Formed in July 1954, 3rd Ringwood have been pleased to celebrate our 70th Anniversary this year. Activities at our annual Group camp back in the spring was themed around the anniversary, and in August an afternoon of fun activities at Harry’s Island was attended by many guests, members and their families.
After completing the formalities of a group AGM, all had the opportunity to enjoy a water slide, archery, bouncy assault course, box carts, tomahawks, giant jenga, welly boot and horseshoe throwing, lawn darts – or to just chill. Before the afternoon ended, the magnificent 70th Anniversary cake was cut up and everyone enjoyed a slice. Special 70th Anniversary souvenir badges were produced for each event.
It was just the cherry on a year of amazing adventures:
Ellingham Show
Members of all ages turned out in force on the Thursday evening before the Ellingham Show in August, and were once again able to contribute a little assistance to the small team of organisers by helping prepare the show ground ready for a very busy Saturday.
Ellingham Show is a very popular country show taking place annually on the Somerley Estate near Ringwood featuring gymkhana, displays and judged categories for a variety of other animals, craft tents, vehicle displays, memorabilia, music, food, trade stands – and more.
Profits from the show are used to support local charities and other good causes – so it is a very worthy recipient of any Scouting assistance our members can provide.
Our main task was the unstacking and setting out of scores of tables and hundreds of chairs in the members enclosure, bar and food prep areas. The team set about it enthusiastically and the task was completed in little over an hour – a record time! A few additional tasks were completed in minutes and then all were able to return home in time for Eastenders!
Carnival clean up
A modest army of Beavers, Cubs and Scouts armed themselves with gloves, litter grabbers and rubbish sacks to help with cleaning up the town after the Ringwood Carnival.
After meeting up on Bickerley, groups radiated out to the surrounding streets, or swept alongside the fairground on Bickerley scavenging for discarded cans, bottles, food packaging and other unsightly detritus. An hour or so later, everyone was able to stack their bulging rubbish sacks by the now pristine roadsides ready for collection by the refuse crews. All should be very satisfied with a job well done – and with the grateful thanks of the street cleaning teams and the Carnival organisers.
Trigbagging
Earlier this year, the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts of 3rd Ringwood were set the challenge to visit as many Ordnance Survey Triangulation Pillars (‘trigs’) as they could during the year.
Whether near or far, weekends or holidays, they simply had to take a photo to add to the challenge board back at HQ to prove they had been. The website ‘Trigbagging.co.uk’ will indicate the location of all the trigs in the UK – but an OS OLM or Landranger map is the best way of pinpointing exactly where they are.
A local hike was arranged for the Scout Troop to get them started on collecting and the trigs at Ibsley Common and Hampton Ridge were quickly ‘bagged’ and added to the board. It was perfectly ok for local trigs to be visited or captured more than once, and a few other local trigs from Bramshaw to Sway to Bratley soon joined them on the board.
Photos of more distant trigs from London, Lulworth and Hertfordshire started to trickle in during early summer – but the summer holidays brought a relative avalanche of photos from the Lake District to South Wales to Oxfordshire! The Cubs enjoyed an autumn evening hike out to the HuffDuffs (see below) on Ibsley Common and were also able to ‘bag’ the nearby trig and get themselves onto the board.
Credit to all who took part and returned 33 ‘bagged’ trigs for the board (so far!), but special mentions for Scouts Alice and Jacob who bagged half of the total between them.
Cubs visit the ‘Huff Duffs’
After assembling at Mockbeggar crossroads on a fine September evening, the Cub Pack hiked a couple of kilometers to the remains of the High-Frequency-Direction-Finding (HuffDuff) installation built during WW2 on Ibsley Common, near Ringwood.
Containing the latest technology of the time, this ‘top secret’ apparatus enabled the operators to detect radio transmissions of aircraft – whether friend or foe, plot their direction, and either help guide friendly ones into Ibsley airfield, or raise the alarm if unfriendly ones were detected. An information board inside the walls explains all about it, and recounts some interesting facts.
The Cubs searched the deep heather around the periphery of the ruin, and located many of the concrete blocks denoting the points of the compass. Walking back along a different route, the Pack had time to pose for a photo at the nearby trig pillar and get themselves onto the Group’s ‘Trig Pillar Challenge’ board.
Unfortunately, the anticipated large herd of deer which often congregates here each evening – didn’t, and only a handful of deer were spotted – mainly at quite some distance. Arriving back at Mockbeggar 90 minutes after the start, Cubs had a few minutes to examine the airfield memorial, while a few aspects of the Countryside Code were covered, before collection by parents.