What a great year and so good to be back to face to face scouting!

We started the financial year with 30 scouts and closed the year with 32. Despite covid and being online, 3 of our scouts achieved their Chief Scout Gold awards and attended the County Awards evening in November – well done Dylan, Zohan & Thomas N. A further 3 have also completed this summer term – Kabir, Will and Thomas G, with a further 3 very close.

We were delighted to welcome Finn back as a young leader last Christmas.

So what did face to face scouting look like again?

• We held 2 camps: Autumn camp at Boidier Hurst near Box Hill and got back to our traditional Spring camp at Walton Firs – the highlight of which being shopping for then cooking a meal on a budget (& washing up afterwards!)
• We went kneeboarding, always a great end of summer term treat
• We joined other District scouts for the restarted annual District Water Activities day in September.
• We made Halloween pottery pumpkins
• We held a Festive 5K run raising money for Brain Cancer Research
• We ran our version of I’m a Scout, get me out of here – points awarded for the most cockroaches chewed out of jelly or the most dried insects tried
• And lots of traditional scouting fun – Cooking, firelighting  air rifle shooting, crate stacking etc

Since then, we had 4 teams take part in this year’s Expedition Challenge after a 2 year delay and were absolutely delighted when our competition team brought back the trophy – well done Kabir, Thomas G, Will, Alfie, Thomas P and James! Scoutabout, an event with some 5000 scouts & guides from across Surrey, was also finally able to go ahead 2 weeks ago – it was good to be back!

However I’m sure the photos will give you a far better flavour of the fun we’ve all had ……

Finally and most importantly as, without their fantastic input, support and hard work, scouts wouldn’t be anywhere near as much fun, I’d like to extend a huge thank you to Janet, Mike R, Salv, Mike B, Finn & Adam & Thomas W when they’re able to escape uni to join us and to all the other leaders, ex-leaders, Executive and parents who have volunteered to help in so many ways over the year. Do also please keep collecting all that recycling rubbish!

And so, on to the next year – summer camp at PACCAR in 4 weeks’ time then KIX and the Swiss mountains next year and a whole lot more besides !

Sally Rogers

Scout Leader