Annual Review 2023
308[th] Manchester
AGM – 9[th] June
Well, we have had our first full year of Scouting since Covid, and the group has been able to get back to normal Scouting – you will see from the reports on the following pages how much each section has done, and it goes without saying this is all down to our unpaid volunteers. The group relies on these volunteers to be able to run each section and some even help on multiple nights. Without these people we wouldn’t be able to grow the way we have, and we welcome over 130 scouts from Squirrels aged 4 up to Explorers aged 17 on a weekly basis. So big thanks go to everyone who volunteers in any capacity and if your thinking of helping on either a weekly basis or when you can please come and have a chat to me. As we do grow, we need to make sure we have room for scouts to move between sections and Scouts on a Friday has reached capacity. Therefore, we opened a second Scout section on Wednesday night, and we hope to grow this section over the next year.
The Shack our HQ has also had some work completed on in the last year, you may not be able to see it, but we have a new meeting room where the old stores used to be. We have also had installed new heating plus a new porta cabin which has become our new main equipment store.
There has also been built some gardening beds (again thanks to donations of wood and soil) at the back of the Shack and these will be used by sections for planting flowers and veg over the next year – I sure we will look forward to seeing the results.
Finally, congratulations to all the Scouts who win awards tonight, but also to all the leaders who will be presented with awards – leaders put in a lot of work and time, so please thank them as without them there would be any meetings.
Mike Dolan – Group Lead Volunteer
308[th] Manchester Scout Group
scouts.org.uk
@308thMcrScouts
SkillsForLife
Agenda
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Welcome
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Apologies
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Governance and election of officials
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Statement of Accounts (Steve - Treasurer)
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Group Report – (Mike – Group Lead Volunteer)
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Awards
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Thank You & Close of Meeting
IIESIF 308th Manchester Scout Group Income & Expenditure 01.Apr.202213141ar.2023 Expgndfturn Bank Baance F £ 33,838.42 Cash BaL4ru PJF É 4,475.36 Squirnd Suh £ 2,511.0) 8ea¥Yi Sub$ £ 2.740.9) C4JbSub8 £ 3,468.75 sc1 Sub5 £ 2,555.tK) orer Shack £ 897.08 c ar#d E¥ty through OSM £ 605.C lknthler Cty CWKI IPdling StItKfil £ 150. NK)SC Reb8ts1 £ 50.CQ t80n5 £ 30.CM) Gi(wp T•e trtI & Unrf¢)nro £ 574.CQ 25th W¢Md S¢oul J8mbye8 Fws £ 6,252.Lh) 25th WSJ £ 5.891.25 Group BNfv• £ 9S.81 S¢aJt Camp Bea1$tr £ 1,387.73 Beavers jewish Museum Viyt £ 205.fy) Beaver CTrp tpcfjrts PMbunI W.22 £ 145.0) RthrbJTremenl Fe$23 £ 1 $9.50 Qjb Cwnp Bance lJun.Z21 £ 273 50 Bwk Chargu £ 46.05 OSM Charg8$ £ 69 41 Onkn•YoUthny £ 88.21 c£886 £ 0.01 Gas uge £ 828 93 ctruty Usage £ 767 46 WatefU8age £ 534.63 ¢41dRent £ 85.00 MCC Rats6 £ 276.48 Ir4urance SW, Equipftw)l& Hers £ 1,13148 Membtiihlp Fees £ 5,292.00 lery £ BO.00 SW Minlenanc• £ 973 46 CJ Stm l offi Rertmml £ 3,563.54 FrFieezer £ 369.99 Nw Heatiw Main Hall £ 3,300 00 RePr¢I6. 8ad9BS & Nthrcjmets £ 106.70 Sheffield Scoul Shop £ 1,577 96 New GTOUP T-shirts £ 1,955.90 AGM Erya¥ing & T185 £ 218,99 25th WSJ 1ST Sut&ty £ 76138 25th W&J Pawnonts £ 12,253.00 25th FuTrJraising Costs £ 237.52 Campiry Equipment £ 1,086 55 ¢soLW 88QILeaer8 Meal £ 229.77 2023 Summw Camp Depxrt £ 280.00 Camp Fo8s IC6MI £ 605.00 Beayor CP Lhpxii Bradley WotrJ £ 159.50 Sowl Camp Beaudewl £ 1,387 73 Sttkn M8edng Nits & Events £ 1.305.77 Bank B8Lqnce QF £ 23.901.57 Cash Baknce CIF £ 2,810.93
Squirrel Scouts Annual Report – 2023
What an amazing second year the Squirrel Scouts have had!
