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Explorers News Scouts

Chief Scout Gold 💪🏼

Well done to 6 scouts and 4 explorers (delayed expedition due to covid) who successfully completed the top award for Scout section. They worked very hard before, during and after the pandemic to cover all 9 challenge badges needed to achieve their Chief Scout Gold award. A fantastic achievement despite the pandemic. Well done everyone, us leaders are all very proud of you. (Two of the award recipients were unable to attend but we will award them as soon as possible)

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Beavers Cubs Explorers News Scouts

Scouts host Jubilee Street Party

On Friday night Scout section invited all sections, family and friends to come along to a street party. They planned the event the previous week and ran games during the event. Lots of families donated baked goods to sell during the evening, there was popcorn for sale, guess the number of sweets in the jar and a jubilee jumble fireside quiz sheet. We managed to raise £230 on the night and a further £20 from a family who were unable to attend. Thanks to all the leaders who helped out, the scouts, our fabulous YLs and PLs, the other sections and family members who supported the event. It was fantastic to see everyone enjoying themselves.

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Scouts

Scouts yard tidy up

Scouts worked hard this week. They were removing weeds around the building and yard, dismantled rotten old planters, collected rubbish and painted the front fence. There were also some branches to saw up for firewood. Well done everyone and we hope you enjoyed your ice creams.

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Scouts

Scouts Raft Regatta

Scouts spent some time building stick rafts this week. After a variety of styles of rafts were created, they walked to the trim trail to test them out. Once the scouts were in the river and lined up, the rafts were released. The winning raft was HMS Noah. Unfortunately the net we stretched across the river failed to catch all the rafts and it was up to a leader and YLs to run downstream to retrieve them 😂😂

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Camps Explorers News Scouts Uncategorised

Scouts Exploration

After a couple of planning sessions our eldest Scouts, and some Explorers who previously missed out due to covid, completed their exploration of the North Down Coastal path. Travelling by train to Holywood, then hiking the rest of the way to Crawfordsburn Scout Centre (leaders shadowing and checkpoints) for an overnight stay, before continuing on foot to Bangor the next day. They had Crawfordsburn all to themselves so made good use of the lid…playing badminton, rounders and cooking sheltered from the rain. Saturday evening we were entertained by lots of singing and dancing scouts/explorers on the stage. Well done everyone 🤩🤩

Thanks to Dave (Crawfordburn scout centre warden) for opening the country park gates to allow us to visit Tesco.

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News Scouts Uncategorised

Wandering, foraging and campfire cooking

This week scout section visited Downhill forest. We walked around the forest trail adding 1.6 miles to our Platinum Jubilee Challenge (to walk 70 miles before the Jubilee bank holiday). Up on Dungannon hill, scouts foraged for wild garlic to make garlic butter. They used this to make garlic toasties on the campfire. They also made some campfire cones with marshmallows and chocolate buttons. Young leaders ran a quick game of rounders to finish up.

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Scouts

Scouts Earth Day Hike

This weeks meeting took place on Earth day, so we took scouts on a hike from Portballintrae to the Giants Causeway to appreciate the scenery. As its St George’s Day weekend, we renewed our promises on the main Causeway stones. It’s also National Jelly bean day so everyone got a pack of Jelly beans to enjoy before returning to Portballintrae as the sun was setting.

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News Scouts

Scouts Survival Camp

Scouts visited Waterfall caves at the weekend to take part in a survival camp. After hail stones the day before we couldn’t believe our luck with the lovely spring sunshine on arrival.

We had backwoods cooking, different types of survival bags/shelter and how to use them, natural shelter team competition, lots of time for scouts to play wide games or hang out, campfire with hotdogs, sleeping under tarps in survival bags (in temps down to 2 degrees) and an early morning walk around the lake at Binevenagh and up to the viewpoint. It was great to see the more established scouts leading and mentoring our younger scouts. Well done to all our scouts (especially the 1st time campers) 👏🏻👏🏻

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News Scouts

Scouts night at the Port

With such a great spell of weather this week, we decided a trip to the coast was in order. On arrival at Portrush the group split in half to complete the 1st activities. Lighting tuna can stoves on the beach with flint and steel to toast marshmallows and keep warm while the other half were practicing their phonetic code on walkie-talkies, then swap.

