Welcome to the all new Berrylands Buzz! This newsletter will provide regular updates on the goings-on at Berrylands Scout Group. Our first edition contains some updates about what has been happening in each of our sections. In the future we will provide updates on events and activites plus we will help you to get to know more about the exec and leadership teams.

Beavers

Our Beaver Colony restarted in March. We have 23 newly invested Beavers who are excited to be starting their journey through the Scout movement. Our programme so far has involved a mixture of crafts, games and our first outdoor activity, a bug hunt in the Berrylands Nature Reserve. We have just completed our first badge, achieving our Money Skills badge by playing trading games and making money boxes.

For the remainder of the summer term, we are hoping to do a lot more outdoor activities. We will be doing more games in the garden and will be going out to in the local area for our Explorer badge. At the end of term, we are planning a family sausage sizzle where we will invite families to join us for a BBQ and campfire.

The restart of Beavers could not have happened without a core group of parents who have been helping each week. We are excited to start welcoming more parent volunteers each week from our parent rota. Thank you to everyone for your enthusiasm so far!

Rich Kirk (aka Brown Beaver)

Cubs

We now have 30 regular attendees at cubs each have been working hard on badge activities since the February half-term holidays, including the Scientist, Animal Carers, Naturalist, Gardening and Skater badges.  Guest speakers included (a) a retired scientist showing us around his laboratory online; (b) Dog Days Adventures director Cindy Owen talking about dog-care; (c) Dr Claire Considine showing us around her animal hospital via Teams; and, (d) Surrey’s butterfly counter taking the Cubs through a discussion on caterpillars, moths and butterflies. We also visited Deen City Farm on a warm Saturday morning. I’m not sure whether the Cubs were more excited by the goats eating their treats, bags and all, or whether the trip on the K5 bus was the highlight of their visit to SW19. Cubs have propagated pumpkins which are now nestled into their bed in the rear garden covered in compost, coffee grinds, and protected by wool, egg shells and other natural products to fend off hungry gastropods. In celebration of the Coronation the Cubs hosted a tea party for parents and carers who witnessed the whole group renewing their pledge to the King. Lastly, and most recently, the Cubs have started work on the Skater badge, having a go on various wheels including skateboards, roller-skates and scooters. We are visiting the Tolworth Skate Park together to cement new skills and give Cubs a taste of the fun of skating.

Looking forward, our focus will be on camping skills and the group camp in particular. We are going to be welcoming a guest speaker, who is a former merchant sailor, who will teach the cubs how to make knots, and we are planning a joint meeting with 2nd New Malden at Green Lane park for wide games.

Please do consider volunteering. Our stalwart volunteer, Sue, is leaving Berrylands Cubs at the end of this academic year and without more volunteers we may have to cut the number of cubs down. That is why the parent rota is so important. The Scouts Association mandates a ratio of 1:8 adults to children. We have excellent young leaders and DfE volunteers who are an integral part of the leadership and we would stress that many hands make light work. Any help will be most gratefully received.

All the best,

Ken

On behalf of Ben, Sue, Oscar, Finlay, Aidan and Ben

Scouts

Hi everyone.

As this is our first report this year it is going to be a bit longer than normal. I am going to catch you up on what has happened so far this year and what is going to happen over the next month.

January

On Friday 20th we had one of the larges investors I have ever done (8 Scouts at the same time).

February

We had two practices hikes to get the Scouts up to speed for the County night hiker, Saturday 11th and 25th.

March

We joined the Cubs on Friday 3rd for the international campfire. We linked up with Cubs and Scouts from all over the world to sing lots of songs and have fun.

Our first camp of the year was on Friday 10th to Sunday 12th. We have a different theme for this camp each year, this year’s theme was survival. All the Scouts that took part eared their survival badge.

The County night hike was on Saturday 18th to Sunday 19th. We entered a team and were one of 42 teams taking part. Berrylands best finishing position was 3rd place some years ago. This year was joint 1st, wow. The shield is on top of the troth cabinet outside the kitchen. Can I just say to the Scouts in the team, a big well done. 

On Friday 24th we had fun making and eating pancake pictures.

April

Our second camp of the year (Easter camp) was from Friday 7th am to Monday 10th pm. We travelled to Bushy Wood Campsite Hailsham by minibus and then looked over our indoor accommodations had lunch and of to the swimming pool and food shopping. The other activities at the camp were day at flamingo park, axe throwing, water rockets, wide games, field games, film night and campfire. Then back home thanking the aera for the good weather. 

May

The first of the years Berrylands air riffle competition was on Sunday 14th with the best score of 70 out of 100.

We have been also working on badges on Friday nights algo with games.

The main events we have over the next month are.

  • Sorting out the tent stores
  • District air riffle competition.
  • 2-day hike
  • Group camp.

Thanks,

Eric Banks
Scout Leader