As one of the very first Squirrel drey’s to open in the country we are so proud and honoured to have the opportunity to provide Scouting to children aged 4-6 years old. And being one of only two drey’s in the whole Greater Manchester
East area, we have certainly been very busy!!
Our Squirrel evenings always start of with a welcome song, where we can individually say hello to everyone who joins us, this has been a great source of routine for the children as well and making them all feel welcome and comfortable from the beginning. Each time a new young person joins us it’s wonderful to see how welcoming our Squirrels are to them and how helpful they are at teaching them each of their new friends’ names.
During the course of each session, we play some games (duck, duck, goose being a firm favourite!) but we also work on badge work with our Squirrels. Using the guiding principle of Scouts, “Skills for life”, our badge program runs at an age-appropriate level to ensure our youngest members are having fun and developing their skills for when they move on up to the Beaver unit.
We have done lots of exciting activities this year, including earning several of our badges and enjoying lots of celebrations throughout the year!
We were really lucky to enjoy an assault course with high ropes, swings and tunnels! Our mini adventurers loved climbing and running. All practicing the skills they will develop throughout their scouting journeys.
Throughout the year we have enjoyed many celebrations. We have made Chinese New Year masks, Easter eggs and St. Georges Day flags. We also loved making some sweet pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and used this to work towards our chef badge!
We also joined other Scouts across the district to visit Heaton Park for the St. Georges Day activity trail! The Squirrels were a credit to Squirrel scouts and the 308[th] with their wonderful behaviour and excellent trail finding skills! – and they definitely deserved the ice cream at the end!
This year our Squirrels have been lucky enough to witness the crowning of a new King. We marked this occasion by creating our own crowns and pretending we were Kings and Queens. We discussed what the Coronation meant and why everyone was so excited about it.
In this most recent term, we have taken the topic of “People who help us” as part of our Superhero badge. We have been talking about the people in our communities and families who are Superhero’s to us. We had so much fun having a “dress as a job” night where there were some fantastic costumes of teachers, firemen, police, vets and even a ninja! We enjoyed our very own
Lina bringing in some police kit for us to have a try on and we are all looking forward to the firemen visiting in the fire truck in a few weeks!
A Vet
A fireman
A police man
A dog walker and a Ninja
We have been extremely lucky to be joined by 3 more leaders this year, Lee, Jolanta and Becky. Our team of seven now runs like a wonderfully oiled machine. As a Squirrel group leader, I couldn’t wish for six better people to show up and volunteer with every week. They put so much effort in both in and out of sessions to make sure all the children have a wonderful fulfilling experience with us and every leader takes such time and dedication to get to know the children. So I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to the Squirrels team who make it what it is.
L-R: Jolanta, Sharron, Kim, Eve, Becky, Lina, Lee
Finally, we would just like to say, we feel
absolutely privileged to be able to work with these wonderful young children and they make us smile and laugh every week. They show great kindness to each other, and their behaviour is always wonderful. They are a credit to their families and wonderful part of the 308[th] Manchester.
We cannot wait for another year of Squirrel Scouting!
Eve, Kim, Lina, Sharron, Lee, Jolanta and Becky!
Monday and Thursday Beavers
This year has been such a great year for our beavers. As soon as we returned from summer we went straight on camp, our first one at Bradley Woods. Beavers had such an amazing time and did lots of new activities including crate stacking, cresta run and cave bus. I also passed my nights away assessment, making it much more special for me!
We then had an amazing Halloween party run by the jamboree fundraising team, beavers then had a joint Christmas party with lots of fun games and food.
We have done some amazing badges this year including our space badge where we went to co-op high school for an evening run by them, which was so much fun and the beavers learnt a lot, we have done our photography badge, hikes and explore badge, we did an assault course night at the shack, which ended with the beavers not wanting to go home and asking over and over to redo.
We have had walks in Alkrington woods and then did another camp at Bradley woods, where the beavers got to tackle the climbing wall. We finished this year with our St Georges day event at Heaton Park which was so much fun letting the beavers navigate using the clues given.
Me and Jackie are both so incredibly proud of all our beavers and how they have worked hard all year to achieve all their badges. We have invested so many new beavers into our group and they have been made to feel very welcome.
