Over the past 8 weeks, lucky Beavers, Cubs & Scouts had the opportunity to attend not 1 but 3 different camps. In mid-July, the 14th Southgate had a group camp at Phasels Wood. Most of the attendees (plus a few more) also came to the Summer Camp at Gilwell Park at the end of August. Both camps were blessed with hot weather with little to no rain and water activities to cool off. Each full day of the Summer camp provided something different with the first day concentrating on traditional scouting activities, the second day sampling Gilwell’s onsite activities, and the third day offsite at Fairlop Waters Country Park where the summer campers went bouldering and completed a water assault course.
One Scout (and leader) also joined the 4th Southgate on their cross-country road trip to Austria as well, which can be read about here: http://4thsouthgate.scoutsites.org.uk/2022/08/scouts-trip-to-austria/

We’ve had a very busy start to the Summer term with the Scouts camping at Tolmers on St George’s Weekend and the Beavers and Cubs joining them on the day itself.

This has been followed by district events and a group water activity day at ESSA that was attended by 29 Beavers, Cubs and Scouts.

The Beavers and Cubs have also been busy raising money for Ukraine, setting up stalls and selling homemade products and taking part in sponsored bike rides with over £500 being raised so far!

It has been a busy term very here at the 14th Southgate. Back in January we again assisted the Friends of Chase Side with their tree planting project, and have continued planting a few of our own at HQ, courtesy of the Woodland Trust.

Activities this term have included cake sales, panto workshops, crafts, first aid, gardening, outdoor games and trying out our new soft archery sets for the first time.

The Cubs entered teams into both the District Chess competition and Swimming gala and came back with our first silverware in over a decade! A great team performance, especially in the swimming with our teams coming in 1st and 3rd place.

Our Beavers and Cubs finished the term with a camp at Scout Park, where they took part in archery, climbing and completed a crafts and DIY project respectively. Although we had a lodge, 5 brave Cubs decided they wanted to sleep outside in a tent, despite subzero temperatures! They survived the night, waking up the leaders with a rendition of Quartermaster stores at 6:30am on Sunday morning.

With Christmas and the end of the year drawing near, the group can look back on a successful 2021 with leaders working hard to deliver a programme full of adventure to their section members. The Beavers and Cubs are now full and have a waiting list in place, quite the achievement considering that the Beavers only reopened with all new members just 13 months ago.

The group celebrated bonfire night in explosive style, all members and their family invited to watch the group fireworks display and bonfire, with proceeds going to towards new equipment for the group. £285 was raised on the day with over 120 spectators!

A week later a selection of Beavers, Cubs and Scouts attended the Remembrance Sunday service at St Thomas’, a chance to reflect and a chance to speak to other members of the community. On that note, a group of Beavers, Cubs and Scouts also took part in a tree planting event on Rectory Farm on Enfield Chase later that month, part of an initiative to plant 100,000 trees over the next 3 years.

It’s been a busy past couple of weeks for all the scouters within the group, especially for the Cubs with District football, a camp at Tolmers and Cub Trek 8 on consecutive weekends.

The Beavers, Cubs and Scouts have all been busy practising their fire lighting, map reading and pioneering skills and a further 2 apple trees have been added to the mini orchard in the garden.

The Beavers and Cubs joined the 4th Southgate in a backwoods camp at Tolmers where they had good fun building bivvies, shooting air rifles and even preparing and butchering wild birds. The 3rd camp in 3 months, there will now be a gap till Spring for the next camp.

Beavers, Cubs & Scouts enjoyed a week of camping at Thriftwood Scout Campsite in Brentwood alongside the 4th Southgate Scouts during the last week of August this year. With the Scouts trip to Austria being postponed till 2022, this camp took on an international flavour, the theme being a Dutch one with the group being garlanded in orange scarves, cycling around the site and trying Dutch cuisine such as Hagelslag and Poffertjes.

With the exception of a few light showers on the first day, the campers were blessed with dry weather, enabling the group to enjoy the week’s activities, the highlights being a canoe trip down the River Chelmer and a day trip to Southend-on-Sea.

As has become tradition with the 4th – 14th Southgate joint summer camps, a volleyball tournament was hosted with a mixed 4th – 14th Scout team narrowly losing in the finals to the 5th Dartford. Rest assured, the Scouts shall be busy practicing for next year where they shall face international opposition.

After a long year and a bit of online meetings, isolating and the Cub section split into two, the end of the Summer term saw things return back to normal with weekend bike rides, the traditional Summer water fight and a sleepover for the Beavers and Cubs.

Both sections have grown greatly and we hope to continue our adventures after the Summer uninterrupted! Beavers and Cubs return on the 8th September with Scouts returning on the 9th.

Over the past few weeks the Cubs have been busy with different activities aimed at learning about and improving their local environment. They have managed to collect 26kg of rubbish from the streets neighbouring our Scout Hut and have been busy designing anti-littering posters.

During half-term a few of Cubs helped out the Friends of Enfield Chase with a tree counting survey on one of the hottest days of year so far. Set in former farmland to the south of Botany Bay, this area shall become the basis of a new forest stretching from Trent Park to Chase Farm Hospital over the next few years.

For the first time in over a year, members and leaders from all 3 sections of the 14th Southgate were able to join together to celebrate St George’s Day with a promise renewal and some creative activities. The Beavers made their own clay dragon, the Cubs created tile mosaics and the Scouts made pizzas over an open fire. Fingers crossed that we won’t have to wait so long till our next group get together.

After 3 months of online scouting, it was good to be back at the 14th HQ at the end of March. With Spring starting, the Beavers and Cubs have been busy over the last 3 weeks with various gardening based projects including; making bird seed cakes, digging a wildlife pond, preparing the vegetable patch and planting a variety of fruit bushes and trees. Hopefully in the next few months, they’ll be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour!