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Roarin' Forties
 40th Hartlepool Scout Newsletter March 2011
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GSL's Ramblings
Scouts Own
A good turn out of members from all Sections and with family and friends the morning was well attended, thank you all for making the effort. Congratulations to Cameron Mould on being presented with the Founders’ Trophy for his help with the Cub Pack over the last two years and thanks to everyone who helped with making this our Group’s special day.
World Jamboree
This term sees the culmination of two years concentrated fund raising towards helping to send our three Scouts to this once in a lifetime camp. The Group would like to thank everyone who has helped in the raising of these funds especially Sue Umpleby who has pushed us along and put an enormous personal effort in. I am sure everyone is looking forward to sharing in some of the experiences these Scouts will gain from what is likely to be a memory that will remain with them forever. If you'd like to find out more please visit
www.ukcontingent.org.uk,www.clevelandscouts.org.uk or www.worldscoutjamboree.se
St George’s Day
This year the District went back to the old format of a church service, after last year’s very enjoyable St George’s camp at Ravengill. My thanks to all the Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and leaders and parents who attended Stranton church.
Grand Draw
If you have not sold your draw tickets yet, please hurry. Remember 90% of all proceeds go directly to the Group, this will go towards Group funds to help replace some of our ageing tentage.
Alan Hodgson, Group Scout Leader
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Beaver Report
The Colony has been through a rather thin time of it since the last quarterly report, with Beaver numbers at the lowest since the Colony first started over 20 years ago. Although we were aware of the drop, we fully hoped that our bright advertising campaign would result in eager young boys and girls rushing to take up our offer of ‘Fun and Friends’. The reality was a much slower picture which, in the end, we put down to the demographic. It is fair to say that it is only the tenacity of the leaders and helpers and the willingness of the families to continue to support the Colony, even with a group of six or less that we are still operating and, hopefully flourishing with a new intake of five Beavers, putting our numbers back up to a respectable 11 or 12. Thank you to Jamie, Peter, Christopher, Andrew and Nathan who have put their full efforts in to make Colony meetings lots of fun, even with a very small group. BP himself urged us to ‘do our best’ and keep looking ahead and he was right.
Welcome to Tom, Harry, Matthew, Max and Joseph who joined us just before the half term break. We have had two girls for taster sessions but they have not joined us yet, so we still wait the day when we invest our first female Beaver. In our planning we have decided to structure in the group badges so that we are sure that every Beaver will be able to undertake every group badge. We started with Safety, did a full fire drill, thought about water safety, talked about how to contact the emergency services and finished with a joint visit to the Fire Station with the Cubs, where Stuart presented the badges. Stuart was a 40th Scout and impressed us all with his knowledge and recollections of the Group.
Nationally, Beaver Scouting celebrated 25 years in January and we had our own celebration party with a very nice party cake, supplied by Anne. We like to try and incorporate some international events and celebrated New Zealand Day with the Beavers, making Maori masks, trying out the NZ Beaver promise and having a hilarious attempt at our own Haka. How sad that this meeting would be followed so soon by an earthquake. Our thoughts and prayers are with our fellow Beaver Scouts in Christchurch.
The last meeting of the term was Healthy Hearts. After much running around we were eventually able to find our pulse, which did go up from the rather worrying nine beats per minute reported by some Beavers before the warm up. Some gentle stretching exercises, two team games and we were all raring to go. The meeting concluded with a healthy fruit and veg tasting and the Beavers taking home their own healthy choices. Sweets and biscuits are allowed but only as a treat because our friend the heart does not like biscuits every day. Our next group badge is the Promise badge. The next term’s activities will be centred on this theme. We are still recruiting new members.
Jackie Donley, Assistant Beaver Leader
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Cub Scout Report
16 November
At Cubs on Tuesday we played a fantastic game of tug of war there was lots of shouting and cheering and I think the neighbours would not have liked that night. Then we learned 4 figure grid references and 6 figure grid references. A more simpler way of saying it is we did map reading. Cameron and Jonathon lead the night with the map reading. They asked us lots of questions about symbols and places on a map of Hartlepool. It was a bit hard at first but I think we managed to get the hang of it by the end of the night. Then we finished off and we all went home.
