1st Chineham Scouts

A couple more photos from tonight. Unfortunately none of the actual Panto as that’s not allowed (oh no it isn’t!). It was great to see the Squirrels, Beavers, Cubs and yes even the Scouts got involved. We even saw the leaders getting their claps and “it’s behind you“ on! 😂
The atmosphere was brilliant and thoroughly recommend it to everyone 👍
We managed to get an actual, well partial ‘group shot’ of the Leaders and Young Leaders who week in and week out deliver scouting to 1 Squirrel Drey, 2 Beaver Colonies, 2 Cub Packs and 1 Scout Troop. Unfortunately one of the Beaver leaders wasn’t able to participate in the photo as they were busy dealing with a Beaver.

Merry Christmas to you all, we wish you a pleasant, relaxing (if that’s possible 😂) Christmas break. Hope you and your young person/people get to recharge batteries and spend some time with loved ones!

Until next term!

Out tonight celebrating Christmas with 101 of the 1st Chineham Scout family! Watching ‘the further adventures of Peter Pan’! Gonna be a loud night! Merry Christmas all

Last night of the term for Scouts and they voted for a Silent Disco!
We started the evening on a formal note with a visit from ADC Cubs and ADC Scouts to give out a couple of awards. Well done to Jemima on her Gold Award and Robert on his Silver Award.
After that, we started the fun. We had two channels for the disco, one playing Christmas songs and the other playing popular songs and requests.
We played a few games: pass the parcel and musical statues. They had some ice cream, marshmallows and lots of sweets! A few classic dance songs including The Cha Cha Slide and The Time Warp, followed by a Conga and more sweets!
We hope the scouts had a great night, it certainly looked, and sounded, like they did!
A reminder that we have the Panto this Saturday for those who have signed up. We look forward to seeing all the scouts back in January.
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all the Scout Leaders.

Squirrels ended 2023 with more Christmas spirit with Christmas jumpers and some leaders onesies.

They finished decorating their Christmas trees as well cookies.

Merry Christmas 🎅 from all squirrels at 1st Chineham.

We had the most wonderful evening with the Rotary Basingstoke Deane last evening. Toby & Tallulah's Scouting Adventure presented their Scouting abroad adventures to an amazing group of people who supported them with their travels and life experiences. It would appear they have inspired them with future ideas too. We cannot say thank you enough for their support and for opening our eyes to just a little bit of what the Rotary club do.

Film night!

So tonight was the end of term/year for the Cubs, so as has been the tradition, it was a joint film night. This year the film was The Nativity, and safe to say the Cubs laughed at the funny bits and showed their disgust whenever two characters kissed! The cubs were invited to turn up in their festive garb and get in to the spirit, they also brought snacks, but thankfully none of them were sick this time!
The leaders and young leaders were stationed on one edge (Mondays Akela braved the lone post the other side of the hall). Our evening was made a lot easier by the home made chicken wings, mince pies, chocolates and biscuits provided by some of the parents. Yum, yum!!!
So that’s it for Cubs for 2024!
For those attending the Panto on Saturday, we look forward to seeing your Cub. For those unable to attend, we hope you and your families have a wonder relaxing Christmas break, and we’ll see your Cub next year.

Tonight was the last beavers meeting before Christmas & what better way to end the year than walking around looking at all the lovely Christmas lights people around Chineham have put up! 🎄
We gave the beavers each a nice thank you note to put in each house they thought had beautiful lights😊
Just want to wish a very Merry Christmas & a happy new year to all! 🎅🏼⛄️

A dollar short and a day late. This week was our final rotation, and it’s Home Safety. The cubs learnt about some important aspects of theirs homes and safety within. The value of knowing where the stopcock is, knowing what to do if you smell gas, learning about the dangers of electricity and what to do if they discover a fire in their home. Plenty of questions were thrown at the Baloo’s (yes we’ve two Baloo’s and they each ran Home Safety on their respective evenings), which is always good!

You may notice in the last photo our cubs and leaders sitting on chairs, please be assured this wasn’t a therapy session, just another way to deliver and engage the cubs.

We’ve one week left and it’s MOVIE NIGHT!!! We hope to see as many cubs on Monday for a relaxing joint evening.

Tonight the beavers swapped activities & did either Christmas craft or climbing.

On Thursday the squirrels did messy play.

