Beavering around

I do love a celebration and so this week I joined the River Lea Colony as they celebrated 25 years of Beavers. The Beavers played a couple of Balloon games and were given the County Birthday badge.

They were also thinking of others and so part of the evening was dedicated to making a card and certificate for a certain somebody this Sunday! I was impressed with the care the Beavers took and the thoughtful comments they made whilst colouring.

The Beavers also returned their bean plants tonight and Dormouse measured them and then award a first prize to Marcus for the tallest plant and a runner up prize for the next two tallest.

Thank you River Lea for inviting me down and I look forward to seeing you at the Easter Egg hunt on Sunday. Fresh air, chocolate and good friends, what else could one ask for?

Gus and the beanstalk

Gambian Gardening

Last year the Herons raised lots of money to  some buy gardening equipment for the Medina Sering Mass Scout Group. The idea was to support the Scouts in planting and growing their own food. Whilst HELPING was in The Gambia this time with me (flat Stanley version) we handed over the equipment, that had been bought locally.

The Scouts have made, and will be tending the plots at school, and this will provide much needed fresh food for many families. Not quite the same as Ware in Bloom but still a joint interest stretching across the sea; two groups, two continents both gardening.

Helping the Herons - Part 2

I am very excited! Last night I was awarded my Home Help activity badge. Do you remember when I went down to the HQ and helped cook a meal (and then eat it)?  Well tonight I returned and also helped with the other tasks which included litter picking, ironing, window cleaning and sewing badges onto a huge camp blanket.

Our guests tonight were Badger (Beavers), Shere Khan (Falcon Cubs), Rama (GSL) and Oliver (Young Leader). Again they chose from Snuggles menu and were served freshly prepared and cooked food.

I did not have a scarf to iron and so had to disrobe and iron my hoodie. I did have to be careful because I did not want to melt the lettering.

Cleaning the windows was a piece of cake. Monkeys are very good at that. Does that surprise you? Well we are, because we like to clamber all over the place and it is a whole lot nicer if we can see through the glass, don't you think?

I helped with the sewing on of the badges. Did you know I have my own camp blanket? So far it does not have many badges, but Rama, the GSL, has said that I can have my nights away badge for the Beaver Sleepover and my Hikes away for the hike I undertook with River Ash. Akela has now awarded me the home help and so it is going to look pretty good with a selection of badges. I just need to persuade some one to sew the badges on, because I really am not very good at it!

I had a great evening with the Herons and want to say thank you to them for always making me so welcome. Everyone from Akela to the Young Leaders, from the Sixers to the newest Cub always welcome me and make sure I get to join in with everything. They also like to eat and that always goes down well in my book!

A Gambian Adventure

As well as playing in the woods, planting trees and walking along the River, I took a quick trip to The Gambia to meet the Medina Sering Mass Scouts. In 2007 3rd Ware twinned with this Group, has supported the Gambian Scouts ever since and both sides have exchanged letters and gifts.

I travelled out with Chris and Margaret Meeks from HELPING to deliver some gifts, letters and the centenary badges for the Scouts. We also took the money that the Herons raised to buy gardening equipment.

Last year the GSL held a photograph competition and members of the Group paid £1 to enter their photograph and then at Christmas we sold laminated calendars which had photographs on from the last year of Scouting.

This money was put together and used to pay for a party for the Gambian Scouts and their school friends. We held our party in January in the Drill hall and we wanted our twin Group to be able to celebrate in February. This they did, in a big way, Margaret says “There were 660 children at the party and well over 100 were Scouts. It started at 9am and when we left at 6pm the other Scouts from all around the area, were just arriving. They said the party went until about 11 pm.”

If you have been reading this carefully you will have noticed that I said February – OK, I will come clean….I did not actually go to The Gambia, although I wanted to, because there was too much for me to do here. I did however send a “flat Stanley” version of myself who got to meet the Scouts and report back. Hopefully next year I will go myself. Watch this space.

100 Trees

On the island

What did you do this morning? I helped plant 100 trees! As part of our calendar of centenary event, this month we were tasked with planting 100 trees. As you know there is nothing a monkey likes more than a quick swing around a few branches, however today they were a little too small for that!

