10th Romsey Scout Group

Excerpt from 10th Talk – April 2024

Maple Beaver Scout Colony

This month, two of our Beavers received their Bronze Chief Scout award and swam up to cubs, congratulations and good luck with your scouting journey.

We have been busy this month working towards completing our Challenge and Activity badges, learning about disabilities, health and fitness (food and exercise) and road safety.

For their Disability badge, the Beavers tried different activities, including learning simple (British) sign language, trying out writing with their non-dominant hand and feet and playing a game being visually impaired. For their Exercise and Fitness badge, the Beavers first learnt about keeping fit, trying out different exercises from each other and then healthy eating, trying out different fruits and vegetables as well as learning about different food groups.

To complete their Safety badge, the Beavers mastered the Green Cross Code, indoors, complete with a virtual street and big noisy lorries. Well done to everyone for getting involved and giving things a go. We hope you had a good Easter break.

Sequoia Beaver Scout Colony

Science week

Luckily enough for us, one of the beaver mums volunteered to help this week so she undertook the coke and mintos experiment using 3 different types of coke. Afterwards there has been reports of excessive numbers of ants in the area, but this is hearsay 😊

Removing the colours off skittles to show how the dyes work.

Amazingly the beavers were good and only managed to blow the doors off this time 😊

St Patrick’s Day

Again we were lucky enough to have help this week and we decorated some pots and planted some lucky clover seeds {We did ask the beavers that if they grew a 4 leaf clover then please ask for more beaver leaders}

We then played a ‘find the gold’ game.

Easter

Tonight was going to be a busy night as we had some games to play, some chocolate nests and mini eggs to make .

We then Invested two new beavers and said a farewell to one who left for cubs.

Mohican and Sioux Cub Scout Packs

Road Safety badge

The Pack worked towards their road safety badge by taking part in numerous bases. We had a ‘What am I’ base, a road sign identification and a green cross code challenge with additional questions on different crossing types. Cubs were then asked to produce a poster to encourage road safety.

Romsey Abbey and Bell Tower Tour

The Pack got the opportunity to have a guided tour of the Romsey Abbey and a go on ringing one of the Abbey’s bells! The Pack was split into two groups, with one visiting the bell tower whilst the other toured around the Abbey and then swapped over. We were shown all the main areas of the Abbey, including the altar, the organ, the font, side chapels and even foundations of a smaller earlier church. We got to sit where Royalty sit when attending services, stand at the lectern and look out of the pulpit.

The trip to the bell tower was a bit steep and tight in places and so many steps, all 116 of them! Once in the tower we were told all about the bells, their weights and how a method is shown and played out. We got to look through a hole in the floor, such a long way down to the altar.

Thanks to the volunteers at the Abbey for showing us around and to the parents that accompanied us around the Abbey.

End of term

We finished off the spring term with an evening on Road Safety, and Archer.

Easter holiday

In the Easter holidays, Mohican and Souix Packs got together for a sleepover/camp at HQ.

In the evening we had a great campfire and then most cubs chose to sleep out in the tents they had erected earlier in the day.

After breakfast on Sunday, it was time to take tents down, pack up, tidy up, clean up and go home.

Cubs arrived on the Friday evening and once their kit was deposited were soon into activities, starting with hungry hippos. Multiple rounds were played with Cubs taking turns at being the hippo, pushing the hippo or collecting the balls. Unfortunately, not all got to do everything, as we ran out of time, before having a supper of hot chocolate and biscuits, laying out beds and having a game of Bingo.

It’s called a sleepover but not everyone slept. It was up early on Saturday, getting dressed, packing kit away, a session of Wakey-Shakey, before having a cooked breakfast and on to activities, starting with an egg hunt (postponed from Friday night due to the weather). Once everyone had found an egg and the golden egg had been found, it was on to putting up tents.

Cubs were shown how to bang in a peg, what pegs to use and where to use them, and how to use a mallet correctly and safely. It was then onto putting up the tents themselves. Cubs were split up into groups. Each group put up their own tent, with the possibility of that group sleeping in the tent on Saturday night. Nearly all the Cubs were up for sleeping under canvas, so the next big task was moving their kit into the tents.

After lunch, Cubs took part in bases of gun run, bouncing rabbits, dino racing, frisbee golf and even tomahawk (axe) throwing, which took us up to our evening meal. After dinner it was time for campfire, with everyone down at the fire circle, singing and doing the actions that accompany most of our songs.

After the campfire, it was back to the hall for last minute preparations and instructions before going to bed. The weather was a bit rough now and a short while after settling, two tents decided they would prefer to sleep in the hall after all. Once

sorted, we still had 4 tents of Cubs, as well as Cubs in the hall.

Sunday morning was dry and windy. Cubs had another session of Wakey-Shakey and then a continental type breakfast before packing away any remaining kit and striking camp.

Tea and biscuits – of course,? Why not!

It’s not all work y’know. Man and machine in perfect harmony! Bacon bap optional 😊

Another fab sleepover due to a well-planned, varied programme, well behaved Cubs and a great team of parents and Scouters. Many thanks to all that participated in this event. Thank you to the parents who helped out in the kitchen – the cubs said the food was fantastic, and thank you to the adult scout volunteers who helped with the tents.

Sirl Scout Troop

During the last few evenings before the half term, Sirl troop were keeping busy with a range of activities.

One evening was centred around model making, with each scout building and then painting their own Warhammer models which were gifted to us by Warhammer themselves. Some of the characters were quite tricky to construct and then even fiddlier to paint but we all had fun in a hall very quiet due to the concentration levels!

The following week we acted out a murder mystery based around a school camp. There were 18 different characters including teachers, the camp owner, students and even a pet dog. The scouts all played a character and acted out the script and in true TV crime style we ended with 5 possible suspects. The scouts then wrote down who they thought was the murderer, before we had a discussion about why certain characters were suspected before the big reveal!

For the final meeting of the term we held an international evening. This started with a presentation by Jo about Scouting around the world. Next we had a presentation by a former Sirl scout who told us all about his trip to the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea followed by a game of Ddakji, a traditional South Korean game played with folded paper tiles made with origami paper.

We ended the term with the presentation of badges and a certificate for Seal Patrol, who won the Inspection Award for the Spring term.

I’d just like to write to let you know of the amazing job the cub leaders in Romsey are doing whilst we are all on lockdown. Without any hesitation at all, the leaders of 10th Mohican, lead by Baloo have brought their cubs together for their weekly Monday night cub meeting. I really feel like we haven’t missed anyone or anything. They have regularly gathered more than 20 of the pack supported by 3 or 4 of the crew. They have put together interesting sessions, set achievable and enjoyable challenges each week and have encouraged the cubs to continue with badgework by adapting the badges so they can be completed at home.

We had a brilliant cub sleepover earlier this month and from 1.30 until bedtime on the Saturday evening Jacob was occupied setting up his camp, telling jokes, setting up a teddy zipwire, making his supper over the campfire, singing campfire songs and playing bingo.

They are fabulous. They have shown humour, determination and a seamless transition from face to face meetings to zoom meetings. We even have a “Cubs meeting” on the BH.

We have another sleepover planned for next month.

Please can you say a big thank you Baloo and all the teams involved. They are legends. They really deserve some recognition.

Many thanks,

Wendy

Dear Wendy

Thank you very much for your kind words, I’m so glad that Jacob is able to continue his enjoyment of Cubs. The leaders and all the background team at 10th only continue with the support of children and parents in the scouting community – so a big thanks to Jacob and you.

Group Chairman