Then we had some games and races on the grassy area above the beach before a final stroll along the promenade.

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News Scouts

Scouts Camp Planning and Archery


This week scouts were challenged to come up with a 2 night camp in their patrols. They had to choose the venue, decide how to get there, plan the camp programme, plan the menu, figure out what equipment they would need to take and calculate a rough cost for the weekend. At the same time, each patrol had a go at soft archery in preparation for the upcoming County archery competition. At the end of the evening the patrols presented their camp plans. Some interesting plans and a useful guide to leaders when planning future camps.

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Beavers Cubs Explorers News Scouts

All Sections Forest Fun

If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise…Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and YL’s all met in Somerset Forest. We were unable to meet at the hall this week due to the main hall floor being repaired. So a bit of outdoor fun was in order 😃

A wee walk up to the top of the forest, some refreshments and then time to mix up the sections. Team leaders and scouts helped the younger sections to make shelters. All groups made natural shelters and a few had time to make tarp shelters too. Some great teamwork out in the fresh air.



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News Scouts Uncategorised

Scouts Fitness February & Nutrition

Traditonally February is all about fitness with our Scouts. This year we haven’t been able to do our normal full month of fitness but thanks to Paul Humphreys we covered exercise and nutrition in one night 💪🏼

First a quiz to learn how much our scouts knew about nutrition. Some shocking information about sugar followed by a work out with doors open for ventilation

Thanks to Paul for putting the scouts through their paces 😄

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News Scouts

Scouts Australia Make Contact 🇦🇺

A few weeks ago scouts wrote postcards to 1st Kempsey scouts, New South Wales, Australia. This week we received a parcel from the group with letters, a typical scout uniform, badges, info on Scouts Australia and the local area and some tasty Aussie treats

Scouts tasted the treats and apricot delights were voted as the best. They were challenged to translate some aussie slang in their patrols Well done to Wolves for earning most points 👏🏻


They enjoyed some silly games (elephant ball and kangaroo hop relay) with the Aussie beach balls we were sent and some balloon games too

At the end of the evening all scouts received an australian flag badge, koala carmello, sticker and scoutwired info.

Check the Facebook comments for some silly videos 😂

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News Scouts

Scouts Survival Badge

Scout section started their survival activity badge. Four bases…make a survival tin, axe skills, wood burning properties and tuna can stove/mini campfire

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News Scouts

Scouts International Badge – Australia 🇦🇺

Tonight scouts started their international badge. As it’s Australia Day next week we thought this would be a good time to make a start.

Scouts decorated boomerangs in Aborigine style (dots and symbols). Then they wrote postcards (had to explain to many scouts what postcards were!! Feeling old 😂😂). We’ll send these to a scout group we have linked with in New South Wales, Australia. We’ll be sending these, some info about the local area, a few group name tapes and a sample uniform in the next week or so. Once the group receives our package we will get some post back at a later date 😃

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Scouts

Scouts Nerf Team Games

Scouts had a stave game to start off tonight and then learned how to make a tripod lashing tonight. Then they added tarps etc so they had shelters to hide behind for nerf team games. As we have a large group of scouts we had to split them in half …. Some playing nerf games and some enjoying tuck shop and hanging out. Then swap over. Some very competitive scouts 💪🏼

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News Scouts

Scouts walk Spooky Springwell Forest

On Friday night scouts got dressed in Halloween costumes and completed a 2 mile night time walk around Springwell Forest. Families were invited to join us too. Afterwards everyone was offered s’mores, hot chocolate/tea/coffee and donuts (thanks Joy). It turned out dry after an initial drizzle and we were treated to some lovely starry skies at times. Well done to all that took part, especially the younger siblings.

