
Jump to:
| What’s Coming Up?
| Reminders, opportunities and notices
| What’s been happening?
Welcome to Edition 36 of Tails of the New Forest. Boom! A fantastic start to 2025 with lots achieved, more on the horizon and plenty of opportunities to share and get stuck in with.
What’s coming up?
Join us for Founder’s Day

Founder’s Day is the birthday of Baden-Powell, the man who started Scouting, and it’s used by Scouts around the world to reflect and celebrate.
When: Sunday 23rd February 2025, 2pm – 5pm.
Where: Ashurst and Colbury Scout HQ, Hunter’s Hill, Colbury, SO40 7EJ
All our volunteers, young people and their parents and carers from everywhere in the District – from Eling to Sandleheath, Burley to Copythorne – are welcome to join us for afternoon tea with food and some games such as the surprisingly competitive quiz.
Do please share with your groups and sections and let Joy know if you’re coming so we can ensure we have enough cake.
Harry’s Island Maintenance Days

By Robin Mair, Joint Lead Volunteer, and Steven Osborn, Support Team Leader
Harry’s Island, our District Scout Campsite, welcomes campers again for fun and activities from Easter but we’ve got a few jobs to do to get it camper ready.
Open to adult volunteers, parents, carers and Explorers, come along on the dates below and help us tick some jobs off our list. From site clearance, dismantling old structures, to repairs and installing new items donated for us. Join us on:
Saturday 8th February
Saturday 22nd February
Saturday 8th March
A member of the District Team will be present each day to coordinate the tasks for the day. Refreshments and snacks will be available. Pass on to your groups and please respond to [email protected].
Last chance: Young Leader Rally

By Finn Le Page, Young Leaders team at Hampshire Scouts
It’s your last chance this year to sign up to the Young Leaders’ Rally. Back for the seventh year running with educational sessions on various topics, activity sessions including target sport and high ropes, and social events including the ever popular silent disco, quiz, campfire, challenges and games. Discover more on the Hampshire Scouts website.
Where: Ferny Crofts
When: 21st – 23rd February 2025
Cost: £30
Want to know what you’re missing? Check out the video from last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHxM78XOunY Sign up by the 14th February.
Youth Council is Coming
By Zara Seymour, County Youth Lead at Hampshire Scouts

We are really excited to invite all Explorers and Scouts aged 13+ to the next Hampshire Scout Youth Council at Ferny Crofts from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd March. We’d like to fill as many of these spaces as possible with people from different parts of the County.
Youth Council is a brilliant opportunity for Young People to develop leadership skills and engage with mature themes to make a difference to scouting within Hampshire. At each Youth Council, we focus on an important issue within Hampshire, which will be identified in the New Year. Furthermore, Youth Council provides a platform for Young People to voice their opinions, wants and concerns to senior Hampshire Volunteers and sign up to several Youth Rep roles within the Hampshire volunteering structure.
Where: The Lodge, Ferny Crofts Scout Activity Centre – options to sleep indoors or camp out.
When: Friday 21st March, 6pm, to Sunday 23rd March, 4pm.
Cost: Covered by the District – email Andy at [email protected] to confirm.
Sign up: Fill in this form, and email Andy above.
The weekend includes a Youth Council Necker, weekend accommodation, instructor-led on-site activities, and a weekend of training and project-based activities with lots of game and challenge sessions.
Fordingbridge Rotary event in aid of Harry’s Island
Last chance to join in and share this event:
Save the Date: Donkey Derby
This joint event between 4th Eling Sea Scouts and 5th Testwood Scouts is coming back to Totton on 17th May at Eling Rec:
Reminders, opportunities and notices
Care for Harry’s Island.
Join our Campsite Sub-Team.
From Robin Mair, Joint Lead Volunteer, and Steven Osborn, Support Team Leader
Are you up for a new challenge? Do you have some spare time? Would you like to join the team to help maintain and grow the District Campsite?



After many years of dedicated and exemplary service, Tony Parker, campsite warden, has decided to stand down at the end of the 2025 season. We would like to grow a new team and help put the new structure in place this coming summer to ensure a smooth transition following Tony’s retirement.
From helping out with occasional maintenance, to chipping in with preparing the site for groups and the simple business of opening up to welcome groups to the site, we have a range of roles to suit different skills, time commitments and distances from the site.
Interested? Contact Robin at [email protected], plus a role will appear on the Scouts volunteering opportunity site very soon.
Help put Tails together
From Steven Osborn, Support Team Leader
At the moment our District Media and Comms team, who help produce Tails each month and look after our social media so more people know about the amazing things we do, consists of just me. I’m looking to grow the team so if you’ve got a social media savvy parent, or someone who knows or wants to learn simple website tricks, share this opportunity with them (via the scouts website) or email me at [email protected].
District Diary
Explorers: Take on the Triangle Hike

From East Grinstead Scouts
The East Grinstead Rover SAS are again running the Triangle Hike this year. The hike will be run on the weekend of the 15th -16th November.
The am of the Triangle Hike is to provide an opportunity for Explorer Scouts to put into practice their traditional navigation skills that they have developed, at night, in a controlled and supervised environment.
It encourages teams of 4 to work together to solve problems and puzzles and compete against other Explorer teams from around the South East.
What’s been happening?
From festive events, giving and looking back at the year gone by, there’s been a lot to catch up on this month. Let’s crack on!
Squirrels take on the Reindeer Trophy
Four teams of Squirrels joined up for games and challenges and taking on the Reindeer Trophy:
A triumph for Fordingbridge Christmas Post
1st Fordingbridge once again ran their Scout Post at Christmas, raising money for their group:
Young Leader Harry leads Beaver International nights
The Beavers of 5th Testwood were treated to an International night this week led by Young Leader Harry:
Support from the Fordinbridge Community
As part of their fundraising for a new events shelter, 1st Fordingbridge recently received £250 from Co-op towards their goal:
Squirrels fill food bank shelves
3rd Ringwood’s Squirrel Drey recently visited Sainsbury’s to source food to donate to their local foodbank:
Fordingbridge’s action-packed autumn term
Fordingbridge’s scout troop shared some fab photos of their adventures covering the last autumn term:
Lyndhurst Scout’s Christmas Camp
The weekend before the Christmas school holiday, Lyndhurst Scouts had their annual Christmas sleepover. This year 10 of the scouts hiked from Ferny Crofts area down to Gang Warily Scout hut near Holbury (approximately 11km).
After an afternoon of hiking, the Scouts sat down for a wonderful Christmas dinner followed by the Muppets Christmas Carol Movie.
On the Sunday morning they went to Calshot Activity Centre to have a go on the Aero Trek experience. Aero Trek is an obstacle course more than six metres in the air within the roof of a WW1 aircraft hangar. The Scouts needed to navigate various obstacles including a zipline, barrels and star steps. It was amazing to see that all of them successfully completed the course even the ones that aren’t keen on heights!!

Remember you can stay up to date with what’s going on on our Facebook page (/newforestscouts) or Instagram (@newforestscouts). Plus if you’re a volunteer you can be part of the Facebook group for members too. Do remember to share your stories with us throughout the month so we can share them directly and keep having great Scouting adventures.
Robin and Kevin.
Send your news and items for the next edition of Tails at the end of February before the 25th to [email protected].