A news letter of Great North Scouting

Closing date for next edition

Sunday 21st February

February 2007

Edition 2 Issue 8

From Your Editor

First and foremost, may I wish you all a happy (even if it is belated) New Year, especially for this year when we reach 100 years of Scouting. Baden Powell- our founder –would have been very proud to see the movement that he started with an experimental on Brownsea Island , reach such a venerable old age. So every thing we do in our groups should bear in mind, that without the great foresight of one of our national heroes, we would never have had such a wonderful movement. I trust and hope that there will be many reports of scouting activities worthy of this year, and worthy of Baden Powell.

 

There are many things planned which I hope will be well supported. I think it will be worth a long hard look at our DC`s obversations; there are exciting times ahead. Happy Birthday to you all.

Bill

Read, think and laugh with Bill.

Talking to a friend of mine recently, I was asked why I didn`t wear any jewelry, such as rings, ear-rings, cuff-links etc- he assured me that such things attract the fair sex. I replied that in my young days such things didn`t matter- all that was needed was charm..

Today I appreciate the charm doesn`t work; all one needs to attract the fair sex is a magnet.

Here`s a Christmas cracker!

How do fish get to school?

They catch the Octobus!

 

Did you hear about the man who pinched a calender.? He was caught and got 12 months.

 

2 bags of crisps were found in the middle of a busy road. When asked what they were doing there, they replied that they were “Walkers”.

Those that pass by “the house on the hill”, may have noticed lots of scaffolding recently. Much work is being done to renovate the roof, and security has much improved.

 

DC`s Report

Happy New Year, and what a special year I hope we will have Scouting in Great North.

We ended 2006 with a Carol Service organised by Newcastle East Scout Fellowship and Rev Glynn Evans (County Chaplain); the comments were very positive, with many requests please can we have a Carol Service this year at the same Church, St Andrew`s Newcastle.

It is now the time for Membership Numbers, with names and addresses to be submitted by the Groups to the District Secretary, and I am delighted to say that everyone who appears on the Census will receive a 2007 polo shirt and mug FREE OF CHARGE. The money is coming from a Committee which was set up in Newcastle many years ago, and the funds it has acquired is paying for these Centenary gifts. This will be for young people and adults, Group Scout Leaders will receive a list requesting what size is required, for the young people, please order a size larger just in case they are `neat`.

In February there is a Service at Newcastle Cathedral. There are not enough places for everyone to attend, so Groups will be asked to send an exact numbers of their members, this will be stipulated. Unfortunately parents cannot be invited, (we only have 75 tickets and about 680 members in the District). Leaders will make sure that parents of the young people, know the details etc. Please wear full, correct uniform. A collection will be taken for Gifts for Peace.

April 22nd is Renewal of Promise Day, where we will be renewing our Promise at the Cairn, Humshaugh, the site of the first Official Scout Camp organised by Baden Powell. Families will be welcome to come to this event, more details later.

Last weekend in May is the date chosen by Headquarters for the Centenary Camp. We will be camping at Kielder, Cub Scouts, Scouts and Explorer Scouts under canvass, with a visit by Beaver Scouts on the Sunday.  Again details will be given out via the Leaders and also here in Lookwide.

August 1st is the Sunrise Ceremony, when everyone is asked to renew their Promise at 8.00am . I am looking into a venue, fingers crossed we can get it, more news next month.

Be kind to each other, enjoy your Scouting, have lots of activities both inside your meeting places and outside, but remember play the Scouting game safe.

Kath Tyson DC

Centenary Year Congratulations

 

Quite often, you will find on the cover page of an autograph book “ By hook or by fluke, I`m first in this book- followed by his or her autograph. Well more by fluke this time, the first name in the congratulations page in this wonderful centenary year, is JOSEPH JULIEN, of the Gosforth Central Middle School Beaver Colony. How did this happen. Well, his Leader.Veronica Mackell, anxious to get everything up to date before she ** retired ** sent her report in for the January issue, which we didn`t have, so she was first for this month, and Julien therefore is the very first name mentioned in this centenary year of Scouting. Special Congratulations go to you Julien. (maybe you`ll be last as well in December).


Gosforth Central Middle School Beaver Colony

Invested -Joseph Julien, James Richie. Joe Hodgson, Fraser Green, Rory Burke, Simon Leeming

Creativity Badge - James Ritchie, Joseph Julien, Joe Hodgeson, Rory Burke, Fraser Green. Simon Leeming.