This year we have had 8 beavers achieve the chief scout bronze award. With many more due to achieve it in the next few months.
Our beavers of the year this year are two amazing beavers who have worked so hard and helped their leaders so much over the year, we are so proud of both of you.
We would like to thank all the leaders and young leaders who have helped us all year. Michelle, Daryl, Jolanta, Mattie, Amelia, Magdalena and Noah. We couldn’t have done this without you all.
Leanne and Jackie
Monday Cubs – Annual Report 2023
I took over from Gemma as Section Leader of Monday Cubs in January, I have been involved with the section for some time now, having been an Assistant Section Leader in cubs since first joining the group in 2019.
We started our year working towards our Teamwork and World Challenge badges, some of the highlights were the assault course night, a visit to our local fire station and of course our Winter camp held at Ashworth Valley:
From January we covered lots of badges including our Skills Challenge Badge, Chef Activity Badge, Scientist Badge and Fire Safety Badge, highlights included cubs learning how to make hot air balloons and cook a meal!
This term we have already begun work on our Navigator Activity Badge and Adventure Challenge Badge and by the end of term we will have completed the Gardner and Pioneer Activity Badges as well. We recently held a joint night at Ashworth Valley for the Adventure Challenge Badge. Cubs had the chance to have a go at Archery, Low Ropes and a Scavenger Hunt which was enjoyed by everyone!
Looking back over the last year I feel incredibly proud of the effort the Cubs have put in, at the core of our beliefs is the idea to challenge ourselves, doing something different that maybe we haven’t done before which isn’t always easy, every challenge we have set them they have rose to it and excelled in everything which is a testament to their character.
Of course, none of this would be possible without a strong leadership team behind me, my thanks go to Gemma, Kim, Lee, Debbie, Daryl and our young leaders Amelia and Rosalia, the support I have had since becoming Section Leader has been Incredible so thank you very much!
Lee – Cubs Leader
Thursday Cubs – Annual Report 2023
Another AGM report for 308[th] Manchester Cubs, and another year of Scouting completed. Recently, we have seen a consistent number of 23 Cubs attending each weekly session. Over
the past year we have awarded 7 Chief Scout Silver Awards between April 22 and March 23 with more on the way!
April and May last year saw us start our Navigation Level 2 Staged Activity Badge. We complete this badge once a year to allowing Cubs to gain navigational experience before moving to Scouts and completing in the yearly Lightweight Hiking competition. May 2022 also saw the return of the Cubs District Arrow Competition. This year’s theme was the late HRH the
Queens Platinum Jubilee. 308[th] Manchester came second place! Well done to Stefan, Lily, Vicky, Emilia, Jess, and Martha.
Moving into the Summer months, we started The Communicator Activity Badge, this badge required the Cubs to introduce themselves to an adult who helps with your Pack and making a newsletter report of a local event. We also completed the Road Safety Activity Badge which required the Cubs to understand road signs and show how to use the Green Cross Code. We also saw 2 Chief Scout Silver Awards given out to William and Emilia at this time, they finished this award off teaching two skills including Polish phrases and Paper Origami!
We also held our first Summer Camp since returning from the COVID pandemic. The Cubs leadership team decided to try out the standing camp at Bradley Wood Scout Activity Centre. Friday 17[th] – 19[th] June saw 32 Cubs take on Adventurous Activities such as Archery, Crate Stacking, Cresta Run, Woggle making and Fire Lighting. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time, the Cubs and leaders had a blast!
July brings the end of our Cub year. We enjoyed water games to keep cool and our yearly Picnic in Heaton Park. Fortunately, it was dryer than last year!
After a lovely break over Summer, September sees the return of Scouting to the 308[th] Manchester. We kicked off with the Teamwork Challenge Badge and the World Challenge Badge. As a leadership team, we always ask the Cubs to reflect on what their Summer was like. We asked the Cubs to think how they “Did their best” over the Summer – A very important Scouting value. Many thanks for Grand Akela helping us do this!
Carrying on into October, we were lucky to visit St Andrews Church, in Higher Blackley as part of the World Challenge Badge. We used this to complete the Cubs World Faiths Activity Badge. Thank you to Gem for helping organise this visit! Another requirement for the World Challenge Badge was completed by a running game ran by our amazing young leader Emma! We also 4 more Chief Scout Silver Awards given to Stefan, Olly, Alex, and Martha, with more skills being taught.
