3rd Hampton Hill Scout Group

There are now just 5 places left for this year’s Easter Scout Camp. Based at Phasel’s Wood (near Hemel Hempstead) we’ll be away from Tuesday 6th April to Saturday 10th April 2010.

We’re planning to do a number of site activities including climbing, potholing, cresta run, archery and a “mystery” hike – as well as teaching lots of “scouting” skills. We’ve also included a visit to the local snow sports centre where the Scouts can choose either skiing or snowboarding on real snow. It’s going to be a simply brilliant week.

If you want to come along, please make sure you return your form with full payment to Simon without delay.

The Royal Kingston Airgun competition last weekend saw some exceptional results for 3HH.

Well done to everyone that took part and had a go. The overall headline results for 3HH were:

U12 Pistol – Gold Jacob H
U12 Rifle – Gold Jamie S; Silver Lilly P; Bronze Jacob H. An overall clean sweep with Lucy R getting 4th place as well!

U14 Pistol – Gold Ruth H
U14 Rifle – Bronze Will W
U14 Best female – Lily P (also U12!)
U14 Aggregate – combined score of Pistol and Rifle goes to Jacob H who’s U12!

O18 Rifle – Bronze Jon H
O18 Pistol – Silver Jon H
O18 Aggregate – Gold Jon H

Trophies for Group Rifle, Troop Rifle and Pistol (for a team of three)

Well done to the entire shooting team, leaders, trainers and most especially, the Scouts. We already have the trophies and medals, and will award these at Scouts as soon as possible.

As if there weren’t enough excitement already, this week the combined Scout Troops had a karate demonstration.

Clare, an advanced Black Belt and Karate Instructor, bravely took on an electrically charged hall full of 3HH’s finest. She quickly assessed the required level of physical demands needed to keep control of the enthusiastic Scouts and after a thorough warm up, including some Japanese counting and shouts, set them to work.

Once satisfied with their mastery of some basic self defense moves, she introduced some pads she had brought along to focus their intensity. She needed volunteers to hold these pads and the adults can certainly vouch for the ‘effort’ the Scouts put into hitting them!

We were also delighted to see Matthew and Dean, our local PCSOs, come along to visit once again. Thanks guys for being game enough to hold some punch pads for the Scouts!

Don’t forget to get your forms and money in for the Quasar trip on 16th March (Claws) and 19th March (Talons). It’ll be a great opportunity to blow off a little end of term steam before we go away to camp.

Cost is £9.50 person and the deadline for returns is Friday 7th March 2010. Attached is the form for the Talons troop detailing arrival times etc. The Claws form will be added soonest.

For any questions please ask your section leaders. Happy zapping!

Today saw the first meeting of what’s hoped to be a regular shooting session at 3HH. Fifteen budding shooters came along with a variety of prior experiences under their belts. Everyone had a great time and we’re all looking forward to the next session!

Click on the photo to see more…

Continuing this term’s Fitness Challenge theme, 3rd Hampton Hill’s scouts have been trying a variety of sports and fitness experiences.

This week Claws and Talons Troops were thrilled to host visits by Alex “Mechanikool P” Peters. Mechanikool is former UK popping champion 2006 and is so far the only popper to have represented the UK twice.

Alex, a very charismatic and enthusiastic guy, came along not knowing quite what we were capable of learning of his art and started showing some basic ‘moves’; telling the Scouts about the history of street dancing, and some thing about his personal introduction to dance. He was obviously impressed by our absorption rate and progressed much further than he, or we, had thought possible, teaching the ‘backslide’ ‘Fresno’ and ‘twist-o-flex’a robotic turn manoeuver. This last move was quickly adopted by the Claws scouts, encouraged by Christine and Wend, instead of the solemn ‘right-turn-salute’ to end our session closing ceremony. The end of the evening will never be the same again! Thanks Alex

It was also great to be joined by our local Police Community Support Officer, Matthew, who spent the evening with us feeling the “beat”! (And earning lots of respect for strutting his stuff resplendent in heavy weight jumper, equipment belt and protective vest!) Thanks Matthew for sharing the evening with us as well post coding some bikes.

As part of this term’s Fitness Challenge theme, 3rd Hampton Hill’s scouts have been trying a variety of sports and fitness experiences.

This week we were lucky enough to try our hand at the ancient Chinese art of Tai chi. As you will see from the videos below an unusual sense of calm and serenity descended upon the HQ. Everyone did hugely well and a massive thanks to our multi-talented Group Scout Leader, Rich, for leading the session.

