PLANNCSNEWSAPRIL 2012

Alan Ward (1933 – 2012)Vice-President Potters Bar & District Scouts

Chairman – 1st Cuffley Scout Group

Over 200 family, friends and colleagues gathered in St Andrew’s Church, Cuffley on Tuesday 20th March 2012 to say goodbye to Alan and to offer support to his wife Maureen and the family in their sad loss.Alan’s Scouting life began in Highbury at the 94th North London and later in Southgate. In 1959, the family moved to Cuffley and in the early seventies Alan was persuaded to take on the role of Venture Scout Leader with the newly formed Cuffley Unit. In 1976, Alan swapped jobs with the Scout Leader and was SL of the Troop until he took over the role of GSL and finally Chairman of the Group, a job he held even through his last illness. From 1978 to 1989 Alan also served as District Scout Leader and latterly as Vice-President of the District.During the 35 or so years that Alan faithfully served the 1st Cuffley Scout Group, he was awarded the Medal of Merit in 1990 and together with Maureen, the Silver Acorn for specially distinguished service in 2003. Alan’s Silver Acorn was laid on his coffin at the funeral service.Alan’s troop maintained the tradition of camping both over the weekend and longer in the summer, at least three times in Germany or France and taking part in joint camps at Lochearnhead, notably with the 5/10th Potters Bar troop in 1977 to celebrate Cuffley’s Golden Jubilee.Alan will be remembered as a mild-mannered leader who saw the best in everything and everyone. It was always good to have him on the team with his calm approach to solving problems. We will miss him.

Contributed by Mike Aston

AWARDSChief Scout Silver AwardsCubs 4PB : Thomas Afford , Louis McArdle, Nathan Martell, Jemma Munn

Chief Scout Platinum Award and Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award

Silver Phoenix Explorer : Paul Abdullah

The following article missed the deadline last month by just ten minutes – but there’s always space for anything someone has spent time producing for us:

BEAVERS: 3rd Potters Bar 19 Beavers currently attend 3rd Potters Bar Beaver Colony regularly, along with 3 Leaders; Skylark, Woodpecker and Wren, 2 young leaders and parent helper rota.The New Year kicked off with the Colony exploring their imaginations and working towards the Imagination Badge, by creating pictures of their own imaginary friend and playing games linked to using their imagination.

We all took part in the Hobby Badge, giving us an opportunity to share with the group the other activities and collections we get up to outside of Beavers. A vast array of hobbies and collectables were shared, from playing musical instruments, fairy collections and army memorabilia. Even one of our Leaders, Woodpecker, brought in some of the equipment he uses for his hobby of rock climbing. Undeterred by the snow, 11 Beavers made it to the soft play area at Kidzone in Hatfield, for the District Kids’ Fun event. A great evening was had by all, including Skylark, who at one stage had to be shown the way out of a rope maze by the Beavers and Wren, who was ‘encouraged’ to conquer her fears and go down the rainbow drop slide!

This outing was a fitting start for the Beavers to begin working towards their Fitness and Healthy Eating Badges over the forthcoming weeks. This will include a hike for Sport Relief, as well as preparation for the Beavers Mini Olympics and Global Badges, which will take us up to the end of the summer term. On a sadder note, we had to say goodbye to one of our regular weekly volunteer helpers, Swift (Dawn). Swift has been part of the Beaver Colony for a number of years and a house move means that she is no longer able to help. All Leaders and Beavers would like to thank Swift for all her help and wish her the very best of luck for the future.

Sarah Porritt ABSL

BEAVERS: 2nd Little Heath

Our Beavers have been working well this term. Everyone gained a badge or three on the last night of term, which had started with a visit from Mushing Mut Huskies http://www.mushingmutts.co.uk/. The dogs were a huge success and very pretty. Beavers learnt how to act responsibly and safely around all dogs, they also had a try on a Husky sledge and had photos taken whilst mushing.Then came dinosaur hunting and Chinese New Year . . .

As we were still in the New Year we tried some healthy eating. Beavers made pizza, fruit kebabs (covered in chocolate from a chocolate fountain) and cheese and cucumber sandwiches.To burn of these extra calories and with the kind help of Linda Hedison the boys and girls took their swimmer 1 badge with most of them passing.Just before Mothers Day we went to the Pots of Art Studio in St Albans. The plan was to make lovely Mothers Day gifts - however many 2nd LH mothers would have received painted skulls and spiders on Sunday morning.We had a Bear hunt around Tolmers. A BIG thank you to Dave Sparrow and Keith Blackwell for organising the campfire, songs and marshmallow toasting. I cant sing, nor light fires and don’t like marshmallows so this would have been a rotten night without them !!!!Luca from Celtic Harmony bought in his very beautiful Owls. The Beavers were very privileged to be able to stroke these rare animals and to watch a flying display.Beavers and Leaders that were brave enough, lay on the floor and an African Eagle Owl flew above them. Beavers and Leaders not brave enough kept out of the way as the Owl was huge with very sharp talons. Then out came the European Eagle Owl the biggest Owl in the display; she had a 6 foot wing span, weighed 3kg and could eat a deer for dinner. Absolutely amazing.

Luca is happy to visit any Beaver or Cub group and can be contacted via the Celtic Harmony website. :- http://www.celticharmony.org/

Our last evening was spent at Gobions open spaces. After a play in the park the Beavers went on an egg hunt around the woods only to find their eggs up a tree? Then investing, badges, bunny biscuits and home.

Happy Easter to everyoneMeerkat AKA Diane.

