Christmas Wishes do come true! Print
Written by Ian Mitchell   

It is that time of year again and time for me to say a big thank you to all of my assistant leaders, young leaders and parents helpers (especially the newly formed Parent Council) in making 2012 a fantastic year for the Scouts. Attendance has remained high with over 25 Scouts. We have undertaken many new and exciting events, from the traditional ice skating and night hike to the new ones, such as skiing, scuba divingand visiting the Essex Police Rapid Response firearm team. In August we attended the Essex international jamboree (along with over 12,000 other Scouts  and leaders) and invented a new craze called 'Panting'. We also had several leaders pass their wood badge (well done John & Claire) with other leaders well on their way to completing theirs shortly. We lost two great young leaders in Gareth and Matt to Uni, but gained three more in Matt M, James and Kiah. We started the Genesis council to help integrate the troop into the wider community and parent networks better, with their first great success in organising fund raising in the form of bag packing this Christmas (more on that in a minute). If you would like to get involved with the Genesis Council please feel free to get in touch with either myself or Jo. Finally in the summer we introduced the Genesis Style range of clothes, which has proved to be very popular.

2013 looks like an even better year with two exciting camps in the first term, trips to Wales for the older ones in June and a more relaxed Summer camp in July. All this intersperced with core activities to help the Scouts gain their challenge badges, whilst having a great time. Lots of fun to look forward to.

Back to the bag packing. Thank you to all those who attended, all three days were very busy. I would also like to thank and all of it's staff for allowing us to raise much needed funds. Hopefully we made the lives of the staff and customers just that little bit easier by helping out. Over the three days we managed to raise a whopping £1135 pounds towards new patrol tents, which along with a generous donation from John and Claires 2p piggy bank, broke the £1200 barrier. This means that we can now buy 3 of the new tents. Now for some interesting, related, bag packing facts:

  • Totals for each day are as follows: Sat 15th £318, Sat 22nd £369 and Sun 23rd £447.
  • We had five donations of £5 notes
  • Over 4500 individual coins
  • 100+ Hours of bag packing, undertaken by 14 out of 25 Scouts, with an average level of 3 leaders supporting throughout.

On that note I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy new year and see you all at Chelmsford ice rink the first week back (11th January - details to follow in the new year).

Last Updated on Tuesday, 25 December 2012 10:46