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This page provides access to current and past copies of the the monthly newsletter of the 4th Worcester Park Scout Group plus other reports relating to life at the 4th. The Friends of the Fourth page has copies of their own section's newsletter. 4th News, January 2004Sections
Keith DalyGROUP SCOUT LEADERSo we come to the end of one year and the beginning of the next. In the past year we have been celebrating our 70th Anniversary and this turned out to be quite a celebration. Not only did we have a very successful fun day for all the boys and an excellent dinner for leaders and supporters but also we had our first ever visit from The Chief Scout. A quite memorable year. In 2004 we do not have any particular celebration so lets create a reason to celebrate. I think the best reason to celebrate would be if we had managed to increase the number of boys and the number of leaders. I firmly believe that if we find sufficient leaders an increase in the number of boys will follow. Cedar ColonyI am delighted to report that Anne Price a parent of a Cedar boy has agreed to take on the role of Colony Leader. I was very concerned that we were going to have to suspend or even close the Colony but thanks to Anne it will continue. I hope all the parents will support her. As reported earlier Valerie Clarkson is leaving us to take over as leader of Cheam Ranger Guides. However she has agreed to stay for a short while longer to help Anne to settle in. My thanks to Anne for agreeing to take on this role and to Valerie for all she has done for the Colony over the past ten years or so. SubscriptionsThe Group Executive has agreed the budget for 2004, which is a substantial negative budget. The reason for this is largely because of the need to replace one of the two minibuses but there are other large requirements on the Group's capital i.e. a new mower, for work required to comply with the Disablement Discrimination Act and some new windows. Add to this the normal running costs the largest item of that is insurance at over £4000 and you can see how the expenditure soon adds up. The shortfall in the budget will be met from the Group's reserves but these are not bottomless. Consequently the Executive has felt that there is a need for Subscriptions to rise. From January 2004 the subscriptions for all boys will therefore be £32 per term (£96 per year). NewsletterI am grateful to Jane Finn, a parent of a boy in Cedar Colony, who has agreed to take on the job of typing this newsletter. ASPEN COLONYAnne Mays (MAYO), Carol Salter (HOLLY)Well we have had several main events this month. Elliot Trigg, Max Burton and James Wardell have now received their scarves and are official Aspen Beaver Scouts; we hope they will enjoy their time in the Group. We would like to welcome Harry King into our Colony. Chris Jukes has been down to go through the computer badge with the boys and we are pleased to say that all the boys have passed. It was a very constructive evening and all the boys had a great time - Thank you. We have had yet another great evening with Anglia Pack; this time it was a Christmas theme. The boys had several bases to visit and lots of things to do, in fact we ran out of time as there was so much going on. We really did enjoy the evening and the biscuits and drinks went down well. Thank you to Tom and Philip for their help during the evening. We have played games and made a joke collage that the boys had a lot of fun making. Not too sure about the jokes but the boys enjoyed the evening! We have played a couple of memory games and it is surprising how many things the younger boys remember if they think about it; we also put together a big jigsaw puzzle. We are always keen to take in new boys to join the Group so if any of the new boys have a friend they would like to bring along after Christmas please let either Holly or myself know. BIRCH COLONYAnne Richardson (MAPLE), Sheila Kinton (BAGHEERA)This month we've made and decorated cardboard 'fireworks', and getting ready for Christmas have made mince pies. We've also been spending some time rehearsing our 'Party Piece' for the Senior Residents do. Now the dark evenings are back, we've been able to play Submarines again, which are always a great favourite. I'm very pleased to say that we had a 100% turnout (apart from one absence due to sickness) for the Chief Scout's visit. Many thanks to the parents for making the effort, and also the organisers of the event. Two new boys - Rhian Wade and Adam - Myles Mitchell's friend, have joined us. We're all getting very excited about Christmas, and have a busy month coming up in December. CEDAR COLONYValerie Clarkson (CHIPMUNK)Welcome back and a very happy 2004 to everyone. Hopefully you all have had an excellent Christmas and are ready to face the new year ahead and all the challenges it brings. The really good and positive news is that we now have a permanent new leader for Cedar Colony - Anne Price; Jack Rosenthal's mother - who will take over from January. I will of course stay on for as long as it needs to help Anne. Jo