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
Only eight of our boys and girls managed to team up with the Cubs for and Astronomy Roadshow, kindly hosted by 5th Carshalton Cubs. Peter Bassett of the Royal Astronomical Society brought his mobile planetarium service to
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.
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 150th 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
Cubs rode horses at the “Race Night” and attended the fireworks evening. Both the Beavers and the Cubs were invited by our temporary tenants; 5th 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
At the moment the pack are concentrating on getting their entries ready for the Raksha Trophy to be held on Saturday 21st 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
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 5th.
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
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,
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 13th March and 20th March at Sutton Fire Station, where the fire service are planning to complete a training evening followed by an ‘exam’ on the 20th to complete the Scouts Fire Safety Badge.
On the 27th 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 1st prize
2008 2nd prize Mike Lewis
December 1st prize Geoff Chant
2008 2nd prize Toni Wallace
January 1st prize Stuart Billings
2009 2nd prize Kath Geary
February 1st prize Tracey Corfield
2nd 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
January this year saw a change in leadership of the Scout Troop. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to both Andy and
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 5th Sutton (St Barnabas) Scout Group. And this year our friends at the church are celebrating the church’s 125th 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
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
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 29th March - St Barnabas
Birthday Service
Friday 15th May - AGM
7.30pm
Friday 27th – - Family Camp
Sunday 28th June
July - Quiz night
(date to be confirmed)
Sunday 4th October - Church parade
(Harvest Festival)
Sunday 8th 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,
5th 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.
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