24th Ilford North West Scout Group

We’re working towards the Geocaching badge this term. Last night we were up at Fairlop Water for our session, and the Scouts excelled themselves tracking down six caches!

We were very proud of our our Scouts last week after not one, but TWO of them were presented with their Jack Petchey awards! Congratulations to Ayush and Socrates!

Day two of our camp was the Redbridge District activity day. The Scouts got to pick what they wanted to do and spent a lot of time in the inflatables, but also managed to fit in some tomahawk throwing and a go on the pedal cars, amongst other things!

Spring Camp at Gilwell - day 1! After arriving the previous night, and a leisurely start, we went on an incident hike through Epping Forest!

We have been on camp!

We spent Friday night at our Scout Hall, planning a hiking route to Hargreaves Scout camp via Fairlop Waters. Saturday was an early start - Scouts had to eat, pack and be off on their 5 mile hike in time for their climbing and abseiling at 11am! The rest of the weekend was Archery, Air Rifle shooting, campfires, cooking, toasting marshmallows and helping build and pack down our campsite.

Well done to all the Scouts!

One of our Scouts asked if we could do some work on navigation and map-reading skills last week, and that’s exactly what we did! We’re hoping to finish off the level three Navigator badge over next week and our upcoming camp!

We’ve been working towards the Model Maker badge on some of our sessions this term, using the excellent Warhammer resources provided by Games Workshop. The Scouts have enjoyed the building and painting - so much so that we forgot to take any session photos. So here are some in-progress shots of their miniatures!

Pancake night for Shrove Tuesday! The Scouts made two different types - traditional, and an egg/dairy free version as well. Against their own expectations they preferred the dairy free ones!

I am pleased to report that they selflessly managed to ensure that all the pancakes were eaten by the end of the evening. 😋🥞

How do you get your Scouts out and about for a hike in East London in February? You take them on a chip shop hike! We spend an evening walking round chip shops around Gants Hill; sampling and rating. After due consideration (and a LOT of eating!), our Scouts decided the best chips in Gants Hill are from…Serene Fish and Chips! Congratulations! 🏆

Last night we were looking at maps and mapmaking, and planning our chip shop hike for next week. The scouts also had a debate about what criteria they would be using to score the chips (we vetoed ‘flamability’ - some of them clearly pining for our firelighting session!)

We even tackled the most controversial topic of all… do you have vinegar on your chips? 🤔

Firelighting with flint and steel for the first session back earlier this week! 🔥 We are very lucky to have such a large garden to the Scout hall. 🙂

We had a couple of new Scouts joining us and all the groups managed to get their fires lit! We ended the evening by cooking dampers ( sort of campfire donuts, link in comments 🙂).

Happy New Year! Here’s a sneak preview of the programme for our Scouts this term! (We are excited by all of it!) Th Scouts are going to be covering bits of a lot of badges, so there should be something for everyone.

We’ve also got plans for a sleepover event in March, and more besides!

Final session of term - the Musician badge! Well done to the Scouts for taking part full-heartedly - everyone earned their badges tonight, at various levels!

Our senior patrol leaders ran the session last night - they decided to make rocky road!

This weekend was Astronomy Camp, to help support one of the badges we’re working towards this term. We had a great time visiting the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, took in a show at their planetarium, and camped out at the hall enjoying meals the Scouts cooked themselves!

Last week our Scouts started work on their Science badge with an Egg Drop Challenge! Each group had come up with and build two different designs to keep an egg safe when we dropped it from the roof of the scout hut. They all did brilliantly and we had a 75% egg survival rate!

Scouts (10.5-14yrs): Thursday evenings 7:00 to 8:30 **SPACES AVAILABLE**
Cubs (8-10.5yrs): Tuesday evenings 6:30 to 8:00 **Waiting list available!**

Welcome to 24th Ilford North West Scouts! We’re based at Bates Hall in Gants Hill, running exciting activities and adventures for young people.

Please message us if you’re interested in your child joining in!

Bates Hall, Wycome Road IG2 6UT Ilford
What3Words: ///raft.trail.wisdom