Group Flies To Victory

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 10:06:09 +0100

They’ve been seen flying in the skies over Eastleigh for the past one hundred years, but with our own Biggles installed in the cockpit and speeds reaching up to 2 miles an hour, the 4th Eastleigh ‘Scoutfire’ prototype plane caused quite a stir at this year’s Eastleigh Carnival.
After many moments given to working out a design, a whole team of experienced assembly attender’s (know as mums and dads) united together to produce this 2 pull power craft together in a record plane assembly time of two to three hours, in our factory in Southampton Road, known as ‘The Garage’.
No expense was spared with this first fully recycled wooden craft, and when the need was there that old unused bedroom paint was lovingly applied to the framework and milk bottle tops adapted for the instrument panel, stuck on by a solution of the new wonder pva glue, and very soon the aircraft was ready to be paraded around the streets of Eastleigh.

Although the deadline for showing at the Farnborough International Air show was missed the judges at Eastleigh Carnival took a great interest in the design and even asked for a test flight.
A large number of the Group young people with parents and leaders had turned up for the event , and were suitably dressed in an assortment of aeronautical uniforms and costumes ranging from pilots, gunners, air attendances and ground staff.
Although during the event there were large down pours of rain which prevented the plane from having its maiden flight, the rain did little to damping everyone’s enthusiasm.
Before the thrill of the carnival possession itself, with the young people enjoying themselves, flicking from one side of the road to the other (a practice that would normally cause a big rebuff) getting their money collection boxes filled, we were informed by the judges that not only had we won the ‘George Wright’ cup for best of class, but we also won the ‘Iris Price’ cup for best entry in the 2010 carnival. What a great day we had!!!
Thanks to everyone involved this year, and once again we have proved that in Scouting we can go out and enjoy ourselves, and also raise a lot of money for others, as well, so........ ‘Never in the history of the 4th Eastleigh Scout Group, had so much fun been given to so many, by so few’

Brian O’Neill
Group Chairman

Scout Summer Camp

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:29:49 +0100

Garner's Field 31st July - 4th August 2010
This year the scouts have had a summer camp on their own in Garner’s Field Scout camp site in Farnham, Surrey. It has been a great camp and everyone has had an amazing time.

Saturday
We arrived at the camp site after a long and exciting trip. Not long after arriving, we ate our packed lunches to give us plenty of energy for putting up camp. After several working hours, we had finally set up camp.
For dinner that evening, we had to cook spaghetti bolognese on our gas cookers. The cookers have 2 powerful stoves and a grill so it was fairly east to cook. The meal tasted very nice and the sauce gave it a lovely flavour. For pudding we could either have cake or doughnuts.
After dinner we went and explored the camp site and were told where we can and can’t go. For example, we were not allowed on the river bank. We then went back to the main camp and started making camp gadgets to go towards our outdoor challenge badge. I made a draining board for you to place cooking equipment on to dry. Some people made fishing rods and others made washing up bowl holders. We then played a wide game, directed by Laura and Jeremy from Wokingham District who had come to stay on camp. We had to find bits of paper of our colour and sell them for money and describe what they could be used for on camp. It was really fun. After the game we had supper and went to bed for a good night sleep.

Sunday
The next morning, we got up nice and early (early being 6 o’clock) and started cooking breakfast in our patrols. We had cereals, eggs, bacon and beans to choose from. I had a bit of everything. There was inspection after breakfast in both our tents and dining shelters so we had to tidy up quickly. We got almost top marks for our clean dining shelter as a lot of effort was put into it.
During the mid morning, we went on the campsite assault course. But we didn’t just go around and see who could get round the quickest, we had to carry, in our patrols, a jug of water. The patrol with the most water at the end wins. This did get us fairly wet but nevertheless it was a lot of fun. Both patrols had a tie so we had to go round with the most water and the quickest time. Our patrol ended up spilling it all in the slide causing us all to get wet so we lost. But It was still a lot of fun.
For lunch was just a basic packed lunch but still nice as we ate it as a picnic on our camp blankets, or on someone else’s if you didn’t have one. During Lunch we made an origami boat out of paper to use in the race later on in the river. After lunch we started a pioneering project. Just like the camp gadget making but a lot bigger. We first of all make two massive A stands tightening up the knots as hard as we possibly could using a mallet to help us tighten it. We tied two bits of long rope from the top and tied a bit of wood at the bottom. This made a swing and it was fantastic and great fun too. A very big achievement.
We then raced our boats in the river, in the end Michael, a leader, won as he was the only one who didn’t push the boat or cheat in any way. It was all great fun anyway. Everyone got into the showers as quick as they could to wash off all the dirty water and have a warm up.
For dinner we had to cook, with assistance of a leader, gammon, potatoes and vegetables. It did take a long time and was fairly hard to make sure the gammon was cooked but it was fun and tasted very nice.
We went to bed at about half eleven sort of time so we had plenty of rest for the next day that lay ahead.