Near Fletchers Lea

Our planting was made possible by Ware in Bloom. Jan Wing and her team very kindly provided the 100 trees for us and we planted them under her direction. She had consulted with the gardener and a tree expert and found out which trees needed to be planted, how and where. We were given instructions on how far apart to put them, how to stake them and how to put their protective sleeves on. Then it was over to us. We all found out what hard work digging holes can be!

Priory Grounds

It was a beautiful spring morning and it was a delight to be outside with friends enjoying the spring flowers, the fresh air and seeing the wildlife both on land and on the river, as well as helping our community. I had a great time.

If you are taking part in the centenary challenge and were there this morning, then you can also tick off number 83 on your sheet.

One young person commented that she had a really good time and was looking forward to seeing the tree she had planted every time she came to play at the Priory park and visited the Island.



The 3rd Ware Copse on the Island.

Rama also reminded us that the St.George's Day parade ends in the Priory grounds every year and so after we have paraded on Sunday May 8th, (yes it is late this year), we will be able to point out our trees to our families.

Handy Beavers win again!

Some of the winning Beavers

Wow, what a morning. I knew that lot at 3rd Ware were a talented bunch of bananas, sorry Beavers, but they excelled themselves today and won the District Beaver handicraft competition! I was able to attend the judging session and award ceremony and the smiles on the Beavers faces said it all.

The Beaver Scouts were invited to enter several different classes which were divided into 6 year olds and 7 year olds. All items had to be based around the general theme of the 25th Birthday of Beaver Scouts. These were:

1. Picture – pen – pencil, felt tip, crayon, painting.
2. Cakes, biscuits, sweets (home made). Cakes are to be small, individual ones, NO large ones accepted.
3. Models from odds and ends e.g. cardboard tubes, boxes, tubs, yogurt pots etc.
4. Home made card for Beavers 25th Birthday
5. Miniature Garden (7 year olds only)

The Beavers brought their entries to Chauncy School, gave them to their Leaders who put a number on them and displayed them and then everyone left. The judges spent a long time looking at each entry, talking about it's good points and particularly looking at whether it fulfilled the brief and was it an unaided piece of work. Then they awarded 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place certificates.

When the Beavers, Leaders and parents returned the Beavers were awarded with their individual certificates and all the points totted up. (Each winning placing earns points for the colony) and the winner was announced. It was 3rd Ware River Lea Colony.

Well done Beavers, I enjoyed attending this event and hope you had fun. You looked as if you did.

Ambling with Ash

On Thursday I went for a walk with River Ash Beavers. It was very exciting, because we started the journey by catching a train to Hertford!

Walking back by the river, we had sheets with lots of things to spot along the way. Some Beavers even claim to have spotted a butterfly.

We stopped to eat our snack half way along, and then finished our walk in the dark. It was a good job the Beavers had torches with them; otherwise we would not have been able to see where we were walking. I had to borrow a head torch so that I could see where to go and would not get lost.

I had great fun with the River Ash Colony and look forward to meeting them again very soon. I will be meeting them at the HQ next time and also at the "Eggstravaganza" event next Sunday. 

After the hike I spent the night at one of the Leaders homes and then went to school with his son and spent sometime in the school office before I was collected and brought home. Surprisingly I met another Beaver Leader there. She was working in the office and thought I was cute!

Thanks to Toad for helping me write this post.

In the news again!

Look at me in the local newspaper again. The local paper included two of our Cubs in their round up of Red Nose day activities and I was in both pictures and got a special mention! Well done Cubs.



Jamboree

This is another of my badges. I was given this one by Oliver, one of our Young Leaders. He was very fortunate to be selected to represent our District at the Jamboree. He, along with the other participants, has been selling these Hertfordshire badges to help raise funds for this experience of a life time.

If you are interested in a badge then please leave a comment and I will get Oliver to contact you and let you know if there are any left. You will need to leave your email address, but don't worry that will not be published.

The World Scout Jamboree is a very exciting opportunity for our young people and hopefully Oliver will tell us some more about it once he has been to Sweden. Some of our Scouts and another Young Leader will also be going for a day visit and so I will ask them to report back as well.