Leon
11th January
Tonight was our first meeting back after Christmas. We started off by telling each other what we had got for Christmas, some people couldn't even remember. I think they must have got too much to remember them all. We played games and then all sat in a horseshoe to decide what we would like to do this term. At first not many people could think of much but once a few suggestions had been made the hands kept coming up and lots of really good ideas were thought of. I especially like the idea of a night hike with torches, which was a brilliant idea. I got a new head torch for Christmas from my Uncle so I will be able to use that. Hopefully the walk will be before I move onto Scouts next month. I think there will be a report on it in due course. We then finished off with more games. A good night was had by all.
Jenni
18th January 2011
After going to Cubs for three weeks I was really excited because Matthew and I were going to get invested. The evening started at 6:30pm with a game of 'tig' downstairs with the other Cubs. Thomas was 'on' but he found it really hard to catch me. After five minutes we all went upstairs with Akela and played Dodgeball. While everyone else continued the game Matthew and I went into a little room with Akela to learn about what we had to say and do when we got Invested. We were taught:
To hold a part of the Scout Standard
The Scout sign and salute
The Promise
We then joined the rest of the group to each make a puppet. I didn't find this easy to do but I worked hard and was really pleased with my creation. At the very end of the evening, after waiting excitedly, Matthew and I were invested in front of our friends and family. I was very happy and couldn't wait to take my pack home to show my brothers and Daddy. Roll on next Tuesday!
William
Fire Station Visit
On a dark, cold February evening, the Cubs and the Beavers went to the Hartlepool Fire Station, opposite the Brewery. Stuart, one of the firemen from Blue watch showed us around the fire station. He showed us all the spare hosepipes and he even called control to set off the emergency bell for us, but he did tell the other Firefighters before he set the alarms off! Then he showed us the Fire Engines, all of their equipment and we got to look through the cool (or should that be hot) heat detecting camera. We got to squirt one of the hoses outside at the damaged car they use for training. That was a really fun visit even though we didn't get to slide down the poles.
Thomas
Our visit to the Fire Station in Clark Street was cool. It was a joint visit with Beavers who were doing their Safety Badge. We had a chat with Stuart who told us we should think about how we would get out of our house if it were on fire, if you could not get out of the front door. Lots of us had questions about safety and then we went into a room with a printer, which told them what address the fire was at. We then were shown the fire engine and the different compartments with hoses, breathing apparatus and equipment and inside the cab where the firemen would get ready. Then we got to hold the hoses and squirted water at a car. That was brilliant, one of our best nights yet.
Leon
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Scout Report
It was last October that four Scouts set off from Reeth on a two day expedition. We were fortunate with the weather as we headed off in what seemed to be the wrong direction, away from the youth hostel where we were to stay for the night. After several hours, many ups and downs and with the route successfully followed, although we did have to amend it at one point where the path disappeared, we arrived safely at the hostel. Evening meal was a diy affair, but it was soon time for bed as we had another hard day to come. Up early, breakfast eaten, we departed on a revised route, which took us in a big circle back to the cars. The Scouts were not too pleased when they realised that we had walked for several miles to get to a junction which was just half a mile form the hostel. The sun shone and it was a great way to spend a weekend.
Later in the same month the Troop took part in the Durham Sanctuary exercise run by Durham Scouts. The aim was to get between two points without being caught, a distance of about 8 miles and 6 hours. Our team was doing really well for almost 20 minutes, they were caught walking down the road, not a good plan to keep hidden. Never mind, everyone has the date penned in for next year when surely they will have a few more ideas how to keep hidden. The winning team were never caught.
The end of the term saw the Scouts attempting the Chef's activity badge over three weeks. This involved planning menus, cooking three course meals and they got really stuck into it and the resultant food was brilliant as our friendly judge concluded. Colin was amazed at what had been produced.
Our final night of the term was to have been a night hike with a camp at the end. However, as you would remember it was a bit on the cold side. As an alternative we held a night hike around Hurworth Burn reservoir the following week – I'm not sure if it was any warmer as thermometers were still reading Minus 7C and it felt like it.
Thanks to everyone who has helped us this term and we'll see you all during the coming term.
Iain Walton, Scout Leader
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