Monday
The next morning, we woke up a bit later than the previous day and went to collect breakfast from the marquee. It was pancakes. We cooked them on our gas cooker after mixing up the mix in the packet with an egg and water. They actually tasted very nice with sugar and lemon juice. We could have kept eating for ages but there was still inspection so again we cleared up our tents and dining shelter ready for the first activity of the day.
There were 2 activities that each patrol did once at a time for half an hour, then swap round and do the other. One of the activities was fire lighting with James and Debbie where we had to make a nice hot fire for our lunch to cook on. So we had to make sure plenty of wood or other fuel was added to keep it going for as long as possible. The other activity was air rifle shooting with the Laura and Jeremy. It was great fun. We first of all learned the parts of the gun and how to use it safely without having any accidents. We were told that the gun doesn’t use bullets, it used pellets as its powered by air not gun powder. When we got onto the shooting we were given 6 pellets to shoot onto our 15cm targets. Then the other half of the patrol had a go. We were then given another 4 pellets to use on another target. Overall I got all 10 pellets on the main centre of the target sheet and so did most people. It was a very fun activity.
We then went back to the marquee and collected a jacket potato, then wrapped it up in tinfoil twice and quickly put it on the fire to cook for lunch. Then we went back to the marquee and stating preparing dinner. This needed several jobs. Briefly frying the beef, cutting the vegetables and putting it into a big pot of water. Then we put it onto the boil and let it simmer for about 20-30 mins whilst we ate out jacket potatoes and cooked sausages on the fire. Then the two patrol leaders came and put the pots into a box filled with hay and then put hay on top. From having experience from this before we knew that the food will stay warm for hours and hours and carry on cooking the food nice and slowly so it will taste very nice.
We then did raft building. One raft per patrol. This took about half an hour but then we were able to get into our dirty clothes and get into the water. We had several races and a competition to see how many people, and leaders, you could get on without it sinking. Such a good time.
The patrol leaders then went over to the marquee where we would open up the hay boxes and collect our big pots. They were still very warm. I actually burned myself trying to find the lid in all the hay. It had kept warm for 7 hours nearly. We took it to our patrol dining shelter and let it warm up. We also added some dumplings after it had started to boil. It was a very tasty meal as it had been cooked nice and slowly. And it got better, for pudding, we had to make custard out of powder and boiling water. Except it spilt and went all on the stove and started roasting away. But we started eating. We were happy that our meal was really nice. However, when washing up came along, our nice happy faces turned into grumpy miserable faces.

Campfire was next.
So we walked over to the camp fire circle and sat down on a bench. The camp fire started and it was really big and warm. It must have been nearly two metres high at one point. We sung lots of happy and well known camp songs, led by Rob, such as: Campfires burning, The ants came marching, were 4th Eastleigh and I’m a nut. It was a Great fun. It was also one of the stages for our entertainers badge. And afterwards we put torpedos, the camp version of Domino’s, on the fire, a homemade pizza roll. They were on the fire for about 15 minutes to warm up and toast. It was actually really nice. Much better than Pizza Hut! After the camp fire we went back to our tents to get our teeth brushed etc and I saw a badger eating the bottom of our bin bag in our patrol area and eating the rubbish inside before it saw me and ran off. It was all over the floor and we had to clear it up.

