The Woggle

The Newsletter of the 3rd Hayling Scout Group
February 2007

GSL's Update

Nigel Valette the District Commissioner for Havant Scouts made 3 visits to our HQ in 8 days to present top awards. On his first visit he presented a Chief Scout's Bronze Award to Sam Farimond of Redwood Beaver Colony and Chief Scout's Silver Awards to Keiron Ball, Peter Hewitt, Dominic Reed, Joe Speller and Marc Rowson, all of Saturn Cub Pack.

Four days later he presented Chief Scout's Gold Awards to Liam Holden, Zack Allgood, Sam Whiteland-Smith and Alistair Harris of Lion Scout Troop.

Three days later presented Chief Scout's Bronze Awards to Matthew King, Simba Bailey, Jack Silver and Mark Dubarry of Aspen Beaver Colony.

100 Club Results
The winners for our February draw were Jo Hawley, Jan Randall and Avril Keyes who each win £25 and the first £50 draw for the year was won by Pete Rowson. Congratulations to you all.

Did You See...?
As part of Scouting's Centenary celebrations there have already been a television programme and articles in the Saturday Telegraph and Saturday Times to help raise the profile of what Scouting offers the young people of today. Later this year we will also see a commemorative set of stamps and a 50p coin.

Hayling Flower Club Supports the Group
You may have seen in the Hayling Islander that Hayling Scouts were the charity of choice for the Hayling Island Flower Club in 2006. Phil Blosse and myself were invited to attend their Annual Meeting and I was delighted to receive a cheque for £500 and some very supportive words from Yvonne Hughes the club's President. The money has been put towards the Centenary Neckerchiefs now being worn by every member of the Group. We are very grateful to the Flower Club for their generous donation and endorsement of our aims and objectives for the young people of Hayling.

Founder's Day
Not only is this our Centenary year, but February 22nd marks the 150th Birthday of Baden-Powell our founder. To celebrate this we are joining with the Scout & Guide movements of Havant and Hayling in a special event at the Havant Leisure Centre. Letters with details have been sent out to all parents

The Work Continues

Last month we reported on the new windows in the HQ and as I write this months Woggle, the small meeting rooms are being re-decorated.

We are also in discussions on renovating the concrete frontage to the HQ.

Never to Early to Camp

Lion Scout Troop have already started their Camping season with 15 Scouts and 5 Leaders spending a weekend near Bournemouth.

The camp was organised by the Patrol Leaders for the personal challenge part of their Chief Scouts Awards and a great time was had by all. Lion Troop are famous for their cleaning of camp fire circles and again received glowing feedback from the Warden for another job well done!

Leaders Play Games

Our last leaders meeting was not spent sitting around discussions what we could/should do, but in the HQ playing games. The idea was for each section to demonstrate games that they play so that the other leaders could learn some new ideas. It is amazing how you can adapt a game for Beavers into something that the Explorers will play!

New Name for the Waiting List

Congratulations to Jan & Clive Allgood on the birth of their Son Ptolemy. Clive is a member of our Group Development Committee, Jan is our resident lifesaver and will often be found cooking at camps.

Book Sale Teams

Last month we reported that Mark Standing was taking a well deserved break from running our book sales. We are restructuring management of these sales to help separate the tasks carried out by Mark over the past 13 years.

If you are able to help us with any of the following activities then please contact your leader or myself (Ian Hawke).

Book Collection: Throughout the year we receive calls from people on Hayling who wish to donate books to us. The collection team will be given the details of the donor and would arrange to collect the books and deliver them to the HQ. With a team of 4 there would be about 8 pick up's a year.

Initial Sort: Mark has shown over the years that the initial sort is key. There are certain types of books that never sell and also it is only worth trying to sell books in good condition. The Initial sort will remove any books that do not meet our criteria. A team of 4 people would mean two sessions of 2 hours per person per year.

Category Sort Taking the new books for a given category and merging them with the existing collection ready for the sale. Again one sessions of 2 hours just before each sale of the two sales. We have about 15 categories so looking for a team of 15.

Book Sale Day The sales run from 10:00 to 14:00 twice a year and we normally need about 10 people at a time. This could be in a 2 hour slot or for the full 4 hours of the sale.