This badge can be worn on your uniform or put on your camp blanket.

In the woods with the Herons

Monday was a busy day for me and I had to make some choices. I could go to the woods with the Herons or go with the Young Leaders to their training session. I chose the woods.

I did begin to reconsider that choice when I found out that the Cubs were collecting liquid toxic waste and carrying it around the woods, supposedly without spilling it. Fortunately the leaders let me into the secret...it was just coloured water....phew. The Cubs had a great time playing this wide game and their happy noise level proved this.

Thanks Herons for inviting me.

After this the GSL and the Chairman let me accompany them to the District HQ to discuss the plans for a new HQ building at some point in the future. As I said a busy day!

Recent Travel Bug news

Andrew of 1st Warlingham Beavers in the district of Caterham in Surrey has found our Beaver Travel Bug and has moved it on for us. He goes geocaching with his Mum Erika and his sister Emma.

They took the traveller to several caches before finding one that was suitable to leave it. Erika also very kindly took it to visit Doris's Cross View geocache because the owners, The Biggin Hill Flyers, were Scout Leaders when their children were small. Andrew finally left our traveller in Winter Fun "a greaaaaaat big cache", according to Andrew.

Thank you Andrew for taking an interest in our Travel Bug and for sending us a photo of you with it. One of our own Beavers moved it on and that was brilliant (Thanks Fred), but it is fantastic to see it meet another Beaver from a different colony. I hope you continue to enjoy Beavers , especially all the 25th birthday events this year and carry on to be a Cub and a Scout.

Andrew's mum said he would be happy for us to put his picture on the Blog and so hopefully this has made him smile. Don't forget to show your Leaders Andrew or even leave a comment here to show that you have seen yourself on my Blog.

The other two travellers have also moved on, the Scout one being given a helping hand from one of the Scout Leaders.

Tree Planting

Next Sunday morning (March 27th) we are meeting with Ware in Bloom to plant trees.

This is our cenetanary activity for March and is also part of the 100 Challenge (83). Please see the posters in the HQ, read the invite sent to you via email last week from your own section Leader or look in the members section of the Group website.

We look forward to seeing as many of you there are possible. The more people, the more chance of planting the 100 trees we would like to.

Your family are most welcome to stay and join in but leaders will be there if they can not.

Expedition planning

Where we are going.

Last night I popped in to Scouts to have a quick visit and see what they were doing this week. They were taking part in some red nose day challenges. Then I nipped next door to the District HQ for the presentation to the Scouts and Explorers, who are coming to Wales with us at Easter, and their parents.



The Scouts in our building

The trip is a joint venture and is part of our centenary celebrations. We are travelling to Coetmor mill and introducing some of our Scouts to the delights of hillwalking in the Welsh Mountains as well as taking part in cycling and climbing. We will be accompanied by a group of Explorer Scouts. 

Some of the Explorers who will be join us in Wales

They have been invited because they are all ex-3rd Ware and so are attending as past members of the Group. The Leaders running it are also all 3rd Ware members or are Explorer Leaders who are past members of 3rd Ware.

No one told me that once you join 3rd Ware there is no escape because they will keep inviting you back!



I help one of the Explorer leader and some Scouts 
with their map skills

The presentation gave all the information needed for the trip and showed examples of suitable kit to take if one is going to be safe and comfortable. That is for the human of course, being a monkey I pretty much come as I am.

I will be blogging whilst we are away to keep you up to date and to give the parents of the young people a small insight into the things their son or daughter is up to.

Red Nose Falcons

On Tuesday night, Falcon Pack invited me down to join in with their fund raising evening which was in aid of Comic Relief. Each Cub donated some money to wear red clothes and was then able to try their hand at some of the challenges on the 100 challenge sheet.

They tried to eat a doughnut without licking their lips (113), eat as many cream crackers as they could in a minute (114), build 100 piece Lego towers (121), plant cress seeds (109), do 100 skips or star jumps (149), make and eat a fruit salad (106), write a comment on my blog (65), iron and roll their Group scarf (160) (51) and line up 100 dominoes before knocking them down (150).

