3rd Hampton Hill Scout Group

Hi all, please see attached the super summer programme for Claws and Talons. Firstly a warning; we have a lot of variety this term which means that often Talons and Claws will be doing different things each week so please keep a close eye on the programme.

We’ll be entering two teams at this year’s NPL Water Rocket event so get some research in via this link, bring along your 2 litre bottles and kit and let’s see what we can do. The best rockets from Talons and from Claws will represent the troop at the event at 6pm on Wednesday 23rd June. P.S. if you have some old tennis balls, please bring these as they’re a necessary accessory (nosecone)!

Keep your eyes open for your troop’s backwoods cooking evening; we’ll be providing some food but of you want to eat yourself to a standstill don’t forget your own choice of food. You’ll also need to keep your eyes open for the water activity evening at Richmond and Superscout as these are on different evenings. We also have a joint wide games evening being run by the Claws team in June.

Activities, camps and outings include Dayprowl, the District Water Weekend, District Sports Competition (we are the current champions) and Borough Camp as well as Summer Camp (see seperate post). All this and we’ll end with our usual Great Parent Scout Cookout, rules attached.

Wow – What a camp: fantastic weather (a complete absence of snow, mud, hail, rainstorms etc!) and no real dramas.

Everyone had a brilliant time with all the scouts talking about different things that stood out for them. My personal favourites were the visit to the Snow Centre, building some hedging and potholing at night But there were lots more activities to choose from as potential highlights.

There’s a heap of photos for you to see on the group website – please do take a few minutes to have a browse. And if you would like a full resolution version of any then please do let me know.

On a final note, a massive thanks to all the adult team who made the camp possible either during the week itself, transporting scouts to and from camp, or helping out in a multitude of other ways. And although the camp simply wouldn’t have possible without them… you’ll see from the photos that they all had masses of adventure as well the Scouts themselves.

Well done to all!

Simon

As if we aren’t famous enough already, 3HH made the Scouting national news website today as part of a feature on National Outdoor Week.

3rd Hampton Hill Scouts have enjoyed a whole raft of successes recently on the shooting front at various competitions. Last night we completed our annual YPS course with all students passing with at least a skilled shot rating.

At the Kingston competition a few weeks ago our team took best troop and group pistol, best troop and group rifle with a large number of individual Gold, Silver and Bronze medal winners. We didn’t leave much for Kingston I’m afraid; I did wonder if they’d invite us back, but they’ll have to if they want their trophies back!

The Richmond competition was held recently and we entered teams from both Talons and Claws. Claws kicked off with an excellent team score of 610 which proved to be unbeatable all week even by Explorer or adult teams, so well done to Will H, Lily (116), Jacob, Tom (118) and James H and Jamie S. Talons didn’t disgrace themselves with an excellent 3rd place so well done to Matt, Lucy, Ruth and Emily, Isaac and Will W.

The inter-county competition was held on the weekend of 20th and 21st March and three current or former 3HH members represented Greater London South West, Jacob and Sam H and Tate (brother of Annie in Claws).

At this point I’ll hand over to our start reporter Rob (Sam and Jacob’s dad): (more…)

A terrific but cold evening greeted 42 Scout teams from across Greater London South West to the annual County Night Hike around Box Hill, five of which were from 3rd Hampton Hill. Our teams were:

Clones – Eddy F and Rosie J leading Ella, Annie, Lily and James H
Talons 1 – Rhiannon and Will H leading Becky, Joss, Lewis and Henry
Talons 2 – Ben M and James R leading Matt, Josh, Tom and Jack M
Talons 3 – Ruth and Will W leading Lucy, Owain, Isac and Monish
Claws – Chris and Jamie leading Jack S, Jonathon, George W and George M

Paul F, Simon, John, Sarah, Paul C and Dave M were manning base 5 and were really pleased as the evening wore on to see all five of our teams successfully to and through our base, with Ruth’s team being the only ones all night to score a maximum 25 on our mega-bagatelle.

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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 Saturday shooting session at 3HH. We already have a rich history of successful shooters and we hope with these extra practice sessions we can bring throw the next batch of competitors. 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 one!

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!…

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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.

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

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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…

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