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ORGAN APPEAL

    12th Hitchin Scouts

12 Hitchin Scouts – St. Mary’s and Holy Saviour

 Report for 2007

The Scout Group is jointly sponsored by both St Mary’s and Holy Saviour. We currently have a Beaver Colony, Cub Pack and a Scout Troop. In terms of numbers we have over 50 young people in the Group. Meetings are held at the St John’s Community Centre in St John’s Road, this is an expensive facility to hire but we are fortunate to have funding support from the Hitchin Youth Trust. We record our thanks to the Trust for their generous support to the group, this is much appreciated.

 The Beaver Colony is led by Jackie Cooper with help from Jackie Smith (ABSL) and young leader Dawn Wright. During the year we said goodbye to Rose Brown who had led the colony with great success for the last 2 years, we welcome Jackie Cooper as her successor. We currently have 17 beavers. The colony, which is open to boys and girls, has proved to be an important source of new members for our Cub Pack.  Activities this year have included safety badge, healthy eating and a visit to the Dome.

The Cub Pack is led by Dawn Baatz with help from Ian White.  We have circa 22 boys in the Pack which is really buzzing. It has been a very busy year with badge work going on at HQ together with a night hike at Hemel Hempstead, weekend camp at Henlow and ‘Halloween in Hitchwood’. 

The Scout Troop is led by Brian Norman and Elizabeth Cranfield, David Rudeforth retired from ASL but now helps on the Executive committee.  We thank David for his inspired leadership and we welcome Elizabeth Cranfield into the ranks. Troop numbers have been maintained at around 12 youngsters including 4 girls. Activities have included: archery, sailing, hiking plus a variety of wide games, these have been pursued outside at the Wymondley Woods campsite on a regular basis. A number of scouts went on the district Lochearnhead camp in the summer, we did a whole term on navigation culminating in a evenings mystery hike. In addition 4 scouts went up to explorers. 

The group has also benefitted with leadership help from Neil Fletcher, we operate without a Group Scout Leader and Neil fills some of these gaps. The group also attended at Church Parades and participated in the annual Swimming Gala.

We all enjoyed an amazingly successful AGM held at Wymondley Woods in July, a very good turnout by both beavers/cubs/scouts and parents. To summarise, we have enjoyed another successful and action packed year. We take this opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to our team of uniformed leaders, they are a very dedicated group.  Finally may I take this opportunity to record my thanks to the members of the executive, they are a superb team.  Special thanks go to treasurer David Eppy, secretary Liz Haygreen and committee members Michael Taylor and David Rudeforth. We would always welcome more adult support both in committee or with the sections, it’s a lot of fun …….. think on? 

David Ross

Chairman Group Executive

Report for 2005

The Scout Group is jointly sponsored by both St Mary’s and Holy Saviour. We currently have a Beaver Colony, Cub Pack and a Scout Troop. In terms of numbers we have nearly 60 young people in the Group, this is an increase on previous years, as a consequence the Scout Hut facility at Whitehill School started to appear somewhat cramped for our needs.  After completing a survey we were able to secure new accommodation at the St John’s Community Centre in St John’s Road and we moved the group meetings in November.  We were also able to negotiate funding support from the Hitchin Youth Trust to help finance the new premises.  We record our thanks to the Trust for their generous support to the group, this is much appreciated.

The Beaver Colony is led by Rose Brown with help from Jackie Smith (ABSL) and Paul Evens. Helper Sylvia Grice is attending a Young Leader Training course. We now have 18 beavers together with a ‘waiting list’ which is open to boys and girls.

The Cub Pack is led by Dawn Baatz with help from Neil Fletcher and Ian White.  We now have circa fourteen boys in the Pack, it is really thriving. It has been a very busy year with badge work going on at HQ together with visits to Hitchwood.

The Scout Troop is led by Brian Norman and David Rudeforth, numbers have continued to grow, and we're now at 24.  Activities have continued to be as varied as possible, with an emphasis on traditional scouting skills, these have been pursued outside on a regular basis.

To summarise, we have enjoyed another successful and action packed year. We take this opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to our team of uniformed leaders, they are a wonderfully talented group.  Neil Fletcher stepped down as Cub Leader in September but continues as a ACSL, Neil handed-over to Dawn Baatz.  We take this opportunity to thank Neil for his steadfast service as leader and we wish Dawn every success in her new role.  Finally may I take this opportunity to record my thanks to the members of the executive team.  They are a marvellous group of people, we have a lot of fun at our meetings, even in the depths of winter nights.  Special thanks on your behalf to Steve and Liz Haygreen, Michael Taylor, and David Eppy.

