Hello Everyone,
I hope you have all been keeping well during this challenging time. Hopefully many of our members have been able to take advantage of the online activities that we’ve provided. Some have been well attended, others less so in the older Explorer section, the challenges of youth!
The future of Scouting as we know it has been put under a great deal of pressure and the impact on 7th Epsom as a group has been a real challenge. We are bound by the rules set by The Scout Association, and up until this week we have been in full lockdown.
The Scout Association (TSA) has recently moved to the ‘amber’ state meaning that we can have small groups of scouts/leaders up to 15 people (including leaders), socially distanced and outdoors. When we move to ‘yellow’ state larger groups will be able to meet, although we will not be able to return to full Scouting activities like camping until we get to ‘green’ state. We cannot yet predict when that might be.
Its fair to say that no one knows exactly what the timing of any complete return will be and what additional protection will be needed. Clearly face masks are high on the list of potential requirements for future meetings. It’s all going to be interesting and challenging, but we’re planning to have a programme across our group and hope to see the majority of the young people taking part in some form from September.
We have missed running our normal program including regular items like ‘Spring bank camp’ but we hope that this time next year it will all be possible. Sadly that has meant some hard decisions have had to be taken, such as the cancellation of the Madagascar trip.
Our normal fundraising activities have also had to stop until further notice but in many ways this is a small price to pay considering the potential risk to everyone involved. However, we are looking forward to returning to Scouting for the autumn term, although it is likely to be a mix of outdoor activities along with virtual meetings.
Yours in Scouting
David Shickle – GSL 7th Epsom Scout Group
We have continued our activities online during lockdown using the 7th Epsom at Home website and we have had quite a good uptake. A big thank you to Alex Connor for all his hard work on the website, brilliant ideas and for organising some of the activities.
Each week we have set a different activity or badge to be completed and then the Beavers can email to let us know that they have completed the activity and send us photos of what they have done. It has been possible to tailor the activity to include everyone whether families are self-isolating or not.
We have done the photographer badge, builder badge and this half term we are working towards the Great Indoors Badge.
Some of our activities have included cooking, a coin trail, nature walk, origami, making art using fruit or household items, planning a hike, making a drum, trying to navigate using the sun and learning some knots which were tested in a tug of war!
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