Guildford West District Scouts

This Sunday, the 9th of October, Alexis Shirtliff, (Akela 1st Normandy Cub Scouts, District Webmaster and Local Training Administrator) will be running the Royal Parks Half Marathon to raise funds for the Scout Association.

Alexis needs to raise at least £500 and you can sponsor him online at: http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/AlexisShirtliff

Across the planet Scouts, from nearly every country and territory attended the 22nd World Scout Jamboree. Amongst them are 81 Scouts from Surrey who have spent over 12 months planning, raising funds and training to take part in the greatest adventure of their lifetime, the World Scout Jamboree which took place in Kristianstad, Sweden.

On Sunday 3rd July, four Sixers from 5th Guildford ‘Lions’ were invited to Blackbushe Airport to go through the air activities badge.

As well being able to site in a plane and learn the controls they learnt the phonetic alphabet, recognised tail fins from ten commercial airlines and learnt which part of the plane does what. Thanks goes to Rikki (Paul Wakely) and Tony from Blackbushe Aviation for organising this visit.

The Event

What do you get if you put over 200 activities, approx 7,000 Scouts, Guides, Explorers and Leaders and approx. 1,750 tents? You get Scoutabout, a fun-filled activity weekend held at the South of England Showground in Ardingly.

Scoutabout runs every three years and this year was the tenth to be held at Ardingly. The event, which took place from Friday, June 24 until Sunday, June 26 was organised and attended by Surrey Scouts, Girlguiding Surrey East and Girlguiding Surrey West.

Activities

On March 25th fifty-one scouts from all scout troops in the District took part in the district night hike from 5th Guildford HQ to Normandy HQ for an overnight camp. Six of the eleven teams walked without adults and the other five walked with leaders or parents. Points were awarded for how quickly the teams completed the hike; for kit at the check in; and for attitude, teamwork, and success in the activities at the bases.

Eight teams from Guildford West battled it out to see who was the brains of Guildford in last nights district quiz.

This years competition was hosted by last years winners St Nicolas/9th Guildford and was held at the URC in Guildford.

Teams from 5th Guildford, 1st Rydes Hill (St Marys), 2nd Guildford, St Nicolas/9th Guildford, 1st Stoughton and 1st Normandy answered questions on Science, Spring, Sports, General Knowledge, Famous People, Geography, Outdoors and Scouting.

Networking is one of the many advantages of taking part in County-organised events and at Cyclo-Cross 2010, a chance remark led to 3 older scouts and a leader from 2nd Guildford taking up spare places on a ski trip with Phoenix Explorer Unit. Tom, Matt, Oliver and Liz Pritchard spent half term skiing on the Italian/Slovenian border.

Surrey Scouts Frost Camp was a great success with approximately 400 Scouts, Explorer Scouts and Leaders enduring the wet and windy conditions at Bentley Copse Scout Camp Site, Shere.

Scouts from Guildford, Godalming, Dorking, Farnham, Woking, Reigate as well as other areas in Surrey, Kent, London and Hampshire camped over and participated in over 50 activities.

In true Blue Peter style, with egg boxes and sticky backed plastic, six teams competed against each other to design a Christmas Mobile, Table Decoration and a Christmas Tree Decoration.

The teams had to design and build a Christmas Mobile (similar to the Christmas advent used by Blue Peter), a table decoration and Christmas Tree decoration using tinsel and other Christmas materials.

Over 60 Scouts, from all of the District’s Scout troops, enjoyed this year’s activity camp at Bentley Copse.

On Saturday the scouts were kept busy with pioneering, climbing, archery, air rifle shooting, frisbee golf, lighting fires, a wide game and a campfire.