ST GEORGE’S DAY - Jane

This year our District St Georges Day Service is going to take place on Tuesday 23rd April at St Barnabas Church, Gorse Hill. We will start the evening by arriving at 6.30pm. The Flag bearers will go into the Church Hall and all other Members will take their seats in the Church. As soon as everyone is assembled we will start the Service. If there are seats available when all members are seated, Parents will be welcome to stay. Please use the car park behind the shops, entry off Chapel Street, opposite the Church. The evening will finish by 8.00pm.

D.C’s LOG - Kelvin

Several GSL’s and supporters from Swindon North, took part in the Managers and Supporters training weekend, these have now completed their management learning and now need to complete their validation. Attended the Gang Show fundraising meal with members of the Active Support and Ascalon Network at Fabio’s and also attended the Founders Day Service with members of Swindon Active Support in Southwick.

Completed the final District reviews with GSL’s. The Appointments panel met welcoming more new leaders to Swindon North. Met with Delcia and Bryan to sign off our Census returns for Swindon North, giving us a total of 1174 young people up 7% and 499 adults up 6%. Attended Ascalon Scout Network’s Quiz evening for Explorer Scouts from Swindon North and Swindon Ridgeway a great evening. Held our District Conference at the Marriott Hotel, a very good day, including the key note presentation, given by Lewis Dangerfield the HQ Scout Network Commissioner. The Sections and GS’Ls worked in their Groups and we ran several bases for delegates to attend. Last week attended a meeting of the Scout Centre meeting, where we continue to work on selling the building. I am pleased to announce that Julia Carr has taken on the role of District Scout Network. Congratulation on the following service awards: Chief Scout’s 20 years’ Service Award to Louise Dibble CSL 1st Highworth Chief Scout’s 10 years’ Service Award to Jason Woodfield CSL 1st Stratton St Margaret Chief Scout’s 5 years’ Service Award to Christopher Frusher ASL 2nd Cricklade Chief Scout’s 5 years’ Service Award to Timothy Kimber, Group Treasurer 2nd Cricklade Chief Scout’s 5 years’ Service Award to Louise Kimber, Group Treasurer 2nd Cricklade Chief Scout’s 5 years’ Service Award to Tina Hutton-Clarke, LTM

11th March 2019

2 HOSPITALITY 2019 8th April – 2nd Stratton 13th May – Network 10th June – Hydra 8th July – 17th Swindon

TRAINING – Tina

There are 2 course running in April both in Swindon Saturday 27th April is for Committee members, this is a Module every committee member needs to do, which is a day course but well worth the time to have a better understanding of your role. Could all GSL’s please let your committee members know. It is on Swindon North Training page. Sunday, 28th April is the New Safeguarding Course, this is a mandatory module for all leaders to do and needs redoing, so if you are not sure if yours is in date check compass. ATTENTION all TRAINING ADVISERS Could you please email me a Day of the week you are available to have a TA meeting. I need to know who you are and if you have time and space to take on anyone else, or if you don’t want to be an active TA at the moment There are still leaders who have not done the GDPR this needs doing urgently now. If anyone would like a chat please message me Tinascouting@yahoo.com

CUB NEWS – Won- tolla Since my last report I have attended TWO Scrapheap challenge events. Our district one at Purton went very well with seven teams present. They had to design a scout-themed theme park, with some great ideas – who could resist the “woggle slide” or the reef knot ride?

The proud winners were 1st Ashton Keynes (part of their model pictured), and in the end after one postponement due to the snowy weather, they made a joint team with two Purton & Lydiard Cubs and went to Potterne for the County competition, up against strong competition to design and make a robot. Many thanks to Ian from Purton for organising things, and Heather Barber and Dave Prior for their help with the judging. I have just returned from a brief visit to the Ridgeway Cub and Scout chess competition, with Cub teams this year from 1st Swindon and 2nd Cricklade, plus (I think) one Cub from Purton! I’m looking forward to hearing the results which should be being announced as I write...!

We have presented Silver awards to 1st Blunsdon, 1st Swindon Nelson and 1st Rodbourne Cheney in the last few weeks. Well done to all the Cubs who worked hard to gain those. As the number of awards continues to increase I would like to extend a little the group of people who present awards, partly to share the workload but also to make it more interesting for the Cubs. Would any uniformed Scout Active Support adults like to help with this? It would be especially good to have ex Cub leaders involved, who are used to presenting to Cubs and can perhaps share some of their past experiences and insights. Scouting nationally is rightly encouraging younger adults to help in a wider range of ways, but there is also much value in hearing

3 from the more senior members of the movement! We shared some good thoughts at the conference about programme planning and how different Packs implement the Challenge awards and Activity badges – I learnt a few things too. In due course we will try and collect some of these ideas and make them generally available for other Packs, but do ask if you’d like more information. And as ever, do ask if you’d like any help from District filling gaps in your programme so that more Cubs can gain their silver award. Our next Cub leaders’ meeting is on Tuesday 19th March at 8.00pm for 8.15pm at 1st Rodbourne Cheney hall/HQ. I will send out a reminder email to packs nearer the time with more detail where that is. We really do need better attendance at these meetings – we are quite happy for leaders to send a parent helper or young leader to represent them. I suspect the packs who we rarely see are those that would most benefit. We do try to vary dates/venues to make it easier, and are open to offers to host the meeting, especially if they involve food.