Hutton will still be here in her absolute right hand capacity, ably assisted by Valerie Street and Sally Coates. So for the next few months we shall still be seeing one another. On the busy run up to Christmas we rehearsed our entertainment for the Senior Residents Christmas Tea Party and we cannot thank Valerie Street enough for her singing - we also spent some time making our 'bits' of costume again for the Residents. Joseph Finns' mother collected in all the bulbs and tidied them up ready for the Tea Party, many thanks for that - a budding Charlie Dimmock??? Until Anne settles in fully you will still have my news letters, but please give all the support that you can because taking over the Colony should run as smoothly as possible and this can only happen if there is enough adult help. Please note Subs are due now for this term £32.00 by cheque please with your son's name on the back. ANGLIA PACKBrenda Hunt (AKELA)No news item this month. BROWNSEA PACKLes Prescott (KERICK)The highlight of our past month was the visit to the headquarters by the Chief Scout. Apart from meeting the Chief, we took part in the Group campfire and then each section provided an activity. For the Cubs, we set a Connect-4 challenge and some of our Pack played against the Chief himself. Our thanks to the organisers of the evening - a first for the Fourth where the Chief himself has visited us. We held our annual parents' evening where we challenged the parents to some typical Cub games and after refreshments we saw some slides and the film of our summer camp. Our grateful thanks to the parents for their support. We held an evening of ye olde English traditional indoor games and we have also been practising for our sketch at the Senior Residents' Party. Congratulations to the following Cubs who have gained their Creative Challenge badge: William Jackson, Charlie King, Joshua Peel and Sam Mullins.
Dates for next year's diary: 8th / 9th May 2004 Weekend training camp 25th to 30th July 2004 Summer Camp CHARTERHOUSE PACKMargaret Pennington (AKELA)No news item this month. PURPLE TROOPAlan Avery (Scout Leader)
It was good the Chief Scout himself presented Ricki Reino with his Chief Scout's Gold Award. I must confess that I have been a bit slow in sorting out Ricki's Award but I am glad it has worked to his advantage. The pancakes on the event seemed to go down well, but we had to run out of mix just as the Chief Scout came round! We had a firework Wide game and did a certain amount of training. Thanks go to Richard Blackwell for assisting - work permitting - he's now going to work in the French Alps for 6 months - Good Luck. SILVER TROOPPaul Green (Scout Leader)First of all apologies for the lack of news items over the last few months. Paul has been rather busy and so he has asked me to bring you up to date. The boys have had a fairly active summer with two night hikes completed in the countryside around Banstead Woods and Walton Heath. We are hoping to plan some longer weekend hikes in the near future to allow the boys to work on their Hikers badge. We had an interesting evening recently based on sugar craft giving the boys an opportunity to get artistic and create their own mouth-watering confections. Some of the designs were interesting to say the least (yes I am thinking of you Philip!!!). At the beginning of November we had a wide game in the Scout field with a few (well supervised) rockets to mark a successful capture of the enemies flag. More recently our boys have participated in the visit of the Chief Scout to our headquarters where they demonstrated knots. The last two weeks have seen the boys making and baking their own apple crumble and preparing a sketch for the forthcoming Senior Residents Christmas Party. A number of badges have been awarded recently, the most significant of which are: Tod Heron Patrol leader John Parrish Patrol Leader Tom Newman Assistant Patrol Leader Sam Sellwood Adventure award Philip Crisp 9 years membership award Congratulations to all of the above - Well Done!! Additionally, the members of the newly formed Tiger Patrol have received their Patrol Badges. For the future we are planning to hold our report back evening from our summer camp on the evening of Friday 19th December 2003. Please try and attend as we have a good video of the camp, which will give you a very good idea of the sort of activities the boy enjoyed during the week. And for those of you with sons new to the Troop what they can look forward to next year. Report by Neal Oxley EXPLORER UNITAlan Avery (Explorer Scout Leader)If you had said to me last year that the Chief Scout was going to give six awards to our lads I am sure you would imagine the phraseology I would have used! Anyhow a very amicable and chatty Chief Scout presented all the lads I mentioned in the last newsletter with their awards. He chatted a while with the Queens' Scout Awards - I wondered what he was saying in the time he took - and then he made the rest promise to gain their awards!!! We practised for the Senior Residents beano and with all the songs on Ben's DVD it ended up as a Karaoke evening - on stage. We went ice-skating at the Spectrum Centre and then had a bonfire out of a mound of wood from pruned trees around the HQ. We burnt a huge amount of wood and some of us finished at 2.30am the next morning. I would like to thank Nick Atwell for helping me with Purple Troop for the last year - a very reliable helper. PARENTS & FRIENDSRichard Marston (Chairman)How are we doing?The Grand Auction contributed over £950 to Group funds, £200 over the budgeted figure. With this excellent amount I am pleased to be able to report that we have exceeded our target contribution of £8,500 for 2003. Many thanks to the members of the Parents & Friend's Fundraising Committee and other sections of the Group for their help in achieving this. Special thanks to those that put in the vast amount of effort needed to manage the events. The profit from the Christmas Bazaar will now decide whether we make our revised target of £10,000. 2004 BudgetAt the 2004 budget planning meeting held in November I agreed, on behalf of the parents and friends of the Group, that we would once again raise £8,500. This figure is in line with the money raised from subs so is a sizeable and very important part of the Group's income for the year. In view of the over-budget performance of 2003 it was tempting to offer an increased contribution to the Group. The reality of fundraising at the 4th has however led to a more cautious approach. If we are unable to find someone to manage one of the events, or we are short of helpers it is possible for an event to be cancelled and the profit lost. This was almost the case for the Summer Fete until someone agreed to take on the management. Cancellation of this particular event would have removed almost half of our budgeted profit for the year. Recent EventsGrand Auction There were over 350 lots for sale and the hall was full with some buyers standing.On behalf of all parents may I give our thanks to Terry for organizing the event once again, and to Tom for running it on the day due to Terry being unwell. Thanks also to the large team of helpers without whom the event could not have been run. Coming SoonJumble Sales, Saturdays 7th and 14th February - Our first events of the year and your first opportunity to help us towards our new £8,500 target for 2004. Internet www.4wp.org.uk.According to telecom watchdog Oftel, half of UK households now have access to the Internet. This would seem to confirm the Group's need for a website going forward. If you have any comments or suggestions regarding the design and use of the site please let me know. I am sure there are more things you would like to see, and possibly some you wouldn't! At the time of writing the commission paid by Amazon for online orders was increasing but use of other links on the shopping page was minimal - any idea why? Please let me have your ideas. Contact As usual, I am pleased to receive any comments, suggestions and offers of help by e-mail to p-and-f (at) 4wp.org.uk or by telephone on 020 8337 2641 FELLOWSHIPGraham SmithThe highlight of November events was, of course, the Chief Scout's visit which has been well recorded in the December issue of the "News". Suffice it now, therefore, for me to express my own thanks to those Fellowship ladies who coped with the cooking of some two hundred sausages and preparing the hot chocolate sufficient for all who attended the event. All agreed that it was a most successful and enjoyable evening. Assistance was given by a number of our members at the Auction on the 8th November and, as always, this event proved to be a fascinating couple of hours even if you were not actually bidding. Our November meeting was held on the 27th when recent Group events were reviewed and those in the immediate future discussed - particularly the Christmas Bazaar. Details of the Fellowship's participation, principally the cake stall and the bookstall, were finalised. The meeting was reminded of the Scouts' Own being held on Sunday 21st December at 6.00pm and the traditional Christmas Eve Service being held in the Den at 7.30pm. With our annual dinner arranged for Thursday, 29th January at the Kingswood Arms, 7.00pm for 7.30pm, we have begun to put together the names of those wishing to attend. The menu has been selected. I thank Brian Yearley for taking the minutes of the meeting, our secretary Mary Root having given her apologies, as she was in a 'clime' somewhat warmer than our very cold November evening. Moving into the hall we tried our expertise (or lack of) at Bar Skills - darts, shove-halfpenny, bagatelle, table football and skittles. Again Brian and Sheila Yearley stepped into the breach because the evening was intended to be run by Alan Hedger who, in the event, had very important commitments elsewhere - something to do with the O.K. Corral! In closing these notes I hope that you will all have had a very enjoyable Christmas and I wish one and all - and the Group - a very happy and, let's hope, a peaceful New Year.
Information for February 2004 Newsletter to be with Keith Daly by Monday 12th January
This page was last updated on 31 January 2004 |