Calling All Eager Beavers!

Recently 4th Offaly Scout Group - Edenderry undertook our annual review of how the group is developing...

Second Glance Resale Shop presenting us with their generous donation...

Since the group opened in January 2012 we've come a long way. Actually we've come an awfully long way! From having the cub and scout section when we started we now have a third section, ie the Venture Scouts which caters for boys and girls aged 15 - 17yrs. AND we've also got our very own Rover Scout who's 20! These extra six young people are an exciting development for us!

Our Group Leader being helped to climb just six feet off the ground...

But that's old news. As these six young people have been working through our programme what's come to light is the fact that our young people are getting older and progressing through the programme as each year passes. An example of this is that in the last year the cub pack lost 9 members to the scout troop, almost decimating it! Likewise the scout troop lost 1 member to the venture scouts.

Caroline showing our group how to gather her parachute

 We've also had nine young people join us to see if scouting was for them. Unfortunately it wasn't, but that's okay, we expect that. Luckily we've succeeded in attracting several more young people to sign up for the adventure who decided to stay!It's this cycle that allows us to progress through scouting, delivering the stuff of adventure at our weekly meetings in preparation for the real deal in the great outdoors...

Cubs visit Irish Parachute Club

 One thing we've noticed is that the waiting list for a Beaver section continues to grow while its oldest members slowly attain the age requirement for joining the cub pack. Currently we also maintain a waiting list for parents who've expressed an interest in joining the group in order that we can create a place for their child in a beaver section. This elite band of waiting parents is shrinking as their children become cubs or lose interest in beavers altogether.
 

Woggle making at Recharge

 If have an interest in working with young people, especially those between 6 & 8 years old, we would love to hear from you. All we ask is that you allow us about one hour a week to help us run  meetings for our youth members, some times this might be slightly longer and occasionally a little less!

Climbing Croghan Hill in dense fog

All our adult members, ie 18+ are put through our garda vetting process & offered mandatory training at no cost to themselves. We also take up references. Once this has been completed successfully we should be in a position to invite you to work with us at our weekly meetings and activities...

24hr Sponsored Tree Sit - Rathangan - 2014

If you have skills that you think you'd like to share then why not approach our group leader to discuss how you can help us...? You DON'T have to have any scouting experience or even have children of your own. So long as you are willing to learn and enjoy new experiences we'll help with the rest...

Jumping up & down in flying suits at the IPC

At heart each of our adult members is a big kid, the difference is that we're not afraid to let it show. Whether this is hanging around in a tree on a sponsored sit-out, or just getting together with fellow scouters at the end of year celebrations, we know how to have a laugh! Every man, woman and child can have the adventures that some only dream about. We foster the aim of self reliance, building confidence in ourselves and others. Why not consider joining us?

Kayaking on the Grand Canal

If this sounds like you, or you'd like to help us start up a beaver section, we'd love to hear from you. Indeed, if you just fancy a life of adventure we'd love to hear from you too. Actually, we just love to hear from you!

With Grateful Thanks For Your Support...

4th Offaly Scout Group - Edenderry thanks everybody who has supported us during our first year of being open. We especially want to thank the adults who have offered us support by giving up their time either to help run weekly meetings, to run the scout group at committee level and especially to the parents of our youth members for their help with fund raising and keeping the group open!

Our first year has been an exciting year and an active year. For a new scout group we've been lucky regarding tentage, thanks to the efforts of our friends over at Scouter's Motorcyle Club who worked tirelessly collecting tents at music festivals, sanitizing them and either donating them or selling them to raise funds for the group. They've also helped a few other scout groups with gear along the way. 

At the very beginning, back in January 2012 Scouter's MC made a huge donation which allowed the group to purchase programme materials for use by our very first cubs and scouts, and of course the adult scouters!

Not forgetting our intrepid bunch of adult scouters, this donation also paid for 9 scouters to complete Stage 1 & 2 training, 2 scouters progressed to Stage 3 training, 1 to Stage 4, one scouter to complete the Group Leader Training Course, and two scouters to complete Stage 6 training. 

In addition to this first aid courses have been undertaken and there is more training waiting in the wings - we hope to train 1 scouter to Stage 4 and 2 scouters to Stage 5 later this Spring.

Training is an ongoing commitment for the group. All our scouters have agreed to progress through the Scouting Ireland training system which leads to an internationally recognized qualification. Even our support scouters, our committee members and our parents and friends group undertake the first two stages of scouter training and are garda vetted. All in all, scouting is a safe environment for anyone joining, we make sure of that!

 We'd also like to thank two of our cub parents who have recently volunteered to get a bit more involved. Soon we'll be putting their names down for Stage 1 (Welcome To Scouting) and Stage 2 (Child Protection Act Awareness) training while they await the results of their Garda vetting, and so, as you can see the cycle begins again...


Without your ongoing support 4th Offaly Scout Group - Edenderry wouldn't be able to continue delivering a child friendly programme that delivers fun and adventures for kids aged 9 - 18 years old.
 So, we'd like to say Thank You! in the biggest letters this page will allow and look forward to another great year working with the youth from Edenderry!

How To Write Up Your Log Books...

Hi Guys! Log books, log books, log books! I hate them, truly I do. For the past five years or so I seem to have been nagging scouts about writing up their log books and all to no avail. Is it any wonder I hate the damned things?

Actually, that's not strictly true! If I hate log books so much I wouldn't be typing this post right here, right now. This blog is a log book. The word blog is an abbreviation for - guess what? Web-log. That's right this blog is a log book...

