Reminders & key information:

This edition’s reminders:

Beavers

Castors – will meet normal times, in uniform please, for a Halloween night, please bring a torch. Unusually, Castors are meeting on Monday 29th at 18:30 until 19:45 (yes it is half term but Brian didn’t realise that when he booked it) for our Spanish lesson.

Boomers – will meet on Wednesday, as normal, for a lesson in Spanish!

The next meeting after half term for both Boomers and Castors will see us completing the International Badge.

Millstones –  will not be meeting due to an inset day.

Cubs

Alegre – please look out for an email with section plans.

Bella Vista  –  will be enjoying Halloween fun and games this week. Cubs are welcome to come in fancy dress. Please email [email protected] if there any food allergies the Leader team may not be aware of.

Raptors  – will be working towards their Collectors’ badge. Cubs need to bring in items that they have a special interest in and talk to the teams about them. If your cub does not have any ‘collections’ maybe they could talk about a hobby or sport they take part in.

Scouts

Enigma – will be on a wide game in the park this week, therefore, a coat and head torch are essential, please. Your scout is welcome to bring a drink should they wish.

Wibbles – will be heading off to try hoverboards! Usual meeting times Alison will send out the directions before Wednesday.

Viernes – will be completing some of the outstanding Creative Challenge badge requirements. Normal meeting times, please.

Explorers

Explorers are in the middle of a 3-week plan to complete their international badge. They have been fact-finding and giving presentations and next week will be cooking up culinary delights from their chosen countries.

Everyone

  • Barnsley District Awards night – Parents/Guardians of young people who have earned the highest section awards will have received an invitation by post to attend an awards ceremony on Tuesday 23rd October @ the Fairway Inn Conferencing Centre. Full details in the following event post.
  • It will soon be Remembrance Sunday. This is the only compulsory event in our group calendar. Please make sure that your young person will be available. Sections will soon be putting forward their flag bearers, assistants and wreath layers. Full details regarding meeting times for the parade and service will be shared soon – the dedicated event page can be found here.
  • Uniform – If your young person needs a uniform, we need you to place orders via our website. You can find our web store right here. We take PayPal, or you can choose to pay cash on collection. Those who have recently placed orders, we’ve received our Scout Shop fulfilment and will, therefore, be able to provide ordered uniform on section nights.
  • We have a number of sections that, due to other adult commitments, regularly need additional support from other section leaders or parents/guardians. The group can only continue to provide a challenging and fulfilling programme whilst it has sufficient adults involved. If you can help, in any way, we would love to please hear from you. It could be in a non-child facing role and does not need to be every week. For more details, please see the following post we shared where Bear Grylls asked for your support.

Jamboree fundraiser – Textiles collection

6000 leaflets have been dropped through doors around Penistone over the past week! This relates to the textiles collection our 2019 World Scout Jamboree contingent are carrying out in order to raise funds towards the fifteen young people the group are delighted to have secured places. For full details relating to the collection, please see the following dedicated event page.

Leaders & Executive Committee

  • First Aid training – Just a reminder that we have some spaces remaining on the adult first aid training course (4th Nov). For details of how to book a place, please see the dedicated event here.
  • Executive meeting – The executive committee has a meeting scheduled for Tuesday 23rd October @ the Dog and Partridge Inn. Apologies and additional meeting information to [email protected] and [email protected], please.

With the reminders out-of-the-way, let’s recap the week.

This week:

Autumnal art

Beavers had a fun Tuesday, after being given their mission to collect leaves and conker shells for an art project. After a short lesson about the war memorial, the beavers foraged happily amongst the gravestones at St John the Baptist church. The Beavers then made their way back down the trail to the scout hut and used their materials to make pictures as groups. The art was judged by Brian who approved it all as ‘excellent’! The Beavers also drew poppies on ceramic stones, to be used at later events.

Poppy stone art

Wednesday Beavers drew poppies onto glass stones ready for names to be added and these will be on display in St John’s church on Armistice weekend. We also went outside and found leaves, twigs and seed husks to make autumnal collages.

4 “guys”

Raptor cubs had some fun with 4 ‘Guys’. Each six contributed to making a guy for the Round Table bonfire competition. We even had spare time to have a little ‘dance’ with one. The other guys gave Molly and her partner a ‘7’ for their tango!

Harvest bread challenge & penny cans

Wibbles looked at the results of the harvest bread challenge after they had been baked and the winners of the challenge were Caleb, Ben and Harris. We also tried out the tin can stoves we made last week and boiled water. All worked really well and next time we may try frying eggs or pancakes with them.

Halloween party

Millstones had a spooky party.

Trading post

Friday Scouts competed in our trading post activity. They really got into the competitive spirit with very close results come the end of the evening. We were delighted to also award over 150 badges to the scouts! Many of these included challenge badges.

Quest Taekwondo

It was the turn of our Monday Scouts to go to Quest Taekwondo. Many thanks, once again, to Mike for his dedication and time with the group.

Sorry we didn’t get a picture

Lots of other activities took place this week, but we didn’t necessarily get a photo:
  • Jamboree team did a bag-pack at Asda this weekend adding £400 to their fundraising!
  • Bella Vista had fun building and cooking on fires last week; many Cubs successfully completed their Backwoods cooking badge.
And finally:

Back from Mount Kilimanjaro

We’re delighted to hear that our recently retired Group Scout Leader (Steve Roach) and his daughter, Susie Roach (a Penistone Cub Leader) smashed both their fundraising target (for Diabetes UK) and haven’t been beaten by the Mount Kilimanjaro! They shared with us a report and some photos. You can see the full post and still have a chance to sponsor them, here.