News

The District has launched a Recruit a Friend Badge to help recruit young people.

These badges have been sent out to each group so we have enough for each person on the census.

To earn this badge the young person needs to recruit a friend and buddy them until they are invested.

Additionally if a young person wants to use to recruit an adult who takes out an appointment and is invested this is valid too. The badge is there to aid recruitment so do use it if helpful.

If any more are required then they can be obtained from the District badge Shop at no charge.

Paul Fix
Acting District Commissioner

Our Beavers have recently taken part in a very special and important project for St Francis Hospice. The Beavers drew and coloured Cheerful Pictures for display at a local hospice and also collected money for the Jam Jar Army, to donate to the independent charity. The project links to the Beavers World Challenge Badge and involves a community project and helping the wider community. Due to the pandemic, helping the local community together at this time is difficult, however we thought of an excellent project with St Francis Hospice for the Beavers to take part in safely. The hospice have worked tirelessly throughout the course of the pandemic so it was important for us to provide them with some donations to contribute to their endless quality care for their patients. The photo collages below show our Beavers Jam Jars and their amazing drawings, which they should be extremely proud of! Their generous contributions will make a massive difference to the hospice!

Charlie Lovegrove

Congratulations to the two winners of the District Lego Competition.

The winners were picked by three members of the District. The DDC, District Chair and a District Cub Leader.

Due to the good quality of the building we decided to give a second prize. 1st prize was a £40 Lego kit and second was a £20 Lego kit.

The winner was Luke from 8th Hornchurch Jupiter and second place went to Jack from 1st Squirrels Heath. Well done to both Cubs and have fun with your new kits.

Bob Wallace
ADC Cubs (Events)

2nd Cranham cubs have been extremely busy since lockdown and between them have earned 125 badges including 88 activity badges, 7 great indoors, and the completion of 13 challenge badges meaning 2 of our cubs got their chief scout silvers and we’ve not finished yet. We had an isolation international space camp to coincide with the recent space rocket launch to the ISS. We started with a zoom call (22 of us including 4 leaders and 1 young leader) we played a game and taught the cubs a knot, it was mayhem but great fun. Sleepover was Friday night but some cubs slept over on Saturday too. We gave them lots of missions to complete over the weekend and most completed them all. The cubs continue with our support to achieve their badges that we would normally be doing on a pack night, they are working really hard and we are extremely proud of them and thank the parents for their support and help.

David Dutch

In commemoration of Remembrance Day, we believed that it was vital that we as a group did our part to remember the fallen soldiers and commemorate this very important day in our history. Due to the current lockdown restrictions, we asked our Beavers and Cubs to create a drawing of a relevant image (eg- a soldier, poppy etc.) on a sheet of A4 and colour it, at home. Once drawn and coloured, we then asked for the Beavers and Cubs to write a few simple sentences at the bottom of their work, answering the question “Why is it important that we wear a poppy?”

We asked the parents of our Beavers and Cubs to then email us two photos- one of just their child’s design, and one of their child in uniform holding their design up.

The designs we received were excellent and very creative, and we were astonished at the amount of our group that took part to commemorate the fallen soldiers and their sacrifice for our country. Well done to all of our Beavers and Cubs that took part in this very important project. You should all be very proud of yourselves.

When we return to normal meetings, hopefully in the new year, we have the intention of creating a collage with all of the designs.

Charlie L – Young Leader for 2nd Squirrels Heath Beavers Colony

This week, I asked the Beavers to design, draw, colour or paint on a Pebble; either a design thanking the NHS or something in relation to Beavers and our colony. We are aiming to create a ‘Pebble Patch’, with all of our Beavers’ designs, in the field of our meeting headquarters- Arnold Lodge. I asked for an emailed image of the pebbles, and I was astonished by the designs I received. We had a great response and all of our Beavers’ designs were brilliant! I promised a prize for everyone that sent me a design, when we return to Beavers eventually! Well Done to all those who got involved at 2nd Squirrels Heath Beavers.

Charlie YL

Whilst looking for something that we could do to complete part 2 of the My World Challenge (Very difficult during a lockdown) 3 of our Beavers came up with the idea of making up a hamper for NHS staff. Whilst discussing the idea they suggested that it should go to a department that was less publicised on national news. At first we thought of Phlebotomy as our Beaver leader is a phlebotomist but most of them had been re-deployed around Queens hospital. Then during an email exchange with one of our ex Scouts who was a Young Leader with the Beaver colony I was surprised to find out that she now works in the Aseptic Pharmacy at Queens. There they make up all the drugs used in Chemo therapy and also the drugs used for patients with COVID  – 19 that are on ventilators. Problem solved.

The Beavers, Jake Baines, Dylan Hothi and Cian Stone decided that the hamper should be made up of things that can be eaten at tea breaks and during the day. That meant that all that we had taught them about healthy eating was instantly forgotten. The hamper was made up of various sweets (Especially Heroes) cakes and biscuits, Tea bags and coffee.

I asked Emma if she would take the hamper into work and she was only too pleased to.

This effort that the three beavers made completed the My World Challenge and also completed the work they needed to do to gain their Chief Scout’s Bronze Award. Well done you three and as can be seen from the photographs and letter your effort is really appreciated by the staff at Queens hospital.

This goes to show that with a bit of work at home and a bit of inventiveness badges can be gained even during a lockdown so please encourage your Beavers to complete the badge work that is being emailed to you.

Charlie YL