Numbers
At the beginning of term, we lost 4 scouts, who have all moved on to Explorers. At the same time, we gained 5 new members from cubs and have taken 4 new members from the waiting list. We unfortunately lost 1 member during term so now have 33 scouts in total.
Leaders
We now have 4 regular leaders and 2 section assistants plus a very good young leader. In addition, we have the support of the GSL & AGSL when required.
Activities
With loosing so many of our older scouts we have spent part of the term looking at leadership and team building. We had an additional PL & APL afternoon to help the new senior scouts understand better their roles and practice their leadership and pioneering skills, culminating in crossing a stream utilising a rope and pulley system.
Back indoors we learnt about hot air balloons and tried our hand at making our own versions to help towards the air activities badge.
We had a night of wide games outside using glowsticks and working on our co-ordination.
For pancake day we had our usual attempt at pancake making, with quite successful results. We also had our annual pancake tossing race with some disastrous results.
We have visited the Apple store in Cambridge where they helped us learn about coding to control a robot as part of the digital citizen badge
For the rest of term, we have a trip to the swimming pool to work on the staged swimming badge. Then we are splitting the group with half using their teamwork skills to crack the Cryptx escape room and the other half lighting fires and cooking sausages, before swapping the next week.
Camps
We started the year with a return to Fire & Ice with 27 scouts in attendance from Papworth, camping in freezing temperatures. A great time was had by all with lots of Fire, some Ice but mainly mud!!
We have an expedition weekend planned in March for the senior scouts. This consists of a 2 day/ 1-night expedition involving hiking and camping. This is the final requirement that 4 of the scouts need to receive their Chief Scout Gold award the highest they can get as a scout.
In May we have the District camp where we will join with the Cubs, Beavers and over 300 members from the District for a weekend of scouting activities
Our main camp for the year is a week in the Lake District in the summer. We will be heading north with 23 of our current and old scouts to try our hand at Sailing, Paddle Boarding, Bridge building and Tree Climbing to mention a few of the activities we have booked.
Badges
We have awarded 136 badges so far over the term, with a number also working towards their challenge badges. By Easter we will hopefully have our first batch of Gold Chief Scout Awards to hand out to the 4 Scouts nearly there.