Folkestone and Hythe Scouts

Scout community week is upon us and a team of Beavers and Cubs from 1st Lyminge have done a litter pick around their village. The equipment was kindly donated by Shepway District Council and the local ranger also helped them. Holy Trinity will also be supporting community week by doing a sponsored swim, if you would like to donate towards their swim then you can ask Su Shaw (District Commissioner),

We would like to say a big thank you to Dobbies of Ashford who kindly sponsored the materials for the green activity which involved planting flowers. The garden centre kindly supported Folkestone and Hythe Scouts and provided the compost, flowers and pots for free. Cubs thoroughly enjoyed the activity and got to take their plants home with them at the end!

We would like to say a big thank you to the staff at Sainsburys in West Park Farm for donating over 1,000 items of Sports Relief merchandise for the St. Georges Day activities. Young people were given free water bottles, clappers and bobbles from the Sainsburys store towards the olympic based activites.

Members of 3rd Hawkinge Scout Group have been awarded a grant of £1,000 by the Shepway Community Chest to get new camping and cooking equipment for the group. In the winter of 2009 the group lost most of their equipment through water damage when the roof of their headquarters leaked. Little equipment survived and what was left had to be protected; along with some generous donations from The Roger DeHaan Charitable Trust, Shepway District Council and the Tory Foundation the group managed to fix the roof of their storage area.

Scouting is run entirely on the generous donations given by organisations, trusts and its members. The grant from the Shepway Community Chest has enabled the group to purchase new equipment such as light-weight tents and cooking equipment so that the young people who meet there are able to go on camps and expeditions. The group scout leader, Viv Adams says “I would like to say a huge belated ‘thank you’ to Shepway District Council, The Roger De Haan Charitable Trust, and the Tory Foundation, for their generous donations in 2009/2010, which paid for our new roof and an additional ‘thank you’ to Shepway Community Chest, for the grant of £1,000 for 2011/2012. It is very much appreciated and on behalf of all our young people and Leaders of our Group, please accept our appreciation

.”

To find out more about scouting in Folkestone and Hythe, please take a look at their website www.folkestonehythescouts.org

On Saturday 25^th February 10 packs from across Folkestone and Hythe District came together to celebrate Thinking Day. Thinking Day, also known as Founder’s Day celebrates the birthday of the Founder of The Scout movement, Lord Robert Bayden-Powell. Bayden-Powell held a trial camp on Brownsea Island, Dorset in 1907 which was so successful that he wrote a book, Scouting for Boys so that anyone could take part in these adventures. The success of this book has led to 28 million members joining the Scout Movement in over 200 countries and territories.

Cub Scouts from Folkestone and Hythe celebrated Thinking Day by learning about different countries and their cultures. Every pack from the district was invited to choose a country and run activities based on these, some of which included: boomerang decorating for Australia and making Olympic themed items for Greece. Amelia, a Cub Scout from 3^rd Hawkinge commented on the event saying “My favourite base was Finland where we played a game and learnt that everything in a hotel was made from ice, even the knife and fork! In Australia I found out that penguins lived in Sydney Harbour.” Charlotte also from 3^rd Hawkinge said that her favourite base was India because she got to try the various foods available.

Folkestone and Hythe District run the event annually, with 50 Cub Scouts taking part from different parts of the district. This year the event was held at Pent Valley Leisure Centre, after the school kindly donated its use as part of a relationship with one of the Scout Groups. Alan Couchman-Sawyer spokesperson for the Scout District said “The event was highly successful, it is important for the Cubs to remember who started Scouting and that they are part of a world-wide organisation. Scouting offers young people the chance to do International activities and this is just one way that Cubs can get involved at a younger age.”

There are now even more reasons for you to subscribe to the website: access over 100 high quality images taken at district events plus some group activities. Also you can now access part of our new Camp Doctor section on the website ‘Get Singing’ where over 250 campfire songs have been published into a handy book. As well as this make friends with scouters from across the district, share your opinions, access up to date news via our magazine and our regularly updated news feed. We also have many resources and ideas planned for the website which will be all exclusive to those who sign up. It is quite easy to register so just click the button at the top of your screen now!

I have had several requests for photographs recently which were taken at district events, I am pleased to say that leaders/helpers/parents you can all access the photograph album by going to www.folkestonehythescouts.org/photographs most of them are online now and if they are not then I am in the process of adding them online. If you would like your photos to feature then please add them to our facebook page @Folkestone and Hythe Scouts or email press@folkestoneandhythescouts.org.uk . In order to see the photo album you must register with us!

Folkestone is bringing back the Shepway Airshow in 2012, 10 years after the last one finished, as part of its Jubilee Festival Celebrations. Organisers of the airshow and the District team are planning to run events for young people at the airshow which is expecting to have 100,000-200,000 people attend. We will also be helping with programme selling and litter picking at the event. If you are interested in helping us at the event then please email press@folkestoneandhythescouts.org.uk for more information and to book a place.

The airshow is planning to have a variety of aircraft flying including: red arrows, vulcan bomber, tornados, eurofighter typhoon and the Tiger’s Club Turbulent Display team. The event is due to take place on Saturday 2nd June 2012 along the Leas in Folkestone.