Tuesday
We woke up to find there was going to be a continental breakfast. We had croissants, pain au chocolat and Brioche. It was very different to the traditional English breakfast but very nice. Same as all the other days we had inspection before the first activity.
The first activity was archery. Same as the shooting, we had to go through all the safety rules and how to use the bow and arrow. We were amazed that if you ping the bow without an arrow its £15 out of pocket. First of all everyone had a practice go to get the hang of it. And then we were rewarded points the closer we got to the middle target. I got onto the yellow target 5 times over all but it was still lots of fun.
We then have a rotation of 2 games to complete our adventure badge. We have to first of all go around the campsite with clues to find parts of a cooker to make one of the leaders a cup of tea. The next one was where we had to discuss the safety rules of the activities we had done and the environmental issues the activity might have. EG the pellets shot in the shooting were made of lead and can poison animals that eat them.
In the evening, we had fish and chips for dinner from the fish and chips shop. It was very nice. Top quality! But afterwards was even better. We were going to play archery in the dark. And when it was dark we walked down to the big archery straw board. We did have the light from 2 vans but it was still quite hard in the dark. It was fun because we were rotating around person by person as quick as possible to get as many goes as possible.

Wednesday
The next day was the last day of the camp. It had been very long and tiring week so no one was really awake before half past eight. Breakfast was cooked by the leaders. Straight after breakfast, we started putting the tents down. Everything was fine for the first few minutes. But then as expected the heavens opened and all the tents got wet. They would have had to be laid out in the Scout hut to dry when we got back.
The leaders told us that we would then need to get into our wet clothes from the other day for using the soap slide. The soap slide was a long and slippery bit of material that we put on a hill, out loads and loads of water and washing up liquid on and slide down. To wash off the bubbles we went in the river for about 15 minutes. We then had one final shower before going home and get into the last of our clean clothes.
Lunch was soup, bread, crisps and other leftovers and then we talked through our successes of the week. EG the winner of the shooting, archery, and any of the badges we had achieved. Our parents then came to collect us and take us home.

It had been a very tiring, interesting, challenging and fun camp, and had been one of the best camps I had been on. I had experienced new things, tried things I rarely do and experienced the life of camping in a small area without leaving for a week. It hadn’t been a full week but I think it was long enough. All the leaders had done a very good job. So well done to them. All the scouts have put a good effort into the camp. It has been very enjoyable and I would like to have a camp just like it, all over again!
Diary by Matt R, Falcon PL

Click here to view and buy photos

Cubs Shawford Walk

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:49:40 +0100

On a beautifully sunny evening in July, the Cubs embarked on their hike along the river Itchen. We met at Eastleigh station and travelled by train to Shawford. The guard was great - she waited until everyone was counted on the platform, before the train left! We walked along the river path all the way back to Eastleigh. We chatted as we walked along, enjoying each other's company. We saw lots of wildlife and horses and the cubs particularly enjoyed watching the current, reeds and fish in the river, from various bridges we crossed along the way. Everyone enjoyed themselves and the cubs even had enough energy to play in the playground at the Hub when we got back! Our thanks to all the adults who helped out - it was a truly successful trip. Hopefully we can do it again next year!

St Georges Day 2010

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:52:59 +0100

On Friday our Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Leaders joined with others from the District for the annual St Georges Day parade and service.

All of our Beavers, Cubs and Scouts did us proud and there was an excellent turnout from the whole district.

A very special part of the day was St Georges flag being carried by our Akela, James Lewis, and escorted by assistant Cub Scout Leader Christain Burkert and former Assistant Beaver Scout Leader Charlotte Jones in recognition of their gaining of the Queen Scout Award, the highest award you can gain in Scouting.

more pictures

Beavers Disney visit

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:35:48 +0000

On the 20th and 21st of March the Beavers had an action packed sleepover including a visit to The Crockery shop to paint pottery, a visit to the park, making pizza, watching Up and then on the Sunday travelling by train to The Disney Store for a very special visit before opening time to learn all about Disney pin trading and other hobbies. The Beavers then got to try pin trading as The Disney Store gave them their very own trading lanyard and pin.
Many thanks to Kirsty, Rebecca and all the Disney Store staff who made our visit possible.

More pictures

NEWS

Group Flies To Victory

Scout Summer Camp

Cubs Shawford Walk

St Georges Day 2010

Beavers Disney visit