CUBS : 3rd Potters Bar’s hike

On Sunday, 25th March, the Cubs from 3rd Potters Bar enjoyed a hike to Tolmers campsite. They met at their meeting place, the Oakmere centre and walked through the woods and footpaths to their destination. Setting off at 10.30am and with a few stops and breaks, and a play in the playground at Northaw, they arrived at 12.30pm. A much needed lunch was due and after this and with fully refreshed Cubs, they enjoyed games of football and playing in the woods. Later they tried out ‘The Rock’, the rotating climbing wall, followed by some time on the assault course until their parents arrived. For a lot of our Cubs, this was their first time at a campsite and trying out these new activities, so quite a few hikes away badges were earned from this day. The weather was very kind to us, which made this a very enjoyable day.

Margaret Sparrow, Pack Helper

Cubs 6 A-side football

Hatfield Leisure Centre was once again the venue for this annual event with 8 teams from 5 packs played in 2 ‘round robin’ leagues in the opening stage of the tournament with the top 2 from each going into sudden death semi-finals. This found 4PB A playing 4PB B and North Mymms against 3PB with the latter 2 teams being defeated in each game. The final was a hard fought contest with North Mymms turning out the victors by 4 goals to nil but the game was much closer than the score suggests.

All the games were very closely fought with good skills all round and I am please to say in a very sporting fashion which is a credit to all the participants. My thanks to Steve Mann (NM) and David (a Cuffley dad) who did a great job with the whistle.

Dave Sparrow ADC Cubs

District Cubs Indoor Games and Shepherd Cup Competitions

This year the competitions were delayed due to the snow and cold weather we had in January as these are traditionally the first Cub competitions of the New Year. So last Friday 70+ children and their Leaders and Helpers gathered at Little Heath Church Hall ready to compete.

7 packs entered the Model Making competition not knowing until Barbara had packed away the Leader/Helpers what they were about to be asked to make in around an hour. This year being the Queen’s Jubilee a Royal car became their task. Cutting and sticking took place and the models took shape from the huge to the quite small with some detailed drawing on the cereal and egg boxes brought along. Eventually time was up and the judging was done. Thankfully I did not have to get involved as all the models were quite good this year and the judges had a difficult task. Team work and tidiness played a part and the winner was chosen from 3PB who received the Shepherd Cup for their efforts. Well done.**I would have liked to have had a runners-up certificate this year, to present to 2LH as a near-miss winner. Can we consider this for future competitions? Ed

Whilst the Shepherd Cup competition was progressing 6 teams were also competing for the Indoor Games Trophy. With 6 quiet, thinking, games and a similar number of active games where the Cubs need to work as a team once again the results were very close. Ultimately 1LH & PB came out the winners. Congratulations to their team.

My thanks must go to the District SAS Team (Scout Fellowship) for once again running a very successful evening, which was enjoyed by all the Cubs who took part.

Dave Sparrow ADC Cubs

SCOUTS : North Mymms

North Mymms Scout Troop has a very active weekly programme. Indoors our activities have included cooking a curry from scratch, built and used a Gym and our Assault Course which some Scouts help build was used as the basis of a sleepover. This filled our hut and included a giant slide and a spiders web as well as numerous other obstacles.

We also discovered the effects of hypothermia and for this year’s **“BUSH TUCKER”, apart from numerous slimy and smelly items of food we also skinned and gutted rabbits before adding them to the stew pot.

We have also been out swimming and bowling, and undertaken two night hikes as well as cooking pancakes on a campfire. We won the District Swimming Gala, and back in January we camped with Sandon Scouts at the National Scout Pedal Car Olympics. It was minus 5*C at night, the pedalling kept them warm by day and with an outdoor disco and giant inflatables for fun, the evenings were great. Needless to say we are looking forward to next term when hopefully all our meetings will be outside.

Ian Lewington GSL**BUSH TUCKER

‘Bush tucker’ is a meeting we run every year in the spring term. It's always popular with the Scouts and one of our "basics". The meeting is split into two halves. In the first the Scouts gut, cook and eat a fish. Messy, a little gruesome and fun. In the second half we feed the Scouts a variety of "bush tucker". This is edible insects such as ants, grubs and locust purchased from Unique Edible. To this we add more unusual food, sold locally, which most children won't have seen - jellied eels, whelks – or just look revolting, such as tinned oysters. Not telling the Scouts what the food is until the end lets their imagination run riot, which is alwaysfunny and sometimes a little worrying.

We've always wanted to replace the fish gutting section of this meeting with rabbit skinning, but it is difficult to get skinned rabbits. Fortunately an email appeal sent in January gave us a lead which resulted in a dozen locally shot rabbits. A warning mail to the Scouts' parents only stopped two Scouts coming, one of whom had decided to become a vegetarian only three days earlier.

As you would expect, the Scouts were fascinated by the demonstration of skinning a rabbit. The breaking of the legs prior to removal was met with "Cool!" by the Scouts while the Leaders winced at the sound. The removal of the head and skin was probably the highlight of the term for the Scouts.

The Scouts were given one rabbit between two or three, with each Scout

doing part of the work. None of the Scouts baulked at the gruesome works,although rabbits at this time of year tend to be old and hence tough. We really should have sharpened the knives.

Skinning rabbits takes much longer than gutting fish and by the time we'dfinished there was little time for the second half of 'Bush Tucker.' This was rushed, packed into twenty minutes, but the rabbits skinning had been a fantastic success. Next year we'll revert Bush Tucker to its old format and have a separate Rabbit Skinning meeting.

John Fraser SL North Mymms

I HAVE BEEN GIVEN NO NEW DIARY DATES

Editor Barbara Charlish: 01707 654 956 e- writeon@day22.eclipse.co.ukNext deadline April 30 : 5PB Beavers / 1 Nor Cubs / 4PB Scouts

And anyone else with something to share.Please.

National Charity no 302557