David Ross

Chairman Group Executive

Report for 2004

The Scout Group is jointly sponsored by both St Mary’s and Holy Saviour. We currently have a Beaver Colony, Cub Pack and a Scout Troop. In terms of numbers we have circa 45 young people in the Group, meetings continue to be held in the Scout Hut at Whitehill School.

Whilst we do not have an overabundance of leaders we are blessed with very good quality people. At the present time the Beaver Colony is led by Rose Brown, the beavers meet on Mondays from 5pm to 6.15pm. The Cubs are led by Neil Fletcher, Ian White and Dawn Baatz, they meet on Monday’s from 6.30 to 7.45pm. Scouts are run by Brian Norman and David Rudeforth, they meet on Tuesday’s from 7.30 to 9.30pm.

A busy programme in 2004 has seen the following activities: 

There are 4 new members and 8 attended at the St George’s Day parade. A community theme was followed in the Spring term with outside visitors coming to the meeting together with visits being organised, this included a trip to the Fire Station. In the Summer term a parent rota was established and outdoor challenges were planned. A varied programme was completed in the Autumn term including attendance at a Church Parade and concluding with a party which featured a visit from Father Christmas.

We now have at present eleven Boys in the Pack.  In November 2003, we had a very interesting visit from an arable farmer which seemed to go down well with the Cubs and so in June we visited his Farm to look at the different machinery used and how the grain is farmed and stored etc. In February our Beavers and Cubs went, with other Packs within the Hitchin District, and joined with other Districts from all over Hertfordshire, on a coach-trip to Watford Football Club to see Watford's match against Wimbledon. Although Watford are not top of their League, it was a good match - beating Wimbledon by 4 goals to 0 - spurred on, no doubt, by all the cheering and shouting which seemed to come from the Scouting end of the stadium!!!  After major changes in 2002, we now seem to be fully working with the new Cub Programme and nearly everyone is in the new cub uniform.

Over the last year, the numbers have slowly been increasing due to cubs being taken from 17^th (St Michaels Community Centre) as well as our own cub pack. Efforts are being made to keep the close relationship we have with them, and to nurture a similar tie with 19^th (the Wymondleys) cub pack.  We have run a varied programme, trying not to repeat anything too often. The highlights of the troop nights have been:

• Making and using a pinhole camera & a crystal radio

• Patrol Challenges

• ‘In-the-dark’ evening

• Air-rifles

• Treasure hunt in the town

• Wide games (of course!)

• Climbing at Tolmers

• Christmas film night

This year’s summer camp was held on the Isle of Wight, it was the first outing for the new tents purchased with the money raised at the Sainsbury's Bag Pack.  We also had a day at ‘Go-Ape’, this is an assault course 40 feet up in the trees at Thetford Forest; and a group camp in October for 19^th beavers and cubs in addition to the whole group here at 12^th.  Brian and David would like to thank the scouts and their parents for making the last year very successful, and the future look even better. Also we would like to extend our thanks to Richard Burn, who has helped at a weekend camp, and came with us to the Isle of Wight.

As you can see from the section reports it has been a busy year, this was also true for the Executive. After listening to views and opinions we decided to adopt a policy which recognized that parents would prefer to support the group via subscriptions rather than participate in fund raising events. We now review the subscription rate on annual basis to reflect this policy. Notwithstanding we organized a ‘bag packing’ fundraising activity at Sainsbury’s in Hitchin in March.  This was amazingly successful in generating over £525 profit for the group plus a large dollop of team building experience.  We thank everyone who participated in this project, if possible we plan to repeat it in 2005.

We take this opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to our team of uniformed leaders, they are an absolutely exquisite group.  I take this opportunity to record my thanks to the members of the executive team,  and I mean ‘team’.  They are a marvellous group of people, we have a lot of fun at our meetings, even in the depths of winter nights.  Special thanks on your behalf to Steve and Liz Haygreen, Michael Taylor, Nigel Pitchers, Julia Walker and Jane Ingall. After more than 10 years service Julia has decided to ‘retire’ from the committee and we wish her every success in the future. Nigel came to us via the link with 5th Hitchin, he also decided to stand down together with Jane Ingall, we record our thanks to them both and extend our best wishes for the future. We welcome David Eppy ‘onboard’ to the team and hope that he enjoys his time with us.

We still do not have a Group Scout Leader, if you would like to be considered, or would like more information, then please contact the undersigned.

David Ross

Chairman Group Executive