News

So, we thought that after a three year gap that St George’s Day 2022 might have been a small select affair – and how wrong we were!!!
The sun shone, the parade route was packed with cheering parents and residents and we had to get extra chairs out in the hall as everyone packed in!

If doughnut sales is a barometer of numbers all 500 of those went in a flash and many were left disappointed so we clearly had hundreds on parade!
It was lovely to see so many adults being recognised with long service & good service awards and the smiles on the faces of all the participants was great to see!

Can I thank the Police, the Council, Romford Drum & Trumpet Corps, the site team at Emerson Park, our Road Traffic Marshalls, our Pianist, Pete Seddon our Parade Marshall and everyone who helped to set up the venue yesterday and to tidy up today.

It was a lovely celebration of the family of Scouting in Hornchurch and I was bursting with pride seeing you all parading past!

Well done one and all!

Dean Jefferys
Interim District Commissioner

On the 4th of February, the 2nd Squirrels Heath Beavers colony all wore red to our weekly meeting, in aid of #WearRedDay. This annual day is in the 10th year of it’s launch, for the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund – who are amazing in supporting research and encouraging awareness for congenital heart disease in both children and adults.
In order for the Beavers to wear non-uniform and attend the session in red clothing, we asked our parents to kindly donate £1, with all proceeds going to the charity. We were astonished by the very kind donations that we received – and managed to raise just under £65 for the charity in total – which is an amazing achievement.
We would like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to all of our lovely Beaver parents at the 2nd Squirrels Heath Beavers Colony! Your generosity will be very much appreciated by the charity.

Charlie Lovegrove

Today we had the enormous pleasure to witness the award of the extremely rare Cornwell Scout Award for bravery to Eddie, a Cub Scout from 8th Hornchurch who was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of 6 and had to endure gruelling chemotherapy, six hour operations, repeated blood tests and infusions, and all with a smile on his face.

Despite all of this Eddie’s dedication and devotion to Scouting has been second to none – only missing one Scout event throughout his treatment and often rushing from hospital appointments to get to Beavers at 2nd Squirrels Heath and now Cubs at 8th Hornchurch.
Fortunately Eddie’s treatment has been successful and his tumour has now not grown for over two years. Throughout all of this his positive and inspiring outlook has been a shining example to all!

The award was presented to a surprised Eddie today in front of friends and family by Lee Clark, County Commissioner for GLNE on behalf of Bear Grylls, the Chief Scout.

We are all really proud of Eddie and hope that he has an amazing day when he goes to Windsor Castle in April to meet the Chief Scout and to join the National Queens Scout Service. It’s so well deserved!

Dean Jefferys
Interim District Commissioner

To end this year, our Beavers were involved in a very important Community Project, as part of their World Challenge Badge. We aim to do a Community Project every year at our Beavers colony. Last year, we raised £438.96 for St Francis Hospice, through their Jam Jar Army project. This year, our project involved getting our Beavers to design some amazing Christmas Cards and put together some donations to give to elderly people in our community, who are clients at the home care company, Radfield Home Care Havering. The Christmas gift bags have been made up and are being distributed to the clients, and each of them have been so pleased to receive their cards and gifts. We cannot thank all of our parents/carers and Beavers enough for their  amazing generosity and very kind donations. Their kindness may have helped someone smile at what can be a very lonely time of year. We were so overwhelmed by their generosity, that when we had finished making up the gift bags for the clients at Radfield, we had a lot of stuff still left over – and so with the remaining gifts, we have made up three hampers, one ready to donate to St Francis Hospice, one to a local food bank and one to Wickes, who all donate them to families and individuals in need at Christmas. Therefore, the generosity shown by our colony will have touched many hearts this Christmas, so quite simply, thank you to all that were involved in this amazing project! 

Charlie Lovegrove