Once the Scouts had had a crack at the set piece moves, Richard then took to the floor for a final demo (but strangely we choose not to let the Scouts loose with the sword for a go themselves!)

(I wonder if I should squeeze another session into the Easter camp programme? - Simon )

Next week, we’ll all be “bodypopping” with a special guest visitor…

Hi all, please see attached our spanking new and super duperly exciting new PROGRAMME with dates for the whole year. This term sees us take on the Fitness Challenge badge which we’re approaching slightly differently by inviting you to try a number of new sports or fitness activities and which will culminate in running the Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile at the end of term; you want the badge? You gotta do the mile!…

(more…)

Hi all please see attached for our annual air rifle course.

Places fill quickly on this so please do ensure your forms are returned ASAP!

Having done lots of “serious” stuff this term towards our badge work, it felt like time to kick back, and make a mess! The Scouts were challenged to make what they could with bags of mini-marshmallows, icing sugar “mortar” and some cocktail sticks.

Not sure that many of them will get jobs on “Grand Designs”, but at least they had a laugh…

In case the message has not already reached you from last week, I want to confirm that we are NOT meeting at Feltham Quasar tonight as stated on the term programme. Unfortunately there was a problem with the booking.

(more…)

Our two annual opportunities to accrue hours towards the service element on the Community Challenge badge appear in December.

(more…)

Although it was organised as a bit of an experimental format camp for us (just like BP’s original), 3HH’s Scouts more than rose to the occasion. This 30km round trip expedition was intended to give the Scouts a little more added adventure, try their hand at Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) style lightweight hiking and to generally mix things up a bit. And what a complete success!

We’ll add more photos when we have 2 minutes to gather ourselves, but as a quick snippet of what we got up to please click on the photo below…

(more…)

I never expected that we’d achieve quite the results of last year and this did prove correct, however our results are extremely good all the same and point to a depth of ability that will see us continue to going from strength to strength.

Last year we were pistol champions and this year took silver with our team of Jon, his daughter Ruth, Jacob H and Tom H. Last year we were also the overall junior champions winning the Duke of Connaught’s junior trophy, competed for by a pre-selected team of three with scores taken from rifle, pistol and field target and this year took bronze with our team of Dylan, Jacob and Rhiannon. Tate won the trophy for the most improved Explorer in rifle and was described by the competition organiser as a talent to watch. Whilst we didn’t come away with much actual silverware, the overall results were excellent and point to a continuing bright future for target shooting at 3rd Hampton Hill.

(more…)

Please find attached your kit list and health form for this coming weekend’s hike camp. Please follow the kit list carefully.

As forewarning, you will need to be at the 3HH HQ for 0815 hrs on the Saturday morning since the first team needs to be off at 0915 sharp and we need a final briefing beforehand.

Any questions, please do get in touch. Simon

The 2009 entrants to the Richmond Upon Thames District Dayprowl competition. We didn’t come first, but by goodness did we have fun

This fantastic opportunity is open to all young people (older Scouts and Explorers/Young Leaders) to attend the World Scout Jamboree (WSJ) in Sweden in 2011. The participants will be aged between 14 and 17 years old, who were born between 25 July 1993 and 27 July 1997.

Some background information is available here for you: 2011 jamboree overview information for parents and the jamboree flyer.

There will be a briefing on Sunday 17th January which will give more of an insight to the Jamboree experience. So at this stage you are not committing yourself. If you think this sounds at all interesting please feel free to fill in the form anyway; you can always make up your mind in the future if you wish.

(more…)

We have been able to get 16 places for the forthcoming Chubb Live Fire demo morning on Thursday 29 Oct 2009.

In conjunction with the Fire and Rescue Service, Chubb organises local fire demonstrations that Scouts can take part in in order to complete their fire safety badge. Scouts have the opportunity to use an extinguisher on a real live fire, and visit a fire station which in our case will be at Sunbury. The event should take approximately 2.5 hours and, if possible, may include a tour of the fire station.

Update 1 Oct 2009: We have now filled all the available slots for this event. Please feel free to ask to be put on the reserve list in case we manage to secure some more places.

(more…)

Hi all, it’s Dayprowl this coming Sunday, an exciting day out orienteering between bases to see if we can retain our trophy for another year. We still have spaces on teams in both troops and really need you to bring in your forms this week if you want to walk. It’s a great day out so come on, bring in your forms this week and enjoy a lovely day out.

Paul Fitchett
Talons Troop