Plan for Thursday had to change due to the weather forecast and then change again as the weather forecast was wrong! Thanks to one of our parents, the scouts got to look through a telescope at some of the planets and stars, it was amazing to see the rings of Saturn!
They also learnt about Kelly kettles and trangias, just what you need on a cold night.
The 3rd of our bases was a scouting classic, ‘Colditz’, the scouts had to find the keys to escape in the dark without the guard hearing them and shining the search light on them. They certainly seemed to throw themselves into the game and although they only had a short amount of time to play this time, we will be playing it on our ‘Feb Fun Camp’, so do sign your scout up to camp if they want to have more time to play this and take part in other games and activities.

So this week the Cubs were back on the Rotation evenings and this week we’re focusing on Xmas Craft. Our Cubs were busy Squirrel-ing away the supplies provided to make unique decorations for whomever is honoured enough to receive them. These one off decorations give the Cubs license to use their amazing imaginations to make something personal and christmasy. We hope those lucky enough to receive one appreciate the effort that’s gone in to them and we hope they’ll be used for many years to come.

Role on next week for the final rotation.

Over the next 2 weeks the beavers have been split in half, one group doing Christmas craft & the other climbing then next week they will swap & do the other activity. ⛄️🧗
The Christmas craft had the beavers making sock snowmen ⛄️

Last week Wednesday Beavers were lucky enough to receive two visitors...

Anna is both a sign language interpreter and a local conservation champion! The Beavers were shown the BSL alphabet and how to sign their names and asked loads of interesting questions. They also got to hear about the work of the Chineham Conservation Group and create mushroom spore prints 💚

Rainbow attended to present an important award to one of our most experienced and best-loved leaders, Tic Tac, who has completed all the training modules necessary to earn her Wood Badge beads 🤎

Tonight the squirrels took part in their very first chip shop hike.

So this week the Cubs got a special visit from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance (thanks Chil). They got to hear about the important life saving work the brave men and women do day in and day out. They also got to ask A LOT of questions and some were fortunate to be able to try on a helmet, hat, flight suit and the medics bag. It was great to see the Cubs engaged and energetic.

The Air Ambulance is a critical service we all hope we never need to call upon.

Roll on next week!

Tonight we had a guest speaker in to discuss with the beavers about BSL. They learnt how to sign their names & Anna even got them to think of their own sign name & showed them the sign for it!
She also got the beavers to make some spore prints with mushrooms which we will be checking on next week!
Thank you Anna!

This week the Cubs started their 3 weeks worth of rotational activities. This week we’re focusing on Problem Solving and Team Work. Both of these are critical to Cubs and Scouting as a whole. Getting on, working together, having a voice and listening to each are required and were indeed demonstrated during the activities hosted by Kaa and Shere Khan along a with young leader. We won’t go into too much detail as we don’t want the rest of the packs to have an advantage over the coming weeks. Safe to say there was much debate, much laughter, a little exasperation and some lateral thinking going on!
Ironically next week is a break in the rotation, but the following week, it’ll continue!

This week Wednesday Beavers enjoyed an educational visit to a bank branch where staff were kind enough to stay late to answer all our questions and even show us inside the vault! We also saw the money-machine counting coins and a bank card being printed. Everyone had fun and came away with a bag of goodies and ideas about saving.

Last week Wednesday Beavers and families got our torches out and hiked to the Chineham Shopping Centre where we rewarded ourselves with some delicious chips and a rousing sing-song.

Tonight the beavers had an outside visit to the Metro Bank in town!
They learnt all about saving & how banking works, had a go guessing how many coins were in a money bag & put them into the magic money machine to see if they guessed correctly! They didn’t go home empty handed & left with a nice goody bag including a classic big red M money box.
Hopefully we will see if they start saving their pennies…
Thank you Metro Bank for your hospitality (hopefully they didn’t scare you too much)

This morning 1st Chineham Scouts joined the Remembrance Sunday Parade and Service in Basingstoke. A massive well done to the scouts who attended, they all behaved impeccably throughout and showed great respect, despite the long time standing in the cold. The leaders are extremely proud of them.

Chineham cubs took part in the act of remembrance this morning at Christ Church. They were smartly dressed and very well behaved, so thank you to those that came

Pine Martin showed us the ropes as she prepares for Diwali this weekend.