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News Scouts

Patrol night

Tonight, after a game of “bean bag” scouts were assigned patrols. Patrol leaders and assistant Patrol leaders were selected and then they were given 4 challenges.
1. Create an outfit and hat out of paper. Leaders judge best outfit. Some very creative scouts, maybe some fashion designers of the future.

2. Make a paper aeroplane, whoever’s flies furthest wins.

3. Make a paper cup, no cello tape allowed, to hold water for a minute

4. Tallest free standing tower, only using cello tape and paper.

Patrol points awarded, scouts chose their patrol names (Tiger, panther, wolf and Kingfisher), tuck shop and then a couple of games of dodgeball to finish off.


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News Scouts Uncategorised

Scouts End of Summer/Cubs moving on

For our last meeting of summer term we invited cubs moving on to scouts to come along for some fun. Team work and communication were very important for the team games. We had team skis, gutter ball and blind obstacle course. We finished up with some hotdogs (cooked by the scouts on trangias) and popcorn.

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News Scouts

Scouts Hike Rathlin Island

Scout section met early on Saturday to embark on a trip to Rathlin Island and a 9 mile hike. A drizzly, grey start but the sun eventually made an appearance. On the way to Rathlin we were treated to a fabulous display from a dolphin pod 🐬

After a 4 and a half mile hike, dodging the puffin bus, a herd of sheep and free roaming cows we reached our destination 😁

A quick lunch break and we briefly visited the sea bird sanctuary/upsides down lighthouse after our lunch break. Another 4 and half miles back to the harbour. Well done to Scouts for walking uphills and jogging downhills to catch the Ferry home 👍🏻😂

Back to Ballycastle for some ice cream and playing in the park.

Get those naturalist booklets and a poster with 3/4 facts finished to earn your badge 👏🏻👏🏻

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News Scouts

Hot Hike up Binevenagh 🥵

This weekend scouts hiked up Binevenagh, guided by Heather (Pulse Fitness). The hottest day of the year so far didn’t stop our Scouts from completing the route. Lots of refreshment breaks, we hiked almost four miles, some very steep inclines and descents, with uneven ground underfoot. We are very proud of our Scouts achievement today.

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News Scouts

Scouts Mini hike, Castlerock – Mussenden Demense – Castlerock

This week we wanted to assess our scouts fitness level, so we planned a mini hike. We met at the promenade and walked along the coastal path to Mussenden Demense.

A wee sit down with drinks and snacks, followed up with a game of kick the can in the Demense.

Back to Castlerock along the Mussenden Road. Well done Scouts.

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News Scouts

Scouts Rock…Rocket Stoves

Scouts met on the West Strand, Portrush this week. 

A game of beach volleyball to start. Hands sanitised and onto rocket stoves 😃 

Each pair were given a pre-drilled piece of fence post. They were provided with a fire lighting kit. Their challenge? To light the stove fully and then boil eggs in tin cans. Pleased to say almost all eggs were edible 👍🏻 Well done Scouts 

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Beavers Cubs News Scouts

County Camp at Home 2 – together

Last weekend all sections joined groups from the county and beyond, taking part in another virtual camp. This time we had the benefit of being able to meet up for part of the camp too 😃

Beavers met at the hall first, watched the camp opening live, made our camp pictures, played games and completed the straw rocket craft. Eight new beavers were invested and the whole colony made their promise ⚜️ They went home with badges recently earned and resources to make their bee pegs.

Scouts met in the afternoon, took a trip to the local park for some footgolf (set up and ran by YLs), attempted Da Vinci Bridges and then lit campfires and had s’mores (kids brought their own) back at the hall. We also invested 2 new scouts and a leader ⚜️



Cubs had an evening session, practicing knots, making kites, dancing, s’mores (kids brought their own) and invested new cubs and leaders.

