All sections have started been meeting properly, with a mix of indoor and – only when we want to – outdoor meetings:
- numbers in our Beaver Colony have been really strong, with around 24 Beavers. Our Beavers started the term with a “Log Chew” – a chance for the Beavers to tell the leaders what they want to do in the meetings – followed by a meeting where we learned about the Paralympics, and played games and activities where we tried to imagine being one of those dedicated competitors. Our last meeting was spent with Malabar (who somehow finds time to be the Musical Director of the Kettering Gang Show) leading the Beavers in playing instruments, singing and sharing music
- our Cub Pack started the month with an outdoors games night at Woodcroft, slotted an evening’s canoeing session in before the nights drew in, then ran a weekend’s rafting camp – successfully dodging the rain storm to drop most of the canvas dry. We have run several meetings indoors – including a cooking evening using the backpacking Trangia stoves beloved of the Scout section – before finishing the month by investing 12 new Cubs and 1 new leader
- the Scout Troop started back with a PLs Backwoods Camp (oh, happy memories of eating slices of hot buttered bread cooked over the fire…. ) and our first full troop night being a Chip Shop Survey – with the Ocean Broadway Chip Shop coming out as the best local one. We have been running the Pioneers Badge, with one meeting spent making football goal posts, then with two weekend days in training, making five ballistae to play egg cricket, and with around 20 Scouts finishing on Sunday with some large scale projects. We are pleased our Young Leaders are getting truly into the running of our activities – with the last indoor Olympic Challenge Night run by one, and one of the more complicated training bases by another – succession planning at its best!
- our linked Explorer Unit met for the first time on September 14th, with around 8 ex-1st Scouts coming along. The first proper meeting was a photo trail through the town, the second meeting an Under Water Wide Game it was raining that badly! We look forward to being able to report more next month
