Happy New Year!
What an amazing term, and 2023, we’ve had.
It continues to amaze me how many different activities our leaders continue to offer in their varied programmes.
It’s always fantastic to see the children learning so much, and enjoying themselves in the process!As ever, I must give my thanks to all the leaders, volunteers, and the parents, who continue to make this such a fantastic group.
We continue to grow and this year will be no different. But, we can only do it with your help. There will be updates available soon on the next growth plans, as well as ways in which everyone can continue to help us run an amazing group.
I look forward to another great year.
Liam
Group Scout Leader
Squirrels
The Squirrels have enjoyed a first full term. We have litter picked, visted a local vet surgery and had a full tour of the operating theatres.
First aid awareness, Halloween crafts and lots of games.
One of the proudest moments this term was the Squirrels taking part in the Remembrance Parade. They all walked beautifully and were very respectful at the special service.
We finished with a fab sessions at Sandown enjoying a Mini Ringos sessions. I’m sure they all slept well that night! We also had a great Christmas party with crafts, pass the parcel and party food.
We cant wait to see what all the Squirrels will be getting up to in the New Year.
Beavers
We welcomed seven new young people to Beavers at the beginning of term, one of them joined us from our new Squirrels Drey; we look forward to providing adventure to more Squirrel Scouts in the future.
Whilst earning our Health and Fitness Activity badge we learned that eating healthily and staying active, helps Beavers be at their very best. We got off to a great start making our own ‘super summer smoothies’ that tasted yummy and contributed to our five a day. A couple of weeks later we visited an outdoor gym to take part in some fun exercise and after the half term we learned how to monitor our heartbeats and understanding the reasons for change before and after completing different physical activities.
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot! …
We were so impressed with the knowledge of Guy Fawkes that our Beavers shared with us around our campfire whilst drinking hot chocolate and toasting marshmallows in our own celebration of Bonfire Night. The evening also included the uniquely British activity of burning a ‘guy’ effigy on the campfire as well as sparklers.
November also included us learning about the St. Martin’s Day celebration from Anke (a parent in 1st Molesey, who originally hails from Germany). We discussed ways that we could show kindness like St. Martin, a knight in Roman times, who cut his cloak in two with his sword in order to share it with a beggar. Beavers also observed the celebration by making their own lanterns and baking Weckmann, a bread roll shaped into a gingerbread man form. Our thanks to Anke for a superb meeting.
During the summer our Beavers enjoyed sailing and powerboating one evening on the Island Barn Reservoir and this term they were given the opportunity to go indoor kayaking. It is a great way to introduce the Beavers to kayaking as they are able to learn kayaking skills in a safe environment.
We began the festive season by helping the white rabbit find Alice on Painshill Park’s winter trail on a Sunday, so that our families could join in the fun (we were a group of 56 persons!). I think everyone who was there will agree that the crystal grotto was enchanting and the hot chocolate/spiced apple drink ‘hit the spot’ in conclusion of an enjoyable afternoon together.
Monday Cubs
Tuesday Scouts
This term, the Tuesday Scouts have experienced a variety of activities – indoors and outdoors, practical and theoretical. Prior to half term, we took advantage of the milder weather with a final kayak session on the Thames, a community litter pick, an evening at Polyapes and orienteering. The orienteering was part of the Outdoor Challenge badge requiring the scouts to navigate a circuit around the Esher Common, solving clues as they went.
After half-term, we’ve been more hut-based, with a session run by the Navy, highlighting the breadth of careers available, Local Knowledge and a Pizza Oven. Further sessions saw the scouts storyboarding, then performing their own Shadow Puppet story, learning and communicating via semaphore and a heartwarming activity that saw the scouts writing Christmas cards for local care home residents. For our final evening of the year, we were ice skating at Hampton Court Palace, where our young people were able to enjoy a mild (and quiet) evening on the ice, with only a couple of minor bumps to show for it. Away from Tuesday evenings, we’ve had scouts taking part in: the Night Hike; Cross-Country; District Cooking Competition; Remembrance Sunday; Microlight Flying; Go Ape and Indoor Kayaking.
We had seven investitures this term, adding to our young (and gender-balanced) section. We’ve tried to focus on facilitating a range of activities, to provide all scouts with broad experiences and skills for life. With our senior scouts, we’re focussing on coaching them through their Gold award activities before they are ready to move to Explorers in 2024 – parents of these scouts may see some homework to support this. If any parents have skills that they may be able to run an activity with us (e.g. an interesting job, communication skills or topic) please let one of the leaders know and we’ll discuss how we can incorporate this into our programme next year.
Wednesday Scouts
Another packed few months with us taking full advantage of the longer 14 week term! It’s tricky to capture all the adventure in this short report… but our Scouts have been fantastic and risen to the challenge of learning new skills and pushing themseles to try new things every week. We’ve welcomed lots of new Scouts and leaders to the troop this term, taking us up to 34 young people who get so much out the Wednesday sessions. Thank you so much to the team that makes everything we do possible!
Many of ours Scouts began the Autumn Term still reeling in adventure from our epic trip to the Swiss Alps with Surrey Scouts at the end of August. The video below features plenty of familar faces and sums up a trip of a lifetime!
Our Scouts returned having experienced the magic of World Scouting and an opportunity to climb mountains!
Back in Molesey (and closer to sea level) we have been focusing on the skills and teamwork challenges this term. The focus of Scouts is, after all, Skills For Life and we’ve provided plenty of opportunties to cook, create, construct, navigate and nail the skills that’ll help us in later life.