***LOTS OF PICTURES POST***
So this week the Cubs got down and messy… yes this week it was Messy Games and Guy Burning (thankfully no Cubs called Guy, so no safeguarding concerns).
The night started off as it often does, Leaders (Rikki and Kaa) and Young Leaders preparing the various bases whilst Shere Khan, Baloo and a young leader got busy preparing the bonfire for the end of evening event.
The section was split in to 3 groups, one group played Crab football (Rama and Chil officiating), the second group got their hands MESSY in alphabet spaghetti (Kaa and a young leader on crowd and spelling control) and the third group had to tackle eating a doughnut without using their hands (Rikki and two young leaders laughing at the valiant attempts made). All three groups got a chance to try each activity. Once all the Cubs had given it their best, it was hand and face wash time followed by the donning of coats before they made their way outside to partake in a little end of evening fun. But, before and during the burning of the guys, Akela reminded the Cubs of the dangers posed by fire. Each six got to see their creations go up flames with a bit of friendly time keeping to see who’s went up the quickest!
All in all a thoroughly fun evening with leaders, young leaders and Cubs enthused and full of energy (and a pleasant dose of sugar).
The last photo is a card from a Cub thanking the leaders following our recent Cub camp. It’s always a lovely surprise when we receive these as it’s good to feel appreciated. Have to add the chocolates that accompanied the card are also greatly appreciated.
Roll on next week!

The main photography unit will add more later this week, but Monday cubs wanted to welcome the 9 new members that were invested last night, by the light of a fire. A leader and young leader persevered with the very wet wood and conditions to create a fire that we could burn the Guys on - that were created a couple of weeks ago (thanks Shere Khan and Toby). Cubs also enjoyed eating donuts hanging from a rope without using their hands.

Chip Shop Hike was todays plan of action!
Hiking from the scout hall to chineham centre with our torches & glow sticks 😊
Hopefully all the beavers (& leaders) went home with a full belly 😌

Scouts started on Thursday night with a visit from ADC Scouts (some of you may also recognise him as Wednesday Akele) to present a Gold Award. Well done Charlie! We would love to present more Gold Awards, so encourage all scouts to look on OSM to see what they need to do to achieve their challenge badges especially Skills, Creative and, of course, the Personal Challenge badge. Please speak to one of the leaders if you have any evidence which we can use to sign off the requirements.
The evening then moved on to our four bases: Shooting, Electronics, DIY and Craft. The scouts enjoyed learning new skills and if parents have any plugs that need changing, do ask your scout to do it, once they have completed the DIY base.
We continue with the four bases next week, will anyone beat our current top score in the shooting of 37/50?!

Squirrels celebrated Guy Fawkes with creating their own fireworks.

Campfire for Wednesday Beavers, with toasted marshmallows, s'mores and songs, along with an investment ceremony for our latest recruits, two of whom join us for the first time from our new Squirrels section. Welcome to you all.

So this week the Cubs took part in Skills Challenge badge activities! Yes parents and guardians A LOT of Cubs know how to wash dishes, set a table, iron clothes, make tea (coffee too I bet), screw in a light bulb and hammer in a nail! Our Leaders passed on their knowledge, but our Young Leaders really got involved and brought their skills to the forefront! Yes at times it looked like we had a Victorian work house on the go, but trust us, we’re trying to instil basic life skills into the next generation. Baloo even got to recreate a Thor moment with his own version of Mjölnir!

So parents and guardians, feel free to use your Cubs new skills, it’s the best way to ensure they keep learning 👍

This week was supposed to be Messy Games and guy burning, but alas the weather had other thoughts!

Roll on next week, where we hope we have better weather? Keep safe all!

Tonight at beavers we had a bonfire where we learnt about Guy Fawkes, the uses of making a fire out in the woods, followed by roasting some marshmallows & having smores that the leaders had prepared for them! 🔥

Finishing off the weekend with an interrupted picnic - if you know, you know! Great fun had and cannot wait for the next time!

A few more from yesterday. Whilst the older Cubs were making our dinners, the younger half went for a rather rainy walk. It helped with the Cubs appetite! Then Rhys, Sam and Graham did a revised campfire in the Annex. The Cubs certainly did enjoy the sing along! High spirits all round! Roll on day two!

Dinner this evening all enjoyed and most had seconds

Decided to get some cleaning in whilst climbing

Getting some cleaning in whilst climbing.

Camp at the hall is underway for the cub section. Climbing and pioneering with 2 groups, shooting and navigation are also running.