While searching for some Scouting Ireland forms yesterday I discovered a nice little guide on how and why log books should be written up. Simply put a log book should be your best friend during your journey through scouts, it's a record of what you get up to, where, when and with whom, this, guys, is your memory! It's something that you can pull out when you're older and reminisce with your own kids or even grandkids.

More importantly it is a vital part of securing that illustrious Adventure Skills Badge that you've been hankering after for ages. Each of the AS badges ranges from level 1 - 9. They cover the whole of a scout's journey through the sections from Beavers through to Rangers and beyond. Recently there has been an argument raging that level 9 badges are too hard for your average scout to get. The argument against this train of thought is that level 9 is something for scouts to aspire to...

Imagine, at 9 years of age all you want to do is have mad adventures - well, I did at anyrate! I wanted to jump out of an airplane and free fall to earth without a parachute just for the sheer fun of it. Funnily enough I still rather fancy the idea of it despite the fact that I'm not as fit or healthy as I used to be, suffer from asthma and have chronic back and joint problems. Yes, I still want to do crazy things and since I joined Scouting Ireland as an adult scouter I've done plenty...


Anyway, the point is that Stage 9 Adventure Skills badges aren't necessarily for everyone, but they do serve to inspire young people to get up and get going in terms of making adventures happen. So what if you want to pilot a helicopter when you're 9 years old, maybe by the time you're 29 you might actually get do do it, earlier if you're lucky! There are very few people in this world who do things like that, mainly because they don't know how to do things like that, after all things like that are very much outside of most people's reach aren't they?

Scouting is a lifestyle, including all sorts of skills and pleasures. For adults one of those pleasures is seeing young people realise their dreams, achieve what other people might consider to be unrealistic or simply mad!

We sometimes use outside experts in doing this, but imagine the joy of being able to take a more active part in making this happen? Being able to teach hands on in scouting is a joy, just imagine teaching someone to do this...

Scouters are encouraged to go for gold, whether it be level 6 AS badges or level 9, it's great to be able to assess young people and help them get those precious badges. To do this we've to be two levels above those we're assessing...

Looking at the photos in this post reminds me of the first time I tried rock climbing and abseiling. These are things I've always wanted to do, but didn't know how or where to go until I became a scouter. Admittedly my cliff wasn't as big as the large climbing wall above, but to me it was huge! I doubt if I personally will ever get very far in terms of rock climbing as my upper body strength isn't what it could be, but I know plenty of scouters who've got to the high levels in terms of this particular skill and who are only too willing to share their knowledge and skills in this area with young people.

I also know scouters who go climbing actual rock faces in the Scottish mountains during winter time, just because they can! So, the moral of the story is write up those log books, do it on line or on paper, take photo's, draw sketches, learn how to understand route cards, plot your coordinates, etc and make a record of each and every adventure you take part in. Sooner or later you'll be able to present your log book to your scouters in the full knowledge that it, and it alone will secure you that coveted adventure skills badge.

Without your logbook this is going to be more difficult than you might imagine. Remember, we have a natural tendency to forget even the most exciting and best of things simply because we're human! To help you with writing up your log books Scouting Ireland have published this guide, click on the link and be magically transported to a place where log books are no longer a mystery...

AND finally, get writing up those Log Books!

Thank You!

Dear Fundraisers,

As Group Leader, I would personally like to thank each and every one of our intrepid fundraisers for stepping up to the mark on the two days of our bag packing extravaganza, I'd also like to thank the staff and management of Dunne's Stores and the people of Edenderry who contributed so generously.

Last Friday 12th and Saturday 13th October was quite some day(s)!From 10am til closing time on both days our fundraisers worked their socks off packing people's groceries into bags for them, smiling, being nice and generally raising the profile of the 4th Edenderry Scout Group.

As is usual policy for Dunne's Stores, one checkout was unattended, thus giving shoppers the opportunity to avoid having their groceries packed if they wished. Remarkably, even the shoppers on the unattended tills contributed generously to the cause.In the past, I've always gone to the trouble of pointing out to people that shoppers have the right not to have their bags packed and what's more, it's essential that we be gracious in allowing them to do so! It can be difficult explaining this to young people, as they tend to take a rebuff of this type rather personally...

Thank you to all the Scouts, Cubs, parents, grandparents, adult scouters, indeed everybody that turned out for the event. Some of them had to be persuaded to go home at the end of their shifts and others point blank refused to do so! No doubt everybody who helped out with the bag packing had sore feet, crampy cheeks (from smiling too much) and dry throats from making conversation and explaining to people about the business of scouting!

A special thank you must go to Scout leader Barry Hearns as he saw most of the two days on his feet at the end of a checkout and he organised the rota's and recruited helpers. He must still be shattered!

Two of our scouters, who must remain anonymous for security purposes were especially helpful in terms of counting the proceeds. All I can tell you is that at the present time, we still do not have an exact tally as they counted wore their fingers to the bone over the weekend and as yet have been unable to handle the telephone to let us know the good news. I think we can wait, as they deserve a break after all that hard work!!!

Before I leave you, I would also like to offer a word of apology. It may have been noted that I was particularly noticeable in my absence from this event. I had been rosta'd to work both days, and would have done so willingly had I not injured my back on Wednesday afternoon. As a result, I've been supporting our fundraisers from my sick bed feeling very sorry for myself!

On that final note, thanks again to everybody that gave so generously of their time to make our first bag packing event in Edenderry such a resounding success...

Pauline Price

Group Leader

4th Offaly Scout Group

Edenderry

Co Offaly