Cranham Scout Group

Today, the Beavers worked on their Experimentor badges - so they planted cress seeds to see how they grow. They they had a magnetic treasure hunt with little frog and duck magnets, going around the room and making a list of everything they could find that was ferromagnetic. Then they had a closer look at magnetism with a little show of magnetic magic.

Then the Cubs and Scouts had similar programmes - celebrating Founder’s Day, the birthday of Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting. So we had various party games and party food, and ‘birthday cake’ in the form of cup cakes (each with a candle in). We had them each light a candle while thinking about something they care about, then as a group, blow them all out again. And we enlisted the District Commissioner to talk a bit about Founder’s Day and the life of Baden-Powell, which also helps the new cub towards the requirements of her Investiture.

…it’s school half term, so us leaders get a break!

The theme for Beavers and Cubs this week was the upcoming Chinese New Year. The Beavers made paper lanterns and decorated their dragons, and had a lantern-lit closing ceremony; then the Cubs had stories about the Chinese New Year (the story of the monster Nian, which New Year commemorates, and the story of how the years gained their Chinese animal names), and made some rather excellent paper dragons.

Then the Scouts started on a long-term project to organise a play, with Sarah teaching them some drama skills from her Musical Theatre days; projecting the voice, expressing emotion with body language, improvisation, and so on. They took to this with surprising ingenuity, so we have high hopes for their final production…

Today, the beavers made Centenary Trees. This involved them drawing around their hands on paper, cutting them out, and then writing about people they care and think about in the hands. These were then attached to a paper tree trunk, forming the leaves of a tree. This is a nice craft project for them, and encourages them to think of the people they care about!

For the cubs we had hoped to have instructors come from a folk dancing club, but they couldn’t make it. However, the ever-resourceful Jacqui produced music and moves, and taught the cubs line dancing. They enjoyed this greatly!

The scouts finished off their Challenge 100 things, with a mapreading challenge and the creation of as many birdfeeders (lard, nuts, and seeds melted together and poured into a cub with a hanging string) as they could - which we’ll be selling for Akany Avoko!

At last, after two postponements due to (firstly) a technical problem with the pool and (secondly) somebody earlier in the day having a ‘little accident’ in the water and leaving a horrible mess, we have finally had the swimming badge assessment!

Swimming is a ’staged’ badge in Scouting. Staged badges are the same across all sections, since they come in stages (numbered 1 to 5), each reflecting a different level of ability. So today we have Beavers, Cubs, and Scouts all in the pool together swimming lengths, treading water, and diving for bricks and so on.

Cranham had quite a lot of entrants in both stages, since being new none of ours had done them in previous years. I eagerly await the results, but for the few activities I was directly overseeing, I don’t think any of ours failed anything!