23rd Lancaster (Christ Church) Scout Group

The reports to be presented are as follows:

CHAIR’S REPORT

This has been another successful year for the group.

The Executive has met regularly twice a term to discuss the group’s activities, check finances, approve significant equipment purchases, and to review the programmes and procedures.

The major events that needed support this year were the Christmas Post, The Cubs Football Tournament and the organisation of the Group Camp. 23rd actively supported the Christmas post so that no individuals had to take too much of the burden. The football committee did an excellent job of organising the Cubs Football competition. And a large camp sub-committee have helped Lee organise the Group Camp.

One of the major goals of the group this year is to spend a significant fraction of the surplus funds that have accumulated this year. The group has decided to do this by subsidising the Group camp and inviting all families involved in the group to attend including those who have left recently. Since the financial report presented at this meeting does not include money spent on the group camp it does not show a reduction in the surplus (this should show up next year).

I would like to thank all the leaders and members of the executive for their efforts to ensure the continued success of 23rd Lancaster.

Iain Bertram, Group Chair

GROUP SCOUT LEADER’S REPORT

I have little to add to the reports you are going to read below. It has been a great year, once more, for the group. Our finances are healthy and we have a fantastic group of leaders, young leaders, adult helpers and of course, our young people.

We had the opportunity this year to help out a new group – Ridge Beavers. A special thank you to Rhianne Bell and James Phillips for helping me out with this venture. Thanks also to our ADC Beavers, Catherine Marsh, who has now taken over.

Molly has proven her worth as our Beaver Leader, taking on the role from me and running with it. Our Beavers could not be in safer hands. She has made more opportunities available to our Beavers this year than ever before.

We said good bye at Easter to Gina, who has been helping Beavers as Section Support since the dawn of time. We cannot thank her or Jack enough for their tireless contribution to the group, and we are thankful for their continued involvement with the Scouts.

Lee has once again steered our growing Cub Section on a solid course, ably assisted by Kieran. Our Cubs go from strength to strength, and this year we showed District how a Cub football competition should be run, even if we didn’t win. There is always next year! Thanks to Lee and the team who made this possible and to our sponsors too.

Martin and Dafydd have continued to apply a steady hand to the rudder of the Scouts – lots more time outside, lots more fun. Thomas has kept making appearances, and three additional leaders have come on board and I am happy to say that our Scouts are in good hands.

My highlights of the year? Taking the Group to the District Swimming Gala and our brave Beaver relay team. And, of course, being taken by the Beavers to RAF Cosford so that I could geek out on aircraft. I also enjoyed being taken on a sleepover in March – also by the Beavers. See the photos on Facebook!

After such a great year we can’t be complacent. Our Young Leaders have provided a solid backbone to all of our groups. Our leaders have had amazing parental support too, but we do need to be bringing on board new Leaders in Cubs and Beavers to give Molly and Rhianne and Lee and Kieron some help. Many hands make light work. This year I was very thankful for the support Lee has given me as AGSL. He has proven that adage to me. We need more leaders so that we can do more, and I want to tell you, I have never done anything more rewarding than working with our Young People.

Thanks also to Iain, Catrina and Julie for running our Exec, and to all of our Exec members.

Thanks to our parents too. You are wonderful… And to our Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, for whom we do what we do, and who make it all worth while.

Darren Phillips, Group Scout Leader

TREASURER’S REPORT

The Group has enjoyed another financially successful year, with the main highlights as follows:-

• Increase in bank balance from £6,164 to £6,949
• Increase in average number of Beavers, Cubs and Scouts from 56 to 61
• Cubs Football Tournament hosted by 23rd Lancaster, bringing in sponsorship from EDF and Sainsbury’s to purchase football kits and equipment worth £733
• Gift Aid forms returned for 82% of all membership fees paid last year and 71% for the previous year enabling us to claim up to £1,880 for 2013-15, and approximately £1,000 a year from now on
• Agreement between Section / Group Leaders and the Executive Committee to spend some of the profits from previous years on subsidising activities at a Group family camping weekend at Great Tower, Windermere in June 2015

The outlook for the current year is equally positive. With Gift Aid due to be claimed this summer for 2013-15 and numbers of Beavers, Cubs and Scouts now totalling approximately 70, we are set to have a substantial amount of funds available for investing in more equipment and renovating our hut in Littledale.

Julie Stott, Group Treasurer

Links to our accounting reports are below:

23rd Lancaster Accounts 2014/15

23rd Lancaster Annual Return 2014/15

These documents have now been Archived and are are available from the Group Webmaster upon request.

BEAVER SECTION

Since the last AGM I have taken over beavers and it has been a massive success over the past year I have 8 beavers that have moved up to cubs which means they are staying within the scouting movement which is always good because hopefully they will carry on all the through to being leaders.

In total as of 05/06/2015 I have 17 beavers on the books which is a great number for a beaver colony and I hope it carries on growing over the next 12 months. Before I send my beavers up to cubs I try for them to get their chief scout bronze award which is the highest award they can achieve while in Beavers. This year I have had a total of 15 have achieved their Chief Scout bronze awards.

At beavers we do a wide range of activities from just doing the simple nights such as a games night to doing backwards cooking. We do a range of activities badges this year we have done the space badge, healthy eating, experiment, camp craft, disability awareness, photography and health and fitness and some of the beavers have go their Air activities badge due to them going to RAF Cosford in May.

