening on star gazing and space travel at “The Astronomy Roadshow” which helped everyone start on the Astronomer badge. We had a quiet Halloween evening challenging the cubs to eat marshmallows threaded onto sweet laces without touching them followed by ring doughnuts hanging on strings and rounded off by creating “scary mummies” with toilet tissue. Not too sure what that’s about ask your children. Training has included introduction to Emergency Aid Stages 1 & 2; where they learnt about recognising dangers in the home and outside, know what to do at the scene of an accident, getting professional help, opening an airway, treating minor cuts, burns and scalds and learning how to put someone in the recovery position. The pack duly demonstrated their knowledge and skill to their parents at our get together just to

before Christmas.

They all had the opportunity to make several Christmas presents and a card at a Creative evening organised and lead by Jeanette our Assistant Scout Leader, and supported by several mums. Hopefully most of what they made reached home although I believe the sugar paste decorations on the fairy cakes may have disappeared before they left the Scout Hall! A very big thank you to Jeanette and the mums for getting so much done at just one pack evening. Again I have to thank too many to name, but we had a tremendous response after asking for help to keep an eye on what turned out to be well over 30 cubs as they hammered, sanded and varnished their way to making themselves each a hanging bird table. Huge thanks to Mike Tong who cut the plywood and beading to size supplied wood glue and nails together with demonstrating and supervising a very successful evening. Hopefully by now they should be attracting wild life in your garden and helping our cubs with bird recognition ready for next year’s Big Garden Birdwatch weekend.
At the moment the pack are concentrating on getting their entries ready for the Raksha Trophy to be held on Saturday 21^st March and on display at the District HQ in Wallington during the afternoon. This year’s theme is Carnival and the pack have made posters, masks, a collage, drawings of clowns, best hand writing submissions and on the day, those who want to can take an examples of their cooking skill; rock cakes, fairy cakes or Victoria Sandwich depending on their age. The pack is currently the joint holders of this trophy so they are working hard to retain their title.

Mentioning titles, four cubs have done the Group proud by achieving a magnificent result in coming joint first at their first attempt, at the Sutton District Outdoor Challenge. On a very cold and wet Saturday last November Daniel Whitehead, Ellie George, Dougie Kay and Adam Driver competed against 9 similar teams in 8 outdoor scenarios that judged their knowledge of the subject along with assessing how well they worked together as a team. After nearly 3 hours the teams had tackled Compass, Tracking, First Aid,

Communications, Nature, Pioneering, Fire Lighting and Tent pitching to score a wonderful 132.5 points from a maximum of 160 to jointly win the challenge.

In November we invested Harry, Hannah, Jack, James, Marcus, Mia, Nathan, Robert, Thomas and William. They have all settled in very nicely and are beginning to gain Activity and Challenge badges on their uniforms. In early January we said goodbye to Ellie, Emily, Melanie, Daniel and Jason and wish them all the best as they move up into the Troop. Most recently four boys have joined us by just coming through the front door so its hello to Kieran, Oliver, Nick and Bwazej we hope you enjoy your time with us. Finally it is also hello to Adam Randall who has volunteered to help at both the Cubs and Scouts.Thank you Adam

and welcome to the 5^th.

Derek Lambert – Akela

Scout troop – update since January 2009

In January Dean Whitehead took over as Scout Leader with Jeanette Whitehead starting as Assistant Scout Leader.

It has been a really busy term with us re-organising the Troop.

The Scouts spent time deciding on their code of conduct and this has been issued and signed by the leaders, scouts and parents.

Following on from that we spent an evening getting the Scouts to choose the values they wanted from their patrol leaders and assistants. From this, a chart was drawn up and during the following weeks all adult helpers observing these values would mark the chart with the value against the scouts name.

The eight Scouts who have consistently demonstrated these values have now been appointed as Patrol Leaders and Assistants - congratulations to all of them!

The Scouts also chose new traditional names for the four patrols – Stag, Wolf, Fox and Panther.

Back in November, 2 teams of 4 Scouts entered the Night Adventure Exercise, both teams completed the event and had great time. In January, eight Scouts also took part in a district climbing day at High Sports indoor climbing centre, all had a really enjoyable day and successfully achieved a number of climbs.

To complete our first term we introduced the P.I.G. challenge (Patrol Intelligence Games) and ran our first one – with fantastic help from Dennis, Sally, Vanessa, Del and Adam – thank you.

