What’s been happening?
A day at the palace for Gold DofE holders
A big congratulations to Alison Osborn, until recently a member of Pegasus Scout Network and occasional member of Stanley’s Own Scout and Guide band.
After completing her Gold DofE and Queen’s Scout Award last year, she’s visited Buckingham Palace to collect her Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s Award surrounded by hundreds of other award winners within the royal gardens.
The day included inspirational speeches from athletes at the top of their field, actresses, foreign journalist Jon Simpson and the new Duke of Edinburgh himself. A big well done from us.
By Pat Savage, Skills Instructor at 1st Sandleheath
April and May 2023 were very significant dates for two DofE participants with Emily Wright attending the Gold Award Presentation at Buckingham Palace early in May and Rebecca McNally attending the New Forest DofE Network Bronze and Silver Presentation at Ringwood School at the end of April to receive her Bronze DofE Certificate.
Emily has completed all sections of her Duke of Edinburgh’s Award culminating with the Gold Award for which she undertook five sections, volunteering, physical, skills, expedition and residential. For her volunteering she worked for 12 months as a pastoral carer at her 6th form college helping and supporting others at a very stressful and extremely busy time in their academic careers.
For her physical she did working out at the gym for 6 months to improve her fitness levels and for her skills she concentrated on playing her saxophone and working towards her Grade 8 music exams for 12 months.
Her expedition was undertaken by canoeing the Great Glen Canoe Trail near Inverness in August 2019 with three other DofE participants over four days and three nights where they also studied the flora and fauna of the area as well as doing all the paddling required! For her residential she did a five-day Computing, Electronics and Robotics Summer Course at Southampton University and ended up building an Autonomous Robot to take part in a competition. Emily worked amazingly hard at her DofE and well deserves this top DofE Award.
Rebecca has worked very hard on her Bronze DofE Award and received her Bronze DofE certificate from Hallam Mills, Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire at the recent New Forest DofE Network Bronze and Silver presentation held at Ringwood School.
For her volunteering Rebecca helped at a charity/community organisation by working with young children for 3 months and for his physical did Ballet for 3 months. Rebecca’s skills section involved Church bellringing for 6 months and included bellringing for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations and also during the mourning period for our late Queen at various bell towers.
For her expedition, Rebecca did a two-day hike at Cranborne Chase and this involved studying species of and numbers of birds seen. She has now started on her Silver DofE Award and is doing extremely well on that too. Well done Rebecca.
Scouting the Zoo
By Shirley Brookes, Group Scout Leader at 1st Fordingbridge
The Beavers attended the ‘Scouting the Zoo’ day at Marwell Zoo on Sunday 14 May. A great time was had by all.
Plus, it was a great celebration for the first Chief Scouts Bronze Awards that the colony has achieved since it reformed with a new leadership team after the pandemic. It’s been a great effort by all concerned.
By Faye Osmond, Beaver Scout Leader at 5th Testwood
The 5th Testwood Beavers joined many other scouting and girlguiding groups for the Scouting the Zoo at Marwell event. We had 30 people attending in the end made up of Beavers, Cubs, leader’s children, parent helpers and leaders.
We were blessed with a full day of sun which meant lots of the animals were out enjoying it. There were additional activities to also entertain us such as pebbles painting, games, an explorer trail and meeting the Marwell snow leopard mascot.
A highlight for lots in attendance was our amazing timing visiting the tropical house as the sloth made a journey across the house over our heads. We will be looking forward to attending this in the future and finished the day with a group photo by the hippos and there were still lots of smiles as well as a cheeky “Narwhal smells”!
Donkey Derby Success
By Steven Osborn, Group Scout Leader at 5th Testwood
A humongous thank you to everyone involved in making the 26th Annual Totton and Eling Donkey Derby a roaring success. Attended by hundreds of members of the public for an afternoon of donkey races, activities such as climbing and tomahawk throwing as well as fun like bouncy castles, carnival games and stalls alongside firm favourites like tombolas and the tote. The sun was glorious and it was great to see so many getting involved in the Scouting activities too.
It was the first year of 5th Testwood running the event and we couldn’t have done it without the help and support of so many people; volunteers at both the 5th Testwood and 4th Eling Sea Scouts, the district and our parents lent a hand to sell programmes running up to the day, make the decisions on our committee, set up the event on the Friday, run the event on the Saturday and dismantle it all to return to their storage places all within 24 hours.
It’s been a herculean effort and while so many people must be thanked the biggest thanks must go to Sarah Challis for being our organisational heart and to Craig Challis for providing that spark of creativity and being our master of ceremonies during the day.
As we now put everything in order and work out how best to use the money raised, our volunteers are having a well-earned rest. My thanks to them all, they’re all amazing!
Sandleheath Beavers and Cubs
By Martine Coatham, Group Scout Leader at 1st Sandleheath
Sandleheath Cubs and Beavers have had a busy start to the summer term – Cubs have been on the water with our new Akela and team for their first wetting of 2023.
Beavers have been growing seeds, collecting rubbish and taking photos (which have been displayed at an
exhibition by our local camera club).
This week the Cubs and Beavers joined together to hear a water safety presentation from the RNLI and also shared some games in our field – our younger sections loved the opportunity of sharing a session together.
Netley Marsh Beavers
By Emma Hanslip, Beaver Scout Leader at 6th Netley Marsh
At Netley Marsh we have had a busy term, we have been spending a lot of time outdoors and making the most of the weather. Our first week back after Easter we did egg rolling at Boltons Bench, then we went for a walk and did some den building at Deerleap.
We were also invited to the Siemens train depot at Northam where we got a tour of the depot and a ride on a train and we even got given some free goodies.
We had a tea party for the King’s Coronation, which we had to do indoors due to the rain so a few changes to the itinerary but we all enjoyed a quiz and bingo, all King themed and enjoyed lots of yummy cakes.
We have had a 2-night S.T.E.M camp which was enjoyed by all who attended even though we were all awake from 4:00am on the first morning! We did lots of activities including making catapults, grabbers, cars and boats and we even walked to Goodies fish and chip shop for our tea.
We had a treat night planned at the pleasure park at the Southampton Sports Centre but unfortunately the owners had forgotten we were coming so we ended up having a fun night playing in the park.
What’s coming up?
District Camp 2024
This week Kevin has sent all volunteers in the district an email with up-to-date details of the District Camp, if you haven’t received it, please ask Kevin to send you a copy.
District Expedition
Sunday 22 – 28 October 2023 (half term) at the Scout Adventures Great Tower in the lake district.
Adventurous activities included – hill walking, rock climbing & caving. To log into the registration pages please
use the following link on our website. The booking form is available under the section ‘How to join in’
Registration opens at 00.00.01 hours on Thursday 1st June 2023
Email Kerie for more information ([email protected]) or message the Facebook page (New Forest Scouts District Expedition), use the same link to view photos of previous expeditions.
First Aid Module 10b Practical opportunity
Derrin Berry is running a drop-in session at 1st Fordingbridge Scout Headquarters on Tuesday 13 June, if you still have 10B Practical outstanding this is a great opportunity to get it completed locally. The session only lasts around 15 minutes. Please book via the Hampshire website: https://bookwhen.com/hampshirescouts
District Diary
The latest edition of the District Diary is included below.
If you have any Group events planned, where others are invited to attend and support, like carnivals, fetes etc. Then please let us know so we can add the details to the diary.
We hope you all have a great half-term break and hopefully the weather stays sunny for those off on
family holidays and some of our sections who are off to camp.
Team DC
Our web editor apologises for the length of time taken to get this edition of Tails online.