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.
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