20th Southgate Scout Group
The first two weeks (already!)
As is often the case with Cub activities, the first two weeks of the new term have flown by. With a warm welcome to Cooper, Eli, Isabelle, Ned, Rory, Rosie and Toby the first meeting of term gave an introduction to the typical activities which Cubs do whilst week two was straight into the Money Skills Badge where the Cubs learnt about the power of advertising, different types of currencies and the options for saving money - which was demonstrated by using marshmallows. Each Cub took home £5 as we repeat the Pack charity challenge with half the money raised going to the Royal British Legion and the other half to a charity which will be chosen by three of the older Cubs. Weekend activities have included a Pack football tournament and a pitch and putt afternoon and so we are definitely back again!
A penalty spot of bother
Our Cub Pack has a busy schedule of weekend activities throughout the year including District events and others arranged amongst ourselves. The first big District event of the new term was the 5-a-side tournament on Saturday 26th September where we were able to enter 18 Cubs in 3 teams - a big difference from last year when it was a struggle just to get 10 Cubs to take part. All of our Cubs tried their best throughout the afternoon with some fantastic passing football played and some top defending. Very unusually all of our 3 semi-finals went to penalty shootouts and we couldn't quite get over the line, or get the ball over the line, to progress to the finals. As always though I am very proud of all our Cubs who took part for their excellent enthusiasm and teamwork throughout.
Animal magic
Our Cubs have enjoyed two weeks of animal-themed meetings during the first half of term. The first of these was on Thursday 8th October when we were delighted to welcome along Emma from Cedars Nature Centre which is located in nearby Waltham Cross. With Teamwork being such an important word for everything that the Cubs do, Emma tailored her presentation to focus on teamwork in the animal kingdom with the help of course of some special guests including a snake, snail, stick insect and tortoise. The following Thursday we were equally delighted to welcome along some guests - two legged and four legged - from the Enfield Chace Dog Training School. During this session the Cubs learnt the key skills for looking after pets and how to keep safe around dogs. Both meetings received excellent feedback afterwards and so a huge thank you to our 'magical' guests.
An early start for Cub Trek
It was an early start on the morning of Saturday 10th October when our Cubs took part in the District Cub Trek competition, an 8km orienteering challenge around the Essex countryside. Along with camping, Cub Trek is the most traditional activity Scouting activity which we do, the photo showing some of our Cubs enjoying the lovely countryside views and demonstrating how to correctly take a bearing. I think that in order to get the full Scouting experience, every Cub should try this event at least once and I am pleased to report that this year, a grand total of 22 of our Cubs did take part. It was especially pleasing that 5 of our new Cubs who only joined in September were amongst the 22 teams of Cub Trekkers. Delighted to report that as always everyone tried their best and we won in addition to having teams finishing 3rd and 4th.
Looking back and looking ahead
It's always nice to try something new isn't it and at our final Thursday meeting before half-term this is exactly what we did. Our older Cubs are used to planning a game or activity as part of their Team Leader Award but this time, Alessandro, Ben and Feliks became Akelas for the evening to "shape" the full 90 minutes. They all did a fantastic job with the meeting beginning with the popular game of Battleships for everyone before dividing into 3 groups, crab football in the main hall, head and catch and some other games outside and some drawing challenges in the 'oven room'. The challenge shown on the left was for the Cubs to draw a mythical creature made from the parts of 3 different real creatures. Well done to our 3 Akelas, maybe in the future one of them will take on this role permanently. Of course, during the first half of term with heavy hearts we lost our Beaver Scouts Leader Christine, who passed away after a short illness, and we will remember her and other deceased members of our Guiding and Scouting groups at Church Parade at St Monica's at the 9:00am Mass on Sunday 8th November. Let's have a big turnout please.