Cranham Scout Group

Today the Cubs had a bonfire at HQ. The leaders turned up an hour early to get the thing lit, which we only just managed by the time the Cubs arrived, since it was pretty damp…

But, luckily, we had a reasonable blaze going while we started off with some campfire songs, then when it had burned down a bit to produce some embers, out came the dough and sticks for the Cubs to bake bread twists over the fire, which were then filled with jam when they were done. And, of course, marshmallows for toasting!

Since we won’t meet next week as it’s half term, the cubs celebrated halloween today with a light-hearted evening of fun and games.

Then a lot of badges were presented at the end!

Today we did some more badges; this time Sports Enthusiast and Physical Recreation. Basically, the cubs took turns to tell the others about a sport they follow (for Sports Enthusiast) or partake in themselves (for Physical Recreation). Once again, it’s a badge they get for something they already do for fun, so is rather rewarding.

Today we did two things: completing the navigator’s badge, and painting flower pots for a longer-term project we’re working on.

The flower pots went well, but the navigator’s badge didn’t - the level of spatial awareness amongst the cubs when it came to drawing a map of the village was surprisingly low!

We’ll need to try again later, after some exercises to sort that out.

The Family Fun Evening went well; the kids had a good time on the climbing walls and the blind trail, and everyone got to mingle and eat and catch up on news. Then we had a campfire with songs, and finally, the announcements, reports, and getting the formalities of an AGM out of the way.

Today we had the Cubs bring in their hobbies and collections, and talk to us about them, for their Hobbies and Collectors badges.

These are nice badges - the children can earn recognition for something they do themselves in their own time, so it’s a quick and easy badge for them as they’ve already done the work - and, therefore, we get to give out a lot of badges in one session, to the delight of all

We’re back!

The first meeting went well, welcoming two new Cubs, and one Beaver who is swimming up to join the Cubs.

Accounts of the Beaver and Scout meetings aren’t available as I go to press, but we took the Cubs outside (while the weather’s still good and before the evenings get dark) for a run around on Cranham Common for a wide game, which seemed to go down well!

Akela was away in London for this meeting, so Skip kindly took over, helped by her father Len (a scout leader from Rainham, Essex)…

Two of the cubs had brought in their collections to show us, which will go towards their Collectors badges! And they also brought a friend each, entitling them to the Bring A Friend centenary badge.

We had planned to finish the previous term by having a barbecue with the Cubs and Scouts to discuss plans for this term, but the flooding interrupted that. So we started the new term by discussing this with the Cubs; having only just returned from London and having missed the chance to discuss it with the children, we had not yet planned the programme for the term!

So we now have a list of ideas to try and incorporate as the evenings grow darker and we can’t be outdoors as much as we were during the summer…

Today, the Cubs looked at water conservation. When we were planning this term’s activities, it hadn’t rained for weeks and the world was looking a rather wilted place - we hadn’t imagined that when we came to do the water conservation day it would be raining so much that houses were flooding…

But, of course, in many countries, there’s not enough water to drink (let alone grow food), so it’s still an applicable concern!

After discussions about the importance of water conservation, we played a game that highlighted some of the issues.

Then the scout plan for the day had to be changed; it was too wet to go outside and complete the Nature badge, so instead, we extended last week’s cub cryptography exercise to Scout level. The discussion afterwards led to the topic of maths education, and the changes to the education system since Skip and Akela were doing GCSEs and A levels!