In November, we completed the Local Knowledge Activity Badge by making a poster advertising Manchester. We also finished our Environmental Conservation Badge with taking a pack forum to come up with ideas to reduce rubbish and how different materials are recycled. Grand Akela Sharon also made another appearance to help the Cubs complete the “Talk to someone who has lived in the local area a
long time” requirement. The Cubs also celebrated Remembrance Day 2022 by making multicoloured wreathes.
The last full weekend of November saw 308[th] Manchester Cubs attend Ashworth Valley for our traditional Winder Camp. There were no storms in sight, allowing the Cubs to complete loads of adventurous activities including, Archery, Tomahawk throwing, Low Ropes, First Aid, Tent Pitching, Trebuchet Building and River Crossing! This was topped off with an amazing Christmas dinner, made by Andrea and Tracy.
In December we finished the Local Knowledge Badge with a trip to Blackley Fire station. The Cubs thoroughly enjoyed this! We had a tour of the whole station, a look at the equipment used and we even had a go of using the hose!
With 2022 turning into 2023, we moved onto the Skills Challenge Badge. This is made up of lots of other badges such as, the Fire Safety Activity Badge. Our Cubs designed their own Escape plans of their homes and practiced a fire drill in The Shack. Hopefully they won’t need to use it! They also go to use a fire alarm to understand how often they need to test them.
February saw us try and test our way through the Scientist Activity Badge. I will be the first to say, some experiments didn’t work as well as we would like, but the Cubs still had fun! The badge finished with me, Lee and Rach getting covered in white vinegar and baking powder trying to launch rockets! Alex D also saw his Chief Scout Silver Badge Awarded with teaching some First Aid on his last night!
Recently, the Cubs have completed the Chef Activity Badge. Some
excellent teamwork, listening and cooking was shown by the Cubs to make Cajun Chicken pasta and Strawberry Cheesecake. There was absolutely none left – Well done Cubs! They even did their own washing up!
We completed the Skills Challenge Badge off with the Cubs completing some skills they can use at home. We made cups of tea, ironed neckerchiefs, laid tablets and peeled veg!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank every single person who has helped 308[th] Thursday Cubs over the last year! A total of 244 badges have been awarded with more from April 22 onwards!
We have had another good full year of Scouting and started last May which is always a busy month in the scouts with two big events, the lightweight hiking competition which we entered a patrol who completed two days hiking successfully. We also have spring camp at Forest Campsite, Cheshire where the group completed 2 nights camping and various activities including rafting and practice their camping skill ready for summer camp.
In June we visited Heaton Park and played football and rounders, held a cooking competition, and practiced backwoods cooking.
In July we had a massive water fight in the shack grounds everybody got soaked. We at the end of the month we had the group BBQ.
Summer Camp this year was Beaudesert Outdoor Activity Centre and was joint camp with 1[st] North Manchester Explorers. The highlights included a day hiking, wide games, volleyball and
swinging from the trees at Go Ape.
We started back after the summer break we focused on traditional scout skills, fire lighting, knots etc in preparation for the Blackley shield. We entered 2 patrols this year and the scouts enjoyed competing against other groups in the district, but we were unable to retain the trophy.
In October we made pizzas in carboard ovens and played wide games in Blackley Forest. We also all got fancy dressed for Halloween, there were some spectacular costumes. We did the usual Halloween games ending the night with a classic bobbing for
apples.
In November we ran the legendary assault course where all the scouts improved for their second runs. we went ice skating in Manchester next to the football museum. It was a successful trip with most scouts managing to spend more time on their feet than their bottoms.
There was only a couple of meeting in December, the highlight was the Christmas party, which was a black-tie casino themed night, some were very lucky, but most ended up with less than what they started with, but everyone had fun.
We brought in the New Year in with scouts Winter camp the weather was very cold, but we didn’t let it stop us as we did hiking and bowling and of course we had a Christmas dinner.
In February we had pancake night which included the return of the pancake relays and freestyle pancake flipping and finally some very tasty pancakes. We also worked on our skills challenge badge, helping the scouts get closer to their chief scout golds.
March was a busy month with the scouts visiting mini golf in Rochdale and we ran a “I’m a scout get me out of here” night where scouts did several bush tucker trials which included eating bugs.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank leaders and helpers which make running this scout group possible and all the parents who have helped us over the past year with transport etc - Looking forward to the rest of this summer’s program especially the summer camp.