The Scouts became spies for the night and completed a number of challenges working in teams to obtain the ingredients to make the pancakes and marshmallows in chocolate, at the end of the night – everyone who was there will understand what we mean by ‘having a cracking time!!’

The first trophy was awarded to Fox patrol with Panther coming second – well done. There will be a P.I.G. challenge at the end of each term based around areas covered during the term.

During the past two weeks 7 new Scouts have been invested. To make the ceremony more special, all the scouts were asked to write what scouting means to them – this was attached to a candle and the investiture took place by candlelight.

We are really looking forward to spending the 13^th March and 20^th March at Sutton Fire Station, where the fire service are planning to complete a training evening followed by an ‘exam’ on the 20^th to complete the Scouts Fire Safety Badge.

On the 27^th March two PCSO’s from Sutton police are coming to do a session with the Scouts around personal safety.

We would also like to take the opportunity to give a huge ‘thank you’ to; Dennis and Sally, your continued support and help in the reorganisation of the troop has been brilliant, the two ‘Oracles’ Vanessa and Del whose advice and support when we need them are invaluable.

On a personal note thank you to Eddie (Badger) for covering me on an evening off – thanks J.

We currently have 24 Scouts on the books and have three Cubs starting to link with the scouts in Easter and 2 Scouts starting to link with Explorers.

We are looking forward to next term where we plan to cover a number of the badges chosen by the Scouts and would appreciate any help from parents.

Dean and Jeanette

100 Club Winners

And the winners are:

November 1^st prize Lin Wilkins

2008 2^nd prize Mike Lewis

December 1^st prize Geoff Chant

2008 2^nd prize Toni Wallace

January 1^st prize Stuart Billings

2009 2^nd prize Kath Geary

February 1^st prize Tracey Corfield

2^nd prize Chris Baggett

Chairmans Notes

March, can you believe it, I’m still recovering from the October 2008 newsletter.

Let me clear up a few minor details – swimming gala last October, I know you all will have committed to memory, my notes in the last newsletter, so you will not be surprised to note that all my intense training came to nothing. Nobody told me the event had been moved from Cheam baths (it’s always been at Cheam baths) to Croydon. (How does that work – Sutton District swimming Gala held in Croydon!!)

As I seem to be doing more often these days, I put down to an age thing!

Don’t worry all you keen Gala followers I will be back this year. Well done to Andy for retaining the trophy. (Who said there was only one entry!) So if I had made it I would have at least come in the Silver medal position.

Moving on to much more important matters. For those of you who visit the hall on a regular basis , you will have noticed the redecorations. My sincere thanks to all who helped , especially , the Hodge family, Cooper family, Mike Chandler, Dave Rutter, Mike Jobson, the Wallace family, Eddie, Steve, Del and Vanessa of course, Sarah and Ronnie Jellye.

In addition, we now have new windows in the Kitchen, I’m not sure if the old ones were taken direct to the museum or just fell apart when taken out. Our thanks to Steve Hodge for the very professional job.

Don’t worry, it’s not the end of work weekends, there is plenty more to do.

At this point I would like to thank Paul Noakes for making a most generous donation of a motor Lawn mower to the group. So we will have an even better lawn this year.

January this year saw a change in leadership of the Scout Troop. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to both Andy and Regina for their sterling efforts in running the troop for the last three years. Had Andy and Regina not stepped forward when they did, we would have certainly found it difficult in operating a complete Group.

Andy had to step down due to work commitments taking him abroad almost full time (and there I was thinking the pressure of me challenging for the swimming trophy this year was too great!).

However waiting in the wings was Dean our ASL and Jeanette his wife who have taken over the running of the troop. This of course is fantastic news and my grateful thanks go to both of them for taking on this challenge. I am sure all you parents will give them both the assistance and support they will need.

As always, the Leaders reports will give you all the details of what’s going on in their particular section throughout this newsletter.

Clearly from my view point all sections are going from strength to strength which reflects the success of the Group.

As you know we are the 5^th Sutton (St Barnabas) Scout Group. And this year our friends at the church are celebrating the church’s 125^th birthday. Our congratulations to the church on this Milestone. (We are mere youngsters at only 81 years!)

See later in the dates for diary for various events that the church are running .

Looking forward – AGM around the corner, this year we will be reverting to the traditional event of have the AGM at the Scout Hall. See dates for the Diary (an evening not to be missed (I promise not to drone on too long)

Family Camp in June, for those who haven’t been tempted yet, I have to say this has been an extremely successful event over the last few years and well worth at least attending once. Each year we seem to attract more families and therefore we have to put and limit on those who can attend, so it is on a first come first served basis.

