April 2018 News from the DC Team – Ben, Simon & Heather
Hello,
Ealing & Hanwell is a busy District, and it’s been a busy first month for your new DC Team. We’ve been finding our feet (including initial induction, District Executive, County DCs meeting and more) and – between us – we’ve been visiting as many groups as we could. So far, we have been to 6th Ealing, 9th Ealing, 25th Ealing, 5th Hanwell and 8th Hanwell. It has been great to meet so many of you already and we look forward to visiting all of the remaining Groups at some point over the course of the summer term. There will also be a number of inter-Group occasions coming up – do see the district diary at the end of the email.
Recent District Events
Despite the freezing cold weather, the District Cross Country was a great success on 25th February. Many thanks to Ben Douglas and Stuart Flaye in particular, and all those who assisted beforehand and on the day.
March started (in the snow!) with a very successful District Beaver Sleepover – 72 Beavers gaining a Night Away Badge, with 8 Groups participating (4 per night). Many thanks to all the Leaders and Parent Helpers who helped to make it happen.
First Response training on 18th March – thank you to all who attended this vital training. And thank you to Jenny Foxwell for all her sterling work, particularly on keeping track and sorting out Mandatory training provision.
New District Appointments
Heather has now handed over the ADC Beavers role to Laura Belmostefaoui (previously DBSL) – a huge thank you for taking this on.
Also, a warm welcome to Stuart Flaye, our new ADC Scouts (previously DSL).
Census
The annual census was completed in record time for Ealing & Hanwell so thank you for all your hard work in meeting the deadlines. That puts us in the County’s good books which is never a bad thing.
The figures show an increase of 8% in our young people so thank you very much for everything you have done to make this happen. Adult numbers are also up which is also very positive. Unfortunately the census also showed that there are over 150 young people on our waiting list; good news as we are clearly doing something right but we would much rather have 150 more people attending our sections.
The Grow Your Group initiative, a Scout Association development project, will be starting in Ealing & Hanwell in September and we are confident that this will help us fill those leader spaces and hopefully allow us to offer places to some of the young people on the waiting list. Your GSLs will be attending a meeting on 17th April to start the process of planning for it. Watch this space…
District Fun Camp
There was the first planning meeting last night for the District Fun Camp taking place over the weekend of 29th June-1st July. Dave Folkerd has been working hard, and has done an amazing job, to put the foundations in place and now support is needed from across the District to make this happen. More info out soon about this.
New from the group visits
25th Ealing are marking their 50th Anniversary this year and are running a competition within the Group to design an occasional badge to mark it. Really looking forward to seeing the results!
Also, huge thanks to 25th for their recent £2,000 grants made to a number of other Groups in the District. The 25th are also funding a new archery range at the Walter Davies campsite for which we are very grateful. I’m sure you have seen the emails from Dave Folkerd, GSL at the 25th and our ADC (Campsite), regarding working days at Stoke to build the range. I understand that 98% was completed over the weekend so thank you to Dave and his helpers.
Well done to all those who recently attended the archery training at Gilwell. We will have four qualified archery instructors that will be able to run sessions at our own range. Brilliant. Do get in touch with your GSL or the DC Team if you are interested in becoming a qualified instructor in archery or any other adventurous activity.
Heather was delighted to present a Chief Scout Gold award to one of 9th Ealing’s Scouts. Also, the same night, she had the privilege of being asked to invest Petros Katradis, ASL with 9th Ealing – previously an Eagle Scout with the Boy Scouts of America. PHOTO AVAILABLE (uploaded to shared drive)
Ben visited the 5th Hanwell’s Group Exec and was impressed at the number of Nights Away opportunities they are offering their young people during the year. Well done to Mandy and her team and keep up the good work.
Simon was at 6th Ealing where it was great to see first hand the outcome of the hard work Lisa and her team have done to build and develop the group, including the way that Young Leaders are supported and involved in the leadership of each of the sections.
It was very similar news at the 8th Hanwell – with Laura leading a great and enthusiastic team of leaders – plans are progressing for giving the Scout Troop a later time slot as numbers begin to increase and it was exciting to hear the ideas for a community event weekend which is planned planned for May.
We’re all looking forward to many more visits to our groups, in particular seeing the fun and brilliant programmes and events that are being delivered throughout the District. Do let us know if there’s an event that you would like us to join your for and we will do our best to attend.
Congratulations to John Matthews
As many of you will already know, John has been awarded the Silver Wolf in this year’s St George’s Day Awards “for service of the most exceptional nature”. John will be attending the parade at Windsor Castle but we will be presenting John with his award on Thursday 19th April at the 5th Hanwell. All are welcome.
District Contacts
Some of your regular District contacts now have new email addresses. Please see below:
Steve Douglas – s.douglas@ealingandhanwellscouts.org.uk
John Foxwell – j.foxwell@ealingandhanwellscouts.org.uk
Dave Folkerd – d.folkerd@ealingandhanwellscouts.org.uk
Pete Balls – p.balls@ealingandhanwellscouts.org.uk
Dave and Pete were only set up over the weekend so suggest including their current address whilst they get used to having a second mailbox.
District Open Afternoon on 29th April – all members invited. Come for a chat, some refreshments and more! We’d like this to be as helpful a drop-in session as possible– a chance to meet other leaders in the district, share great ideas; get (and offer) help & advice on training, including validations; information on GDPR, on using OSM, Compass, DBS, and badge ordering. The DC team will also be on hand to answer any questions and hand out refreshments! Please click here https://goo.gl/forms/frpUoaDBnaxykuWs2 to RSVP if you’ve not yet had the chance.
Sad News
It is with great sadness that we learnt that Stuart Walton tragically passed away last week. Stuart was a member of the County Management team and was heavily involved in the trips to Kandersteg in 2013 and 2017. He was a lovely person and also far too young to be writing this about. Our thoughts go out to his wife and family. Funeral arrangements will be distributed once known.
While it has been busy – there has been a consistent theme throughout the last month which is the warmth of the many welcomes we have had across the district, and the support everyone has been so kind to provide us in our first few weeks. We are very lucky to have such a team of great volunteers delivering scouting throughout the district – thank you to you all for the time that you so generously give.
See you soon,
Heather, Ben and Simon.
DC team, Ealing & Hanwell
dc@ealingandhanwellscouts.org.uk