Throughout the year the beavers have had the opportunity to go to four sleepovers over the year. All have been great events but unfortunately we haven’t had the numbers that I would have wanted which is quite a shame because every beaver should experience at least two – four sleepovers in the time that they are at beavers to enable them to get over the fear of staying away from home which will benefit them when they move up to cubs. So next year I hope to see more beavers coming along to the sleepovers.

Earlier this year the scout association removed the 24 hour stay away limit for beavers which is good because it means that we are not limited to a 24 hour sleepover we can expand to even a weekend camp which will be even better for them when they go to cubs. The beavers have also had access to a lot of district and county events over the year; such as RAF Cosford, I’m a beaver get me out of here, a district imagination badge day. Then in the new year there will be out district quiz and also our living library day at waddecar where it is a day all about story books. So over the year the beavers have been very busy but it has definitely been a good and fun filled year and I am looking forward to the next 12 months.

Molly Clare, Beaver Leader

CUB SECTION

Another fantastic year for 23rd Lancaster Cubs with membership reaching an all time high.

We started off the year with a visit to Lancaster University for the Community Activities day. This event was well supported by the parents and cubs alike. Lots of activities and as usual the Sun shined for the whole day; -It’s all in the planning!

Our first camp of the 2014/15 session was the Lonsdale District Camp at our Littledale Scout Campsite again this was well supported by the parents with many staying for the weekend, thanks to all involved.

Late September we conducted the first, of many, planning meetings for the Lonsdale District Cubs football competition. The meeting laid down roles and responsibility, giving the committee member’s specific target based idealistic ‘actions’.

The first competition of the year was the Lonsdale District Swimming Gala. The kids swam well, just missing out on a medal; – Thank you to the parents who acted as Managers and Head coaches. It took a little pressure of me while I tried to format the running order and act as a runner.

For the remainder of the summer we got out as much as possible with activities such as Sausage Sizzle and Camp fire at Aldcliffe Shore, Pop and Pizza Evening, torch light walk and a Visit to Lancaster University Physics Department to take part in ‘Sub Zero’ activities.

In December we had the first of our ‘Annual Pudding Competitions’. This was a huge success with 15 puddings being presented and tasted; I am looking forward to sampling some more puddings next December! Well done to all those involved.

2015 started off with an intake of new Beavers to Cubs and influx of children with no Scouting background, making our membership to well over 30.

Preparations for the Lonsdale District Cubs Football Competition were coming to an end, with 18 teams registered to play. Thank you to all the parents from 23rd Lancaster Cubs that made it a huge success. It cannot be denied that it was the best organised and supported cub’s football competition within living memory. The competition took place on the 9th of February, well done to our 2 teams; – We just missed out getting a medal.

Our next event was the Lonsdale District Cub Scouts Chess Competition on Saturday 7th March. Again this was an excellent day for 23rd, with 8 cubs taking part. Our cubs went though to the finals in Preston, coming home with the competition winner trophy.

In May we visited Lancaster Fire station and took part in the ‘Challenge Day’ at our Silverdale Camp site. Over 100 kids took part in this event with many parents from 23rd volunteering for the activities. Thanks to all those who helped organise and supervise these activities.​

Finally; – I would like to thank all those who have helped with the biggest activity of the year in the 23rd Lancaster Scout Group Calendar ‘The 2015 Group Camp’. These events do not just happen on their own; it is due to the planning and efforts to all those involved. It is true that I have been the conductor but a conductor cannot conduct without an orchestra.

Lee Lace, Cub Leader

SCOUT SECTION

Our big step forward for the scouts this year was getting our hut in Littledale emptied and cleaned so that the scouts could sleep in there on our February camp. There’s a lot of work to do back there to get the hut up to luxury standard, but for the first time in many a year, the hut is being put to good use as an asset to the group.

In the district camp in September, we became Greek gods for an afternoon. On the March camp in Silverhelme, we woke up with frost on our tents and on this camp we camped under the lee of Tower Rock.

We took part in the Knight hike challenge again this year but one of our teams abandoned the usual strategy of getting lost and/or finishing in the bottom two by showing some top quality scouting and doing really rather well indeed.

On our Thursday nights we’ve had some fun and games, we’ve continued to explore Williamson’s park and become well versed in capture the flag. We’ve learnt survival skills, first aid, pioneering and open fire cooking. This year’s open fire pancakes were some of the best we’ve had and most scouts can now cook eggs in about three different ways. Our fire lighting skills continue to be practiced and we’ve performed the selfless good deed of helping to clear the church grounds of all those unsightly sticks, twigs and any other bits of burnable wood there was lying about.

This year we’ve welcomed new scouts and new leaders and even some of the scouts we had to say goodbye to at this time last were back again this year helping out with the beavers. Our three senior patrol scouts are going to be leaving us pretty soon, but I know we’ve got a good group of cubs ready to join us next year for more camps, more badges and more adventure.

Dafydd Michael, Scout Leader

– Updated: James Phillips YL (scouts) (webmaster), 21st Nov 2015
– Updated: James Phillips (ASL) (webmaster), 22 Oct 2016 – accounts have now been archived.