Autumn 2020 Newsletter

Our autumn started with the arrival of Paul Kelly as our scout leader – we are extremely grateful to Paul for joining our scouts. Paul will continue to be assisted by Rob as well as occasional help from Alex when needed. We’ve also been lucky enough to have two young leaders, Eugene and Tom, who will be supporting our troop over the next term.

The Scouts have also been able to return to face to face scouting for a good part of the term – albeit a bit different to make sure we are as Covid safe as possible. We continue to see great enthusiasm from our Scouts and a very high weekly attendance . Here is a round up and some highlights from this term.

Investiture of 5 new Scouts

This term we welcomed 5 Cubs into our Scouting section and we were very excited to be able to invest them into our group before the October half term. A very warm welcome to Anton, Jonathan, Sean, Sebastian C and Sebastian N.

Hike!

We started the term learning some navigational skills on Wheatsheaf Common and put them straight to practice with a 5km hike between Mayford and Woking. Everyone did magnificently.

The skiing experience !

This term the Scouts have experienced skiing at the Guildford ski centre. Two thirds of the scouts gained experience in skiing for the first time while the other third worked on improving their skiing skills ! We ended up doing 2 sessions at the ski slope as the Scouts enjoyed it so much.

Geocaching walk

We unfortunately had to cancel the scheduled walk to be led by Max for geocaching due to it being planned during lockdown 2. However, a last minute round up of a few scouts on an inset day saw Max leading his geocache route. Well done Max. We hope those who attended can teach the remaining scouts in the New Year.

Parliament week

At our last face to face meeting before lock down 2 , we celebrated parliament week. We were lucky enough to have the Woking member of parliament Jonathan Lord visit the scout troop. The scouts had prepared some difficult questions to ask him and he did well answering them as any politician would… ‘what would you do?’. Patrol leaders also had to propose an activity for the scouts to do (post Covid times probably) and then votes were taken. The 2 winning ideas are :

· Bobby – caving

· Matthew - bowling

Race around the world challenge

The Scouting organization is aiming to raise money for Scout groups who are struggling to keep going during this pandemic year. 8 of our Scouts, as well as both leaders Paul and Rob, took part in the ‘Race around the world’ challenge to raise funds for Scouts. So far 8^th Woking Scouts have raised an amazing £335 and hiked/ ridden and rowed 320 miles . Well done to all who took part especially to Sebastian C who cycled 283km over 13 days. Here’s what our scouts accomplished :

Well done everyone, and especially Sebastian C with incredible stats!

Patrol Leaders Forum

During half term the patrol leaders met up on zoom with Paul to talk about leadership issues. Well done to all patrol leaders for their input and our first patrol leaders forum.

Patrol Points

Well done to Seals for winning this terms patrol points with 17. Panthers were hot on their heels with 16 followed by badgers with 14 and kestrels with 12.

Badges

The following badges have been worked on during the Autumn term :

· Snow sports level 1 or 2 depending on experience

· Orienteering – this included a hike from Mayford village hall back to Horsell along the canal.

· Pioneering- this included building a catapult on the Wheatsheaf common.

· Skills Challenge badge

· Completed aspects of the Creative and Outdoors Challenge badges.

We have done a lot of work on updating OSM records to reflect badge work undertaken by the scouts in the last year and believe we are now up to date.

Outstanding badge work

Over the summer holidays all scouts were tasked with personal challenges – one they chose and one set by the scout leader. Not all scouts have completed this challenge/ let us know they have completed this challenge.

In addition, during the term, scouts were tasked with giving evidence of skills they are able to perform at home eg. Sewing on badges, using the washing machine and ironing. Not all scouts have yet to send in evidence for these skills.

All of the above counts towards badges, so please do let us know if you have completed any of these requirements. You can email the scout leaders on ScoutLeaders@8thwoking.org.uk.

Face to face Scouting

Now that we are in tier 4 …. we shall share with you soon as we learn ourselves what this means for scouting, but we expect initially some content to be delivered over zoom.

Winter term programme

What to look forward to the new programme on Jan 12^th. We shall be planning this early in the New Year – if you have anything you would really like to do please let us know!

Wishing you all a safe and fun-filled festive season. We look forward to seeing you in 2021.

Your Scouting leaders

Paul and Rob

- with the amazing support of Natalie .