The hall was busy all evening and there were also cakes on sale which boosted the total by another £17. All together the Cubs made nearly £100 for Comic Relief which will be used to help disadvantaged people here and in Africa. This was also the final part of the Community Challenge for 15 Cubs so Rama (who came down to eat cake!) kindly presented the badges at the end of the evening.

This is the final challenge badge for five of the Cubs and next week they will be getting their Silver Awards. Thanks to Akela who helped me write this post.

Helping the Herons

The kitchen staff!

On Monday night I went to visit those crazy Herons at the HQ. They were starting their Home Help badge. Half the pack (green six and red six) were cleaning the windows, ironing their own scarves (that had been freshly laundered over the weekend) sewing on a badge and cleaning silver. Learning these skills at the HQ building means that they should now be able to go home and "help" with these tasks when needed, knowing that they will be of assistance.

The other half of the pack (blue six and yellow six) had invited me, Dormouse (Beavers), Shere Khan (Cubs), Rama (GSL) and Oli (YL) to dine in the committee room. First they set the tables and took their guests orders. The tables looked great and even had candles, menus and breadsticks. As well as lovely red tablecloths.

Each guest could choose an omelette and a variety of fillings which was served with a fresh salad (Rama's favourite!) some warm crusty bread. The Cubs needed to take the order and then go to the kitchen and cook what each guest had requested. This they did with aplomb  and it was duly served to the grateful diners.

The meal was accompanied by a drink and followed by Peach flan and cream. After this had been eaten and cleared away tea, coffee and an after dinner mint were the order of the day. We all enjoyed our meal and would recommend Snuggles Diner to everyone. 

I am beginning to understand that food is very important to those at 3rd Ware. They seem to do a lot of eating, which is fine by me as long as I get an invite! I am going down in a few weeks time when the Red and Green sixes are cooking.

Happy Birthday Ware and District

This is not actually my badge I borrowed it for a photo.
I hope to get one at some point in the future!

On Thursday March 16th 1911 at 7.30pm a small group of people gathered together in the Mission hall in Ware. They had arranged to meet with Percy Everett with the view of forming the Ware and District Boy Scout Association.

Rev. Payne, Rev. Farmer, Messrs Fox Hill, Grace, H Burgess, Page, Crawley and Blake were present and were in agreement; Ware needed to become a District in its own right and so the Hertford and Ware Boy Scout Association was split into two and Ware and the surrounded villages formed their own Association which was to be presided over by RB Croft Esq. of Fanhams Hall.

The next day the District was registered and Ware and District had begun! 3rd Ware was amongst the Troops who were there on the first day and as you know are still going strong.

Happy Birthday Ware and District!

Hello Falcons!

Right at this very minute Gus' PA is getting lots of comments from the Falcon Cubs!

I have not published them yet because he needs to read them properly when he gets home and make sure they are suitable to go on the web and relate the the topic you have commented on.

Thanks Falcons for commenting on the Blog and Gus looks forward to getting a few emails from you tomorrow reminding of him what you have been doing tonight. He will then be able to put some of your messages in a seperate article about your fund raising evening when he writes it. Look out over the next couple of days.

3rd Ware Centenary badge

A while ago I said that I would tell you about our centenary badge. Well here it is! It is in the group colours of Green and Black and has the Scout logo on it and our centenary tag line of "3rd Ware 100 Scouting Years". It is being worn by all members of the Group and was given as a keepsake to past members who attended the Museum opening.

How did we get such a fine badge, I hear you ask. Well settle down and let me tell you.

Last year every young person in the Group was invited to design a badge. The shape was already determined, because we wanted to wear it on the point of our scarf and they need to include the words "3rd Ware 100 Scouting Years". We also asked that they used no more than 7 colours. Apart from that the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts had free rein to use their own imagination and creativity.

Each section then collected their own young people's entries and their Leaders took a vote. The design chosen was put forwarded into the final six to represent that section. (Six because the GSL also selected a wildcard one from all the remaining entries that had not been chosen by their own leadership team.)

