Beavers and Cubs

North Northumberland Scouts

Traditional scouting is growing!  Since 1st Flodden set up, about a year and a half ago, more groups have formed in the Northumberland area  following the traditional programme ie Morpeth, two groups in Newcastle and, most recently, Wooler.  If 1st Flodden is not your local Scout group, contact the B-PSA through their website: www.traditionalscouting.co.uk to be directed to your nearest group.

End of summer activities

Autumn is now officially with us and the dark nights will soon be starting earlier!  The Scout Group therefore made an effort to get a couple more camps under its belt during the tail end of summer.

First of all was a camp, held locally at 'Scoutswood' purely for Scout,s as they had missed out on the trip to Sweden, and which concentrated on achieving the backwoods badge.  This involved shelter building, rabbit skinning, gutting and cooking, lashing a platform to a tree, direction finding using the sun etc.

 Soon afterwards the whole group took part in the Area event of the Elders Shield and Challenge Hike. We fielded the largest numbers of any groups from within the Northumbria area!  One of our Scout teams won the award for effort and one of our Seniors was part of the winning Senior team.  Not bad for our first Area event!

Discovery Award: Sweden 2011

Senior Scouts from 1^st Flodden B-P Scout Group have recently returned from a very successful, yet challenging, expedition to Sweden.

Beginning of the expedition

Route planning

Drawing water

The Flodden contingent met up with Senior Scouts and Rover Scouts from other Baden-Powell Scout Association groups as well as Girl Guides to take part in the Discovery Award, which can also be used as the expedition part of the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. This involved covering a minimum of 50 miles over four days and nights by hiking, navigating and camping in the lake and forest landscape of Smaland in southern Sweden. Since scouts had to carry essential equipment with them including tents, cooking equipment, spare clothing, rations etc it was a serious challenge. Many had to contend with blisters and skinned feet on the way but soldiered on to complete the expedition. On top of this, they had to contend with the diverse weather conditions which ranged from very hot sunshine to torrential thunder and lightning storms.

After the expedition, the group journeyed to Denmark where they were met by a Danish Scout Group who laid on a very welcome meal for the weary travellers. In the evening, scouts relaxed around a campfire making pancakes before singing songs, telling jokes and swapping contact details with new friends.

The next few days were spent in Denmark and included sightseeing in Copenhagen, including the National Museum, the very interesting Christiania and The Little Mermaid as well as the rural, yet grand, town of Soro before returning to the UK.

Easter Camp

Easter camp was a lot of fun and hard work too with Scouts and Seniors having to fend for themselves by doing their own cooking etc whilst camping in the woods for three nights.

Activities during the days included hill walking (Yeavering Bell), river walking and a rather cold swim at harthope Linn.

We encountered lots of wildlife including adders, grass snakes and wild goats!

Tick prevention and Lyme disease

Useful information. Take a look.

Comic Relief

The group will be aiming to raise money for Comic Relief in two ways this year:

1. 1. a fundraising evening on Thursday, 17th March at Branxton Village Hall from 6 - 8pm (see poster for details)


2. 2. Joanne, our Group Scout Master, is looking for sponsorship to wear pyjamas for the whole day of Friday 18th March.

Please show your support in whatever way you can.

Navigation training - Feb 11

It is always difficult to organise a camp that ties in with both those who go to school in Scotland and those who go to school in England due to the different holidays. 1st Flodden must be one of a very small number of Scout Groups that has to contend with this 'problem'!
For that reason, combined with weather conditions and differing requirements of Scouts and Senior Scouts, we decided to run two activity days on Sat 19th and Sunday 20th (the first or last weekend of school half-term holiday!)

Scouts attended the first of these days which was very cold, wet, windy and snowy, much to their delight! The ascent of Ros Castle, the site of an iron age hill fort, was managed with a sense of excitement and adventure. At the summit, in the shelter of the wall of the viewing platform, Scouts oriented their maps and took bearings to the next point on their hike route. We then had to trudge across the bleak moorland of Hepburn and Bewick Moors via more ancient hill forts, defined paths and deep heather; set new bearings to identifiable map and ground features to continue the journey. The going was miserable with everyone getting cold and wet. Eventually we reached the ruins of Blawearie, where we stopped to have our packed lunches in shelter. With food in our bellies and improving weather conditions, everyone warmed up and the mood became much happier and cheerful with laughter abounding. In excellent spirit we headed back to where our transport home awaited.

It was the turn of Senior Scouts on the Sunday, with much better conditions than the previous day, despite low cloud cover. The start point today was Quarry Farm from where a bearing to the Cateran Hole was taken, distance calculated with the task of finding it given. After a few checks on the map and identifying the shape of the ground we eventually found what we were looking for. Needless to say, all Seniors felt the need to explore this subterranean cave. From here we headed across Cateran Hill towards Blawearie, stopping occasionally to check maps or to carry out a resection or line resection to identify our exact location on the map. Walls were used as handrails as an important navigation aid. Again, lunch was devoured in the fabulous setting of Blawearie, before heading back to Quarry Farm with more navigation tasks carried out on the way.

Activity days - February

Activity day details are as follows:

Sat 19th - Scouts. Map reading and navigation (Ros Castle/Blawearie area).

Sun 20th - Senior Scouts. Map reading and navigation (Ros Castle/Blawearie area).

Meet 9.30am Branxton House. Return 5.00pm Branxton House.

Equipment: Walking clothing/footwear, waterproofs, day sack (scouts) or ruck sack (seniors), compass, water bottle, packed lunch.

Cost: FREE

New year news and information!

It was so good to get back to scouting in January following the extended winter break due to the incredibly heavy snow we had which left the village of Branxton inaccessible to most vehicles for quite a long time.

Most scouts are now invested into B-P Scouts having passed the requirements of the Tenderfoot badge. Well done to all.

Senior Scouts are looking forward to their expedition to Sweden to gain the Discovery Award, broaden their experience and have fun. However, much fundraising will be required - so we hope that people will help as much as they possibly can.

The Charity Bingo night at Etal on Wed 26th Jan will be the first of such fundraisers. We hope to have a few coffee mornings and also to seek donations or sponsorship from businesses in the area.