Jobs vacant- most of you who manage to read the newsletter from cover to cover, will know we do try and deal with this section in a light hearted manner.

The Group, can only run and be successful if have sufficient Adult help.

We also need people to administer to Group generally and through this particular newsletter I must repeat my request for the post of Group Scout Leader.

The Day to day running of the Group is the responsibility of the GSL but doesn’t require a weekly commitment unlike the section leaders. For the last year this job has fallen to both Del and myself (mainly the former) but as I have previously stated it is only temporary. WE NEED SOMEONE TO TAKE ON THIS ROLE.

100 Club – after a shaky relaunch our numbers are up, but not yet to that magical 100 number.

I do appreciate it’s yet more money to outlay but hopefully the £12 per year isn’t too much and if we do achieve 100 members the Scout Group will receive a contribution of £600 from the fund after all the prizes and this of course allows us to keep the subscriptions as low as possible.

You don’t even have to live in this country to join, we now have an Australian connection through David Siddall (you have guessed it, a long serving 5^th Sutton member and oh yes, he always used to beat me in the swimming gala!)

Almost there! - For all those wondering about all the comings and goings at the hall (ok, you haven’t even noticed) we are currently hosting a number of groups and their equipment , this is due to a number of reasons from lack of space to new hall construction. We are very pleased to be in a position to help out .

So that’s about me done for this newsletter, everything I have forgotten to say is deliberate, so I can use it next time.

Thanks as always for your continued support

Bob Stevenson

Group Chairman

DATES FOR THE DIARY

Sunday 29^th March - St Barnabas

Birthday Service

Friday 15^th May - AGM

7.30pm

Friday 27^th – - Family Camp

Sunday 28^th June

July - Quiz night

(date to be confirmed)

Sunday 4^th October - Church parade

(Harvest Festival)

Sunday 8^th November - Church Parade

(Remembrance Sunday)

October - Race Night

(date to be confirmed)

	DATES FOR THE DIARY Church parade (mothering Sunday) Sunday 22nd March St Barnabas Birthday service Sunday 29th March AGM Friday 15th May 7.30pm Family Camp Friday 27th June – 28th June Quiz night July (date to be confirmed) Church parade (harvest festival) Sunday 4th October Church Parade (remembrance Sunday) Sunday 8th November Race Night October (date to be confirmed)

STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS!

Exciting news as we go to print – On Saturday 21st March,

5^th Sutton retained the Raksha Trophy.

Well done to all the Cubs.

The Scout Group are taking part in Sainsbury’s Active Kids again this year.

This represents an excellent opportunity for us to acquire lots of extra equipment.

Last year you helped us collect a fantastic 2644 vouchers which were used to “buy” a Giant Connect 4 and some footballs.

We are also taking part in the Tesco Sport for Clubs

The schools get thousands, We only have about 100 children in all, we need to get the minimum amount to order equipment.

Donate to us - Directly help your children.

CUB News from Oct 2008

LOTS OF CHANGES IN THE PACK

The Pack contributed to the Mothering Sunday church parade by leading prayers and readings at the service. However it would be nice to see a few more members of the Group in church especially as the church owns the Scout Hall grounds and we are asked to attend on just four occasions a year.
Just in time for the parade we invested Jamie, Eddie and Harry so pack numbers were up to 35 Cubs.


No sooner have we invested a new Cub and some older ones are “moving on”. Dean the Assistant Scout Leader said he would visit every week to ensure our Cubs moved effortlessly onto Scouts. At the same time Eddie from the Beavers visited with some older Beavers almost ready to join Cubs. The Scout Hall was rocking on a Tuesday evening with well over 40 souls all enjoying Scouting.


The older Cubs were called “Scoutlets” in preparation for their move to Scouts while the Beavers we called “Cublets”.

So by early April it was goodbye to Joseph, Callum, Stuart, Emily F, Ben, Amrita, Alex M, Joshua and Jamie. After the school Easter break it was hello to Alex Creamore, Joseph Sauer, Daniel Weavers, Adam Cann, Adam Driver, Kyle Murphy and Michael Thompson.

The Cubs along with the Beavers and Scouts turned out for the District St.Georges Day Parade in Manor Park. We marched through central Sutton lead by a marching band back into the park for our “promise renewal” and songs and speeches. Thanks to everyone who made the effort despite it being a school holiday week, numbers were down on previous years but the weather was kind to us and the singing and music were super.

