Tonight – following the rules that the best pioneering projects are both dangerous and fun tonight we built a giant crossbow. Check out the footage at qik.com/lloydml The other half of the unit learned basic climbing skills as part of the climbers badge. Next week we swap and try to beat the distance fired record.

After a bit of a frantic start to get all forms signed and places confirmed (HUGE thanks to Alison who managed this in 4 days!!)

We set off for Staindrop to the Beavers Picnic with much excitement, a Banner and numerous requests to eat the packed lunches at 9.40am.

There was plenty of activities to do and many new friendships were formed amongst the Beavers.

The Beavers tried their hand at Archery, made numerous crafty things, had faces painted, bounced, pillow-warred and climbed all day long.

Dams FC took part in the 5-a-side District Football Tournament……..AND WON!!!!  Congratulations to the boys who took part

There was a Banner Competition which was won by ………US!!!!!  Proud doesn’t begin to express how we all felt receiving our trophy!  Well done to the whole Beaver troup who worked hard on the Banner.  It will hang on the Scout Hut wall on Thursday for photographs.

The day ended with a campfire, songs, presentations and our Promise, before packing up and heading home happy and exhausted x

Bring on next year!!

Tonight we lit fires and cooked a variety of things on them ranging from hot chocolate biscuits to sausages wrapped in cabbage leaves and twists.

Tonight we planted hanging baskets in the troop. Having bought some bedding plants from the wholesale fruit and veg Market and some baskets from Poundstretcher the Scouts enjoyed planting them out. We selected from petunias, pansys, bizzie lizzies, lobelia and geranium.
The activity followed on from the Explorer units activity where they planted planters. Even the front garden at hq got a make over. Scouts and Explorers have taken the plants home to look after and the Scout with the best planter/ basket at the end of the month wins a prize. The planters and baskets will be sold to raise money for the group.

In preparation for the McLaren competition we practiced putting up tents and cooking food on a hike stove. It was amazing that we were able to cook two courses in the same pan by putting one in a plastic boiling bag.

Tonight we had great fun making our own orienteering course for the other groups to do next week.

We had two two groups making a course with cameras one with compas co~ordinates, and one with traditional orienteering course. As an act of great kindness our group gave a poor bird with no family a funeral sparing no expence with our flowers.

Tonight we made bird boxes as part of our nature programme theme. We used a range of power tools and good old fashioned hammer and nails to create nesting spots for our feathery friends. The completed boxes have gone home and the Explorers have a challenge to provide photographic evidence that their boxes are in place and inhabited. We went for a 25mm opening favoured by blue tits.

In preparation for the Geoffrey Gordon Cup next weekend we had a day out in the hills to do a bit of navigation practice. We had a good go at doing back bearings, walking in a compass party and timing and pace counting. The navigation was challenging at times as lots of the trees that were shown on the map were no longer there. We all had a great day and despite the rain could still get a good view of the snow capped Cheviots

The radio group were planning a 5 – 10 minute advertisement that promoted explorers.

Some of our objectives were to denounce explorers as just grown up scouts and show

that we had fun instead of just tying knots.We used WWWWH ( Who What Where When

How) andsorted these into an order that would appeal to our audience. Mark brought

in recording equipment and a Mac so we had fun transforming voices into chipmunk

and editing our voices.

The group doing Geoffrey Gordon Cup were planning their routs with maps and sheets

so they could easily do it once they were there, they also planned a trip to asda as they

organised their own meals! And it wasn’t just beans on toast.

Some of our activities carry ‘Gold Star’ rating this means that we can’t give you too many details about them in case our younger sections nick the idea. Let’s face it if you have good troops in your area – which we do – then it’s hard to come up with new things for Explorers to do. All we can tell you about tonight is that it was a wide game that involved teams of mappers – based at HQ and trackers out in the field who were trying to rescue an agent trapped behind enemy lines. How did they find the agent? All we can say is GPS tracking via the web.