Welcome back!

And just like that, the Christmas school holiday is over! We hope you have all had a fantastic Christmas holiday and would like to take the opportunity to wish you all a “Happy New Year“. We have lots of exciting opportunities coming up in 2019 for our young people and we are looking forward to another year packed full of new adventures!

Back in the here and now, let’s take a look at the coming week:

The week ahead (7th January 2019 onwards)

Beavers

All colonies – will be meeting at their normal times and locations to take part in some ‘welcome back’ and teamwork activities

Cubs

The cub section leads have met up and planned an amazing term. (“Oh no they haven’t!”)… erm, well actually they have! For the first cub session of 2019 all three cub sections are joining up to go to a pantomime (“Oh yes they are!“) We are hoping that this will slightly extend the festive season now it has passed; where did it go? (“It’s behind you!”) We hope your cubs save up their boos and cheers for the local group. Our very own Lisa is even part of the pantomime. For full details, please see the dedicated event page here. The venue has a maximum capacity of 70 and only limited spaces are left so please contact Shauna to arrange payment and book on if you’ve not already done so – this includes leaders as this maximum includes adults. There will also be a tuck shop on the evening so please send your cubs with loose change if they would like to purchase anything.

Scouts

Enigma – will not be meeting until the 14th January.  However, don’t forget that if your young person is booked on to the latest SCUBA diving tasting session than it is on Friday 11th at Stocksbridge Leisure Centre.  Also on the 12th January, we are going Abseiling, please contact Shauna ASAP to arrange payment if it has not already being made. There is a reserve list and anyone not paid by Monday evening will forfeit their space.

Wibbles – will be getting creative with glow sticks in the dark as well as trying some origami. We are also going to try some indoor bowling. Similar to Enigma, if your young person is booked to take part in the SCUBA diving tasting session dive, please make sure you’re there on Friday. Finally, an email was sent earlier this week inviting scouts to sign up for the Monopoly Run. The deadline for this is quite soon (a week on Wednesday) and therefore please sign up via the invitation link emailed if of interest.

Viernes – have a handful of members who will be taking part in the SCUBA diving tasting session for the rest of the troop, we will be meeting at the normal session time of 7 to 9:15 at the Scout Hut. The scouts will be continuing some of the survival skills badge work from the last term. This week focusing on creating their own protective outwear. Similar to Engima, if your scout is booked on the abseiling trip, please make sure you keep to the times that have been emailed for drop off and collection.

Explorers

Explorers will be holding a unit forum to look at activities for the rest of the year including planning some exciting camps.

Any Explorers who have recently turned 14 will shortly be invited to an information evening to sign up for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Bronze award. Expedition dates are already planned and training will start shortly.
Jamboree
Our Jamboree team have worked very hard over the holiday period raising funds for their World Scout Jamboree trip in 2019. They have been bag packing, helping on the Santa sleigh with Penistone  Round Table and collecting Christmas trees.
There is still lots more to come so look out for notices about quiz nights and another Mother’s Day tea coming up.
Our next fundraising planning meeting is Sunday 13th January, 16:30 at the Scout Hut.
Parents/Guardians et al

Please remember that our group calendar is the central place where all events, except for weekly section meetings are posted/shared. You can subscribe to the calendar so you can see it alongside your own calendar on your mobile device or tablet. For a video example walkthrough, please see this vlog Rob put together last year.

Leaders

The all-hands leader meeting is Thursday 17th January at the Scout Hut. Rob will be sharing with the team some of the strategic plans he’s been preparing and will be welcoming the inputs asked of you all prior to the Christmas period, please.

Over the coming few months, Rob will be arranging 1-2-1 sessions with all leaders and be dropping by section meetings to both help out and meet the young people he’s not previously had the chance to. Please, if you’ve any concerns or issues, feel free to reach out to Rob and let him know.

With the reminders out of the way, let’s take a look back over some of the Scouting we’ve been up to during the holidays.

Group Maintenance weekend

We held a full-on maintenance weekend at the Scout Hut this past weekend. A huge thank you to the volunteers who came along to scrub, clean, clear, repair, restore and achieve the mammoth strides taken over the course of two long days. We are incredibly proud of how much was achieved. Off the back of all the efforts, we have a significantly refined to-do-list. We will be planning more maintenance weekends where we’ll be asking for your help later in the year, please. The more often we address the building and equipment needs en masse, the less effort it will take to stay on top of them. From painting and decorating to deep cleans, equipment restoration and more – there’s plenty to address so that Scouting can carry on unimpeded.

As part of the weekend’s activities, we’ve donated all in-date and non-perishable and unopened food to the Salvation Army food bank. There were many leftover items from events throughout the year – we know we will not use these in the near future and therefore we’ve passed them on to others who can use them sooner. This isn’t a new thing, it’s happened with leftovers from specific events previously; however, it is something the group will focus on doing on a more regular basis.

Group Scout Leader investiture

During the Group Maintenance weekend, we took a few minutes out to invest our new Group Scout Leader, Rob. We are a youth-led organisation, therefore it was only fitting that one of the young people, Phoebe who is a Scout, invest Rob. If you wish, you can watch a video of this brief ceremony below. Phoebe was chuffed to have been able to perform this role – thank you for agreeing!

Group Scout Leader Investiture @ Penistone Scouts’

No Description

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree…

Yes, the festive season is over and you may, or may not, have noticed Penistone Scouts’ completed their second annual Christmas Tree collection service in and around Penistone. Over 300 trees were collected on Sunday 6th January, then today, Liam Evans volunteered his time to chip them ready for Springvale Community Gardens to make use of. This has been a very well received service, one that has been planned and executed by the leaders and families of the group’s members who are going to the World Scout Jamboree later in 2019. The monies raised go directly to the young people’s fundraising target. Given the jamboree takes place in the middle of this year, please be assured that the group plan on continuing with tree collections for years to come – the monies raised from future collections will enable further scouting to take place. Thank you so much to everyone who made us of the service, and for all of the lovely well-wishes and comments.

That’s it for this entry – next weekend will see the return of our weekly Rewind series.