The pack entered to St.Barnabas Church Spring Fair drawing and colouring competition while the Beavers and Cubs sections ran two stalls, Sweet tubs and the Wheel of Fortune. Thank you to everyone who supported this event.

With Family Camp and the AGM scheduled to happen over the same weekend, we had to start practising for our contribution to the entertainment element. While at the same time several Cubs were due to camp without their parents and they needed to know how to put up their sleeping tent and learn basic camp rules.
One evening saw two tents properly erected and then correctly taken down and repacked under the guidance of Dean and Eddie. Hopefully the cubs learnt something. I certainly did when I observed numerous cubs running up and down the grounds after being found watching with their hands in their pockets. Be warned at pack meetings.

At the Family Camp we had well over 20 cubs under canvas and great time was had by all. At the open air AGM on a lovely sunny Saturday we presented the Six of the Year award to Blue and the Cub of the year to Jason Wallace. The special award for The Most Significant Contribution to the Group normally presented by the GSL (Group Scout Leader) but unfortunately as Chris was still hospitalised, Vanessa did the honours. Went to Toni Wallace the fabulous stalwart parent helper for both the Beaver and Cub sections; many congratulations Toni and thank you for all you do. Our Assistant District Commissioner (Cubs) Susan Peek attended the AGM and presented Bob, Vanessa and Del with the Chief Scot’s 30 Years Service Award. Hope you enjoyed our special visit from “Elvis” who entertained the AGM audience with a few of his hits!! Well done Eddie Thrower.


Early June saw a wonderful visit from Steve the Mid Air man who demonstrated several self propelled flying models in the Scout hall and then supervised the Pack while they each made a polystyrene stunt glider to take home.



Following Steve for the next two weeks all the Cubs attempted to earn their Athlete badge. First in the hall then an evening in Royston Park superbly assisted by 12 parents where the cubs ran, skipped, threw, dashed and shuttle ran their way to the well deserved earned badge. A super evening and thank you again for the wonderful help received.

While the younger members of the pack were gaining badges the older ones due to move on to Scouts, were spending time with Dean learning about compass, maps and navigation skills. They applied those skills the following week when the whole pack again supported by several parents, undertook a “Local Knowledge Hike round Carshalton and back to round off the summer term before the school holidays.

In September we welcomed Jack Hartnett, James Cook, Robert Wallace, Thomas Amphlett Harry Tong, William Fraser, Nathan Thomas Steer, Mia and Hannah into the pack and said goodbye to Beth, Jacob, Sam, Dominic, Matthew N, Ciaran, Rhys, Alex B, Matthew P and Matthew B who are all off to Scouts. Best wishes for your future. The pack now numbers 32 so just a few vacancies if any one is out there looking to join us.

We have started our autumn term by embarking on the Home Help badge so you parents hopefully will have a very willing volunteer in the house asking for those special tasks that will earn them their badge. If not please ask them for their folders because without the parents approval and signature the badges will not be awarded.

Can I pause and make a plea to all parents at this point. Very often we obtain supporting resource documents from Scout Headquarters that requires the Cub to complete it at home. The documents are professionally prepared and very informative. Not only for the Cub but also for their family. The completion of these sheets / booklets is not necessarily compulsory but most certainly preferred otherwise we have no way of knowing whether the cub has grasped an understanding of the particular topic. Can we therefore ask that parents check their child’s folder for any paper work they may have to action at home. Of course once we have seen the completed work your child is at liberty to take it home for future reference.

Ten of the older Cubs attended the District Scientist badge day and spent nearly 4 hours learning and trying lots of scientific things to rightly earn their badge.

Once again I will mention our stalwart helpers who make the running of our varied pack meetings possible. Without people like Toni, Steve, Jordan, Eddie, Andy and John the evening might just be all games and very boring. With very many Cubs now moving on to the Scouts we have lost some of the support from their parents. Hopefully our loss will be the Scouts gain! So should any parents or friends reading this newsletter who be contemplating / considering offering their services are very welcome to visit the Cubs on a Tuesday evening and experience what happens on a “Pack Night”.

Please give it some thought. Thank you.

Derek Lambert – Akela





SAINSBURYS ACTIVE KIDS 2008 AK08

Following a tremendous response from everyone in the Group we collected over 2500 vouchers. They were used to “Buy” a Giant Connect 4 and some footballs.

Thank you all for your super support.

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