Cooking has been a hit this term, and we’ve loved creating chicken and halloumi wraps, as well as turning the Hut into a Pizza restaurant – thanks to our local Italian restaurant Averna for lending us their expertise (and proper pizza sauce)!
We are so fortunate to be supported by a team volunteers who possess a variety of skills that we can pass on to the children. Gary led two fantastic construction evenings where the Scouts had a chance to work with real bricks and mortar to build walls.
Night hikes, night navigation, pioneering and first aid skills have also been developed this term culminating in one of our teams winning the 14km district night hike competition held this year in Walton-on-the-Hill – well done everyone!
Thursday Cubs
We’ve had another super busy term at Cubs, welcoming new Cubs and sadly saying goodbye to our older Cubs.
We enjoyed having the opportunity to practise our shelter building and fire starting skills at Polyapes, alongside taking part in some of our favourite wide games.
One of our last minute activities involved designing and making skateboard parks for finger skateboards. We didn’t know that Thursday Cubs were such brilliant designers!
One of our busiest nights involved baking in the Hut and rifle shooting in the Boat Shed. It made for a VERY busy night but lots of new scouting skills were learnt. The absolute favourite ‘Chip Shop Challenge’ evening made an appearance once again and the Thursday Cubs loved visiting each of the Chip shops in Molesey to find their winning Chip shop!
Our incredible Sixers rose to the challenge of running the entire Pack meeting during our Sixers Night. Evie, Phoebe and Zoe led three very different activities for the rest of the pack to take part in which they thoroughly enjoyed. The Leaders always enjoy Sixers Night too as it means we can put our feet up and watch our wonderful Sixers demonstrate all of the Scouting skills they have learnt!
Although a little too chilly for the river, Thursday Cubs were still able to practise their skills on the water when many of our Cubs took part in a kayaking pool session. We learnt to capsize safely and had lots of fun splashing around in the warm pool!
We have been really lucky to be able to spend not one, but two evenings with our friends in Monday Cubs. A brilliant evening was had by all ice skating at Hampton Court Palace and then our final week was spent watching a Christmas movie at the Hut in our PJs.
What a brilliant term Thursday Cubs have had!
Excerpt from the UK Scout website:
Who are Explorers? Explorers are a go-getting group of young people aged 14 to 18. Together, they make up the fifth section of the Scouts, who week in and week out, gather in groups called Units to try new things, make new friends and conquer the small task of changing the world.
What do Explorers get up to? Being an Explorer is all about discovering the world on your own terms and making the most of what you have, wherever and whoever you are. Alongside your friends, you’ll master the skills that will make you feel stronger and happier in the long run and try things you’d never get the chance to do at home or at school….you’ll have the freedom to choose what you’d like to do and work together with adults to make it happen.
Who leads Explorers? Adult volunteers are on hand to share their skills and keep everyone safe.
If this sounds like something you’d like to try, please get in touch to experience the benefits of volunteering.
This term has seen our Explorers continuing with the Chef Activity badge by baking bread rolls with yeast as well as flatbread. As with all of our baking there is a lot of enthusiasm with mixed results from edible to looking good but best to politely decline the offer to taste test! So far, we have baked cupcakes, biscuits, scones and bread with only cakes and tarts outstanding.
Our chip crawl around Molesey over a year ago was so popular that it was repeated this term, with the same results (Molesey Fish Bar wins the contest). It is fair to say that any activity that involves food for teenagers is popular!
We tried our hand at crafts this term beginning with punched tin can lanterns. Our review for this activity is to make sure that a robust tin is chosen and that the nails are not blunt (if you thought to give it a try). This week we went with a festive theme and gave paracord Christmas tree decorations a go. The instructions were surprisingly tricky but with perseverance the results were pleasing.
Explorers are very good at bringing together a quiz night; a few Explorers volunteered to run some rounds and these included American faces, sharks, animal skeletons, album covers, music, 1st Molesey general knowledge, London general knowledge and movies. My thanks to them for providing a fun night.
There’s something special about a Scout campfire, they aren’t just for keeping us warm and fed; they encourage chat, which enables us to bond with one another and I find they instil peace and contentment. Explorers are very good at building a campfire and even better at cooking s’mores.
We decided to make use of the table tennis and slingshots available to us at the hut. It’s impressive the speed those chickpeas can gain when shooting towards some tin cans and the accuracy shown by a few Explorers was surprising (however they do manage to get everywhere despite our best efforts). There are all kinds of benefits to playing table tennis, which I don’t think was taken into consideration at all on the night, other than how best to beat your opponent.
Walks with Jim have become almost a must do! This time it was an invigorating walk around Bushy Park in the cold air of a winter’s night that included a close encounter with a deer, who didn’t seem to mind our presence at all. Such a worthwhile outing not to be missed leaving us with a sense of wellbeing. Our thanks as always to Jim for being our lead on this.
Other events this term included first aid training, Go Ape, Thorpe Park, Remembrance Parade and indoor kayaking/personal permit training and assessment.
Our Christmas activity this year was ice-skating at Hampton Court Palace, which is always a great deal of fun had by all and afterwards we celebrated a 17th birthday with cake and hot chocolate.
Save the date!
The 2024 Molesey Beer Festival will be held 11th to 12th October 2024 and tickets are now available.
This is an important fundraiser for the group and we depend on your support.
Please share the dates and link to the website with your friends and family.