All sections were busy at home with their families completing a variety of challenges over the weekend. Well done to all Ballymoney Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, YL’s and leaders 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Huge thanks to Paul and the county team, all the Ballymoney Leader team and our fantastic parents for making our camp at home 2 a great experience ⛺️ ⚜️

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News Scouts

Scout Skills – Whittling and Map Contours

This week scouts had 2 activities running. Whittling and map work, specifically contour lines.

WHITTLING

After a chat about knife laws and a reminder on knife safety, scouts were challenged to whittle butter knives. However, somehow there appeared to be more pointy spears 🤔😂

MAP CONTOUR LINES

A session ran by Joan teaching the importance of knowing the contours on a map when planning any hikes or expeditions. Then a practical task using modelling clay to create models of Slievanorra.


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News Scouts

Scouts Beach Athletics & St George’s Day

Scout section met at the Whiterocks Beach for some beach games/athletics. Our events were team obstacle course, Javelin (bamboo throwing arrows 😂), High jump, long jump, shot put (throwing white rocks) and 100m sprint to finish.

Before we could start the events scouts were shown how to make bamboo throwing arrows while YLs set up an obstacle course. Score cards handed out and time to play.

At the end of the session, as it’s St George’s Day, all scouts renewed their promise under the setting sun.

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News Scouts

SCOUTS DANDER AT BINEVENAGH

Wee Saturday trip out for scout section in the run up to St. Paddy’s day. Everyone was well wrapped up for a walk from the Lake car park to the statue of Manannan Mac Lir, the Irish Sea god, at Gortmore Point. Thanks to David Hoy for leading the walk. They were treated to lovely scenery and a beautiful sunset, but it was rather windy!

Unfortunately the walk took a bit longer than anticipated, so we ran out of time for return walk to the car park where Jonny (Akela) had planned to teach them how to make bannock bread. So while waiting for the minibus to pick them up, the scouts had some fun playing around on the grassland. Never mind… Plan B … a stop at Burger King on the return journey to fill hungry tummies.

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News Scouts

Scouts Fitness February

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News Scouts Uncategorised

Scouts Winter Camp 2020

Friday night fun

Scouts and their rucksacks crammed into the minibus and set off to the Peter Thompson Hall, Castlerock. Young leaders ran some silly team relay games …. bottle flipping and caterpillar racing. Some very interesting techniques and a lot of cheating caterpillars. Then leaders ran a game of hungry hippos while the YLs set up their activity … Warhammer model making. The rest of the evening was spent making models and listening to music.

Saturday Variety

All kinds of activities today!!! Exploring HMS Caroline … Team work and problem solving trying to Save the City at Escapade escape rooms … lots of climbing at Clip and Climb. Back to the Peter Thompson Hall to enjoy a meal – Chinese New Year theme. Well done to chefs (Grace, Katie, Joshua and Luke) for cooking Chow mein noodles, Chinese style curry with rice and spring rolls. Then ice cream for pudding followed by a walk around Castlerock. Planned evening games ditched in favour of more Warhammer activities and making their own fun in the main hall.

Sunday

A bit of a lie in, waking up to a fab cooked breakfast (Jonny/Akela) then time to tidy up and get gear on the bus. Walking gear on, then on to Castlerock train station with Joan and Alphie to meet Julie-Anne (Beaver Leader) and continue on a dander cross country to Mussenden Temple and finishing at Downhill Forest. We had many fun facts along the way thanks to Katie 😂😂

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Beavers Cubs News Scouts

Easter Raffle Winner

Thank you to all those who supported our Easter fundraiser by entering our raffle. We raised £311 which will be used to buy more tents and equipment for our group camp later this year. The winner of the hamper was Margaret Archibald. Congratulations!!

Also a huge thank you to those who donated prizes including cinema and bowling passes from The Jet Centre, Coleraine and a voucher from McClesters Family Butcher, Ballymoney.