Joining in Badge 1 - Matthew Collerton, William Peacock, Ben Craig, Timothy Sung

Outdoor Challenge - William Peacock

 

And a special Congratulation to Middle School for being first report this year

Report by Veronica Mackell

Now another 2 special congratulations. Both of them to Veronica Mack ell.

Veronica had set her date on retiring for the end the year (as mentioned in heading), and of course a glowing tribute was to be made in this months Lookwide. Congratulations are still in order for her work in the District which was exemplary. However, like all good leaders, she made sure that the colony would survive by obtaining the services of two new assistants and the second congratulations to her is that she will stay on a bit longer as leader to give the new assistants time to settle in. That`s what I call “good thinking”.

 

A Short note from Cas

Gosforth Explorer events 17/02/07 –  Centenary Service – St Nicholas Cathedral, Newcastle . See Kath or Cas - for tickets

23/02/07 –  Caud Marra Kielder – Explorer Sub camp – Officially full but let me know if you need to squeeze a few more in

 

Anniversaries

There seems to be a lot of anniversaries this year. 100 years of Ringtons Tea, 100 years of Scouting, 70 years of Newcastle Gang Show to name but a few. Ringtons have been a long supporter of Scouting, witness their recent donation of coffee. Their support of group events with the back page advert for programmes was always greatfully accepted by many groups.

Newcastle Gang Show reaches another milestone this year when it becomes 70 years old. Rehearsals are now under way for this double celebration, and with a cast of over 100 it promises to be another good date for the diary. When I visited the rehearsal yesterday the cast were in tremendous voice singing the many songs from the show; some modern, some from current musicals, and a number of Ralph Reader hits such as Dreamboat, Song in my heart and Great, Great Game.

Longbenton (our next door neighbours)

We have had quite a few `funnies` from Longbenton Church Magazine by kind permission of Rev`d Peter Ramsden He is to become the new Bishop of Port Moresby in Papua, New Guinea, in February and we wish him and his wife, Sue, many blessings is their new work.
Around the Groups

Newbiggin Hall Group

Our Scout Troop has been invited to visit 10 Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament in Feb. as part of their Community Challenge Award. They have also been active in helping St. Wilfreds Church over the last few months doing everything from delivering leaflets and attending services right through to helping clean the Church itself. In addition they invited our local councillers round for a chat so they could find out how local politics effects them and their environment, and have had a visit to the BBC Studios so they could see how a news programme is put together, how the weather reports are constructed and see a radio report going out live while they sat in the studio. They even got a mention on the 6 o'clock news for helping to construct the weather report for that day. All this was initiated by the Scouts themselves and they are looking forward to the visit to London and have a load of questions for the Local MPs and/or Prime minister should he be so lucky as to meet them.(report by Jimmy Gibbons)

Gosforth Sea Scouts have had a great start to the Centenary Year by taking part in the Challenge-100 Event. We spent that last 2 meetings rushing round doing exercises, making bird feeders, cutting out doves of peace and plotting a route around Brownsea Island . We've now uploaded our results onto the national challenge 100 website and are waiting to find out if we've got into the top 100 patrols who will go on to compete to win a trip to the world jamboree in the summer. We'll let you all know how we get on next month ( Report by Brian Smith)

I was unable to get to the District Carol Service but did manage to get to Dinnington Cubs. The cubs there do a wonderful job by doing the readings, acting the story and leading the singing. They have, by their efforts over a number of years supported a scout group in Bethlehem , who have many health and other problems Keep up the good work!

Scout locked up!

Well not really, on Sunday 14th January the 82nd Newcastle Scout Troop attended a four hour practical session at Byker Police Station. During the session the Scouts learned about what Northumbria Police does and also what they don’t do (it was confirmed that they don’t have a Bomb Squad much to the disappointment of some Scouts). They were also taken ‘down to the cells’ where a Scout was arrested and rest of the Troop were able to witness the procedure undertaken when someone is booked in. All Scouts agreed that it was clearly not a very nice experience. Then it was back up to the training room where the Scouts were shown items such as hand cuffs and batons, and they were all able to have a go at having their finger prints taken. I say finger prints, I think one Scout thought he was required to give hand prints considering the amount of ink they ended up having on them!

All Scouts thoroughly enjoyed the visit which will contribute towards their Community Challenge award. Big thanks to Scott Blackett from Byker Police Station who arranged the visit and ran the session.

Report By Cate Watson