NETWORK – Julia After consultation with Kelvin and Geoff Begg I have agreed to undertake the task of District Scout Network Commissioner for both districts. I have been a warranted leader for nearly 20 years, but much longer if you count my time as a parent helper at my children’s sections. As this newsletter goes out I will have had a meeting with members from Odyssey and Ascalon to plan a way forward for the two units to work together. However, for the moment both units will keep their own identity but work as one unit. This may change during the consultation process with the two units. I have a very active committee in place, made up of members from both sections already. I look forward to this new challenge welcoming any new members from the Explorer Units and also working with the Explorer leaders from Swindon North.

Julia Carr. Joint District Scout Network Commissioner.

SCOUT ACTIVE SUPPORT – Jane Our meeting in February supported the Swindon Gang Show by going for a meal at Fabio’s in Old Town. It was charity evening with a percentage of the takings going to Gang Show funds. We helped to raise £440 for Swindon Gang Show, and had a very nice evening as well. A few of our Members attended the Service for Founders Day organised by Wiltshire West Scout Active Support Unit. It was a good afternoon followed by a ‘bring and share’ tea. In March we will be having pancakes at our meeting. As all members now have to do a short training session on GDPR, I have arranged with Bryan McGaw to run the course for those who need to do this during the evening. For others attending there will be a quiz for you. In April Wendy has organised a talk for us about sponsoring a child in The Gambia. If you are interested in joining Swindon Scout Active Support please contact Delcia or myself for more information as we would welcome new members into the Unit. We meet on the second Tuesday of each month at 7.30pm till 9.00pm in the Training Room (basement) in Scout House unless an outing has been organised.

Nights Away and Activity updates – Andy

Thank you for continuing to complete the Activity and Night Away notification forms, I hope they are not too onerous to complete but they serve several purposes, and allow the District team to have visibility of who is where. For those that need a reminder the links are:

Activities

4 www.swindonnorthscouts.org.uk/activity and Nights Away www.swindonnorthscouts.org.uk/nan Please note the above links are case sensitive Nights Away Damboree is back in 2019 and includes Cubs and in 2020 will also include Scouts. The link to Damboree website is www.damboree.co.uk This is a great opportunity to get sections 'OUT' and for leaders to gain Nights Away permits. On the subject of Nights Away permits, if you are applying for a permit at a particular level then your assessment camp will need to be at that level i.e. Indoor, Campsite, Greenfield or Lightweight Expedition. This will also be the same for permit upgrades. As of 2020 anyone applying for or renewing a Nights Away permit will require a valid Module 10 First Response. The Nights Away checklist for Assessors has been updated to include a section for Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Please can we all consider the risks associated with Carbon Monoxide poisoning within our Scouting Activities. I have a number of cartons of Hexomine tablets (solid fuel used on cooking stoves) that I would like to distribute. If you would like some for your section, please phone Jo or me to arrange collection.

DIARY DATES 2019 March 12th S.A.S. 13th Appointments 19th Cub Leaders Meeting at Rod. Cheney 28th District Executive April 3rd Deadline for April’s newsletter 6th Mid-Winter reunion WSC 7.00[m 8th District Night 9th SAS – Gambia 23rd St. Georges Day Service

27th Executive training 28th Safeguarding course 11.00am A.G.M. DATES Please note only 1 (one) AGM to be held on one date, first come first served. May 14th 1st Highworth 24th 1ST S.S.M. 6.00pm – 7.00pm June 18th 17th Swindon 20th 4th Swindon 7.45 – 8.00pm 26th 2nd Swindon 6.00pm 27th 7th Swindon July 3rd District A.G.M. (prov) 18th County

DEADLINE FOR FEBRUARY’S NEWSLETTER

WEDNESDAY, 3RD APRIL 2019 E-MAIL delcia_appleby@btinternet.com

D.C. Kelvin King, Tel. 07876 014254 swindonnorthdc@wiltshirescouts.org.uk A.D.C.(B) Joanne Prior Tel. 330732 jo.prior73@gmail.com A.D.C.(C) Rob South Tel.822811 Robert.South@wiltshirescouts.org.uk A.D.C(S) Tim Flatt Tel. 07584 8177199 timmyflatt@gmail.com S.A.S. Manager Jane Harvey Tel.617176 janecharvey49@yahoo.co.uk D.E.S.C. Terry Shipp Tel, 07725 105575 desc@swindonnorthscouts.org.uk L.T.M. Tina Hutton-Clarke ltm.swindonnorrth@wiltshirescout.org.uk A.D.C.(Activities) Andy Prior activities@swindonnorthscouts.org.uk

5 Youth Comm. James Howse j341howse@btinternet.com Bryan McGaw Dist. Chairman Tel. 340702 bryan@mcgaw.eu Badge Secretary Dave Carr Tel.435106 Mobile 07855 463680 dave_carr@btopenworld.com Membership Secretary Marg Powell margepowell40@btinternet.com

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