These six designs were then scanned and blown up to A4 size and displayed on the walls of the Scout Hall. Every young person then cast their own personal vote for one of the finalists. These were emailed to the GSL who tallied them up as they came in and the winner was the design with the most overall individual votes.

In this case it was a Cub called Tiegan. I hope you agree she did a fine job and produced a badge we can be proud of.

County Expedition to Denmark

Here I am - ready to travel!

I was with the Scouts yesterday. I went to the Denmark expedition, team building, afternoon. It was very exciting. First of all they made and cooked meatballs, well they were supposed to be meatballs but one group actually turned theirs into burgers. (I am not sure that was intentional!)

The next thing that happened was that they put up tents, with a twist - two people in each group had to be blindfolded, and these were the only people whom were allowed to touch the tent!

The final activity was making a spaghetti tower. Using only four jelly babies and a handful of spaghetti, a raw egg had to be held off of the ground. Those towers looked really interesting, if that's the right word to use!

Finally the parents arrived and there was a presentation informing everyone about the things that will be happening when they get to Denmark. I wish I could go.

One of the young people helped me write this blog entry when he got home from the training afternoon. Many thanks go to him.

Christ Church newletter

This weekend I have the opportunity to read the short article about Scouting history in the Christ Church Ware, Church newsletter. This magazine is published several times a year and contains articles written by or about members of the church. This month 3rd Ware Scout Group and our centenary are featured.

As you know the Group was started by Rev. Augustus Payne, the curate, and several other members of the congregation. For some considerable years only boys from the congregation could join, where as now we are open to all of Ware and have a few members from outside the town. Many of the still attend Christ Church, either the church or the school next door.

Mud!

Although not many people voted on my latest poll the results are in and as you can see the best bit about Founder's Day was the mud! Which is just as well considering how much of it each of you took home with you at the end of the day!

Pancake Race

Pancakes!

Did you have pancakes this week? I did and very nice they were too.

So far this week I have joined Heron Cubs and River Lea Beavers to enjoy two evenings of fun and food. Yes, I was invited to share in Shrove Tuesday (well Monday and Wednesday!). I have also been told that River Ash, Falcons and the Scouts have or will enjoy a pancake or two this week. Third Ware do seem to enjoy their food, which is just as well because so do I!

On Monday I joined the Herons. The highlight of the evening for most of us was the cooking and eating of the pancakes or the pancake race (that was very funny). However for one Cub it was being invested. Charlie sent me an email telling me how excited he was.

"I used to be a Beaver, but now I am 8 years old I have joined the Cubs. On the day I was invested and we made pancakes.

Being invested was really exciting. I am really looking forward to enjoying all the amazing things we will do at Cubs!"

Tonight I went along to River Lea and again I was privileged to witness an investiture. This time a few young people officially made their promises and became fully fledged Beavers. They have now begun their Scouting journey and I wish them well with it.

The pancake making was a fun and noisy affair but we all got to cook and then choose our toppings. We are all a little bit fuller and a little bit stickier than we we were at the beginning of the evening. Jumping bananas. No one told me that the job of being a mascot was so much fun!

Don't forget that cooking is part of the 100 challenge and so that is another tick on the sheet and one step closer to to completing it!

Silver Award

Well Done Cubs!

Last night I was invited to Fletcher's Lea to watch the presentation of the Chief Scout Silver Award to 10 of our Cubs. These Cub Scouts came from both our packs the Falcons and the Herons. Their Leaders and parents were also invited to join in the celebration and support them.

Graham Meldrum (DC) and Greg Stewart (DCC) made the presentations and Peter Makewell (ADC Scouts) gave a talk about the type of activities Scouts in Ware and District take part in. This gave the award winners, who have or are about to move up to Scouts, and their parents, an idea of the opportunities the young people will be able to take up.

The Cubs have to work very hard to gain this award and need to have taken a full part in the programme in the years they have spent as a Cub.

It is a great achievement and we are all very proud of them and the hard work they have put in. The Cubs themselves enjoyed gaining the award and learnt many new skills along the way. Hopefully some will go on to gain the Chief Scout Gold Award in the Scout Troop.