These reports are part of a series from members across the district for the Annual General Meeting to be held online on 8th July 2020.
Magellan continues to flourish with around 20 members, leadership from Jackie Heath, Paul Stubbington, George Stephens and Tishie Northcott and help from Charlie Daniel Hobbs and Lewis Brown.
INTERNATIONAL – Summer 2019 saw 25 Explorers/ Network and 10 leaders spend 4 weeks in the beautiful country of Malawi . Most of our time we camped with 15 amazing Malawian Scouts and worked everyday in two schools. We built 10 bunk beds and 80 timber lockers from scratch for the
girls hostel at the secondary school as well as a kitchen store and 12 desks.
At a nearby primary school we repair desks painted all the classrooms and created a library. This was following on from our 2016 work and the head mistress reported that since 2016 and the first 60 bed we built to create the girls hostel not a single girl had dropped out from school and indeed several girsl were now going on to university. In a country where education really is the key to success this is an amazing change.
Everyone of our participants had an incredible experience, learnt about themselves and the world, and had the opportunity to gain new skills, cooking, woodwork, camping, independence and confidence. We very much value the support of New Forest North in enabling these expeditions to really offer the best of what Scouting is all about. Thank you.
There was of course plenty of fun at our training weekends and then during acclimatisation at Ntchesi lodge with a village walk and astonishing cultural performance and then at Lake Malawi and Liwonde National park at the end.
FUN AND FRIENDS & SCOUTING SKILLS – We have played table tennis, pool, rounders, been to Tishie’s farm and made pizzas in the outdoor oven, made our own apple juice, been hiking and made ballistas. We enjoyed an evening with Pegasus Network where we played Taskmaster. The Explorers ran successful Wally Mansbridge competitions for the Stanleys’ Own Scouts and the Guides in 2019 and 2020.
PHYSICAL RECREATION – has included rounders, trek cart racing, archery and the Swedish game Moki. We had a trip to the lido and invested James Sibley and Miles in the Lido. We went kayaking at Woodmill. Later in the year we went fishing.
DISTRICT EVENTS – We had two teams entering the 2020 District Eagle Trophy competition, one came second and one 4th so well done to
them both… it was pretty cold. At the end of 2019 we had the district Christmas crafts, ice skating at Winchester cathedral and a quiz.
COMMUNITY – In 2019 we participated in St George’s Day Parade, and Remembrance Sunday. We also enjoyed pulling Himalayan Balsam for the
Hampshire Wildlife Trust. We ran the BBQ for the Coythorne fun run and BBQ at Romsey Rotary Relay Marathon in 2019.
CAMP – In October we camped at Ferny Crofts and took part in a training event run by Adam Jollans for the Young Person Response unit. Explorers, Police and Fire cadets took part in three emergency scenarios (including flooding and a missing person). The idea is that in the future Scouts could be called on to help in such incidents for real. It was all very interesting. We also had a go on the zip wire and enjoyed camping and volley ball. Later that month some of our Explorers joined the District Expedition in the Lake District for a week of walking and mountain activities.
AWARDS – Well done to Benjamin Lang, Alistair Adams and Megan Lodwidge for achieving their DofE Silver expedition, they walked in Cranboure Chase and the Purbecks creating an excellent video as why the Purbecks were great place for Silver expedition. Daniel Meech, Jamie Callum and Alaric Little-Gray have done their practice Silver expedition. In early March 2020 just before lockdown we started training for Bronze DofE.
