3rd Hampton Hill Scout Group

Bliss, the special care baby charity, provides vital support and care to premature and sick babies across the UK. 3HH’s Beavers decided to get involved with the “cake a difference” week in order to fundraise for this great charity.

After a rather messy cake decorating session, the parents came back a bit early to enjoy a tea party hosted by the Beavers. There were lots of cakes munched, everyone had loads of fun and we managed to raise a whopping £100.20!

Thanks heaps to everybody for the support. And a special thank you to everyone who made cakes.

Alex L, Duncan L and Wend W were all honoured, along with others from the Greater London South West Scout County, for their contribution to Youth Leadership and their achievements in Scouting by the Jack Petchey Foundation.

Each have been awarded with grants that will be directed to Scouting benefits in the local area. See also the post from earlier in the year which gives some more details and background. Well done to you all!

Together with a bunch of other certifiable scout leaders, 3HH represented the Richmond Upon Thames RUT Scout District in this year’s Great River Race held on Saturday 13 September.

We covered a monstrous 22 miles from Ham to Greenwich in a traditional Viking longboat, carrying the Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham as our passenger. The whole thing took a very respectable 4 hours and 7 minutes (we’d expected nearer 5 hours if we were to be honest with ourselves); all the more impressive since we had the largest and heaviest boat in the event!

The Race was simply a stunning spectacle: hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes, powered only by oars, raced from Ham to Greenwich, through the City, dodging commercial river traffic and tidal turbulence all the way. You can click on the photo above to see more of the day’s action.

As well as the most incredible personal achievement (I am after all far from being a super-fit athlete ) and huge amounts of fun, I was delighted to raise nearly £500 for the local Scout district. And across the team as a whole, the figure will be a couple of thousand.

But it’s not too late to show some last minute support, you can still donate online through justgiving.com using the donate button.

Many thanks once again for your hugely generous sponsorship and shouts of encouragement, Simon

** update 16 Sept 2008 ** The fund raising total is now well over £500 and that’s just awesome. Thanks masses to all those who showed support to get the total this far.

BT like many companies runs a scheme called Community Champions which seeks to recognise and reward those in their employ who volunteer their time freely for the benefit of their community. I have been fortunate in a recent application to the scheme in being awarded £500 towards our plans to open up the loft at our HQ.

This year we have also benefited from large contributions from Barclays, Thomson Reuters and BP in similar schemes or matched giving and all this just by applying to those schemes.

If your company has a similar scheme that you as a volunteer for our Group can apply to or if your company has a community sponsorship fund of any sort then please do consider making an application on behalf of the group (we can offer help when completing any forms or paperwork).

Funds of this sort ease the pressure on the group to fund raise, or to increase subs etc and give us the opportunity to both improve our facilities and increase our resources as we seek to replace our minibus and open up the loft space.

Please do speak to any of the team if you can help and a big thanks to BT for the £500

3HH’s cubs have been cycling in Bushy Park. After covering road safety earlier in the term, this was a great opportunity to put the theory into practice while dealing with some staged “incidents” along the route to test their skills and quick thinking.

Before half term the Cubs were given a donation form.

As part of the event we hope to raise some money for Shooting Star as a return gesture on behalf of our visitor, Dr Jean, who has cycled the Nile valley and is preparing to cycle around Cuba in order to raise money for Shooting Star. She gave us an excellent, informative and inspiring talk on her expeditions and about the work of Shooting Star, lets do our best to show her some support!

For every £10 customers spend in Sainsbury’s stores, online grocery site or petrol stations, customers will receive one Active Kids voucher.

Last year as a result of the campaign we benefited from some very popular sports kit which has been really well used over the last 12 months … but unfortunately it’s not indestructible and some now needs replacing again.

We would be really grateful if you could please donate to 3rd Hampton Hill Scout group. Just bring them in and give to a Leader; we’ll do the rest!

Time is running out for this year’s scheme – if you do have any vouchers knocking around at home, we’d be very grateful for them.

3HH held a very successful Easter/Spring Fayre today. Despite the very mixed weather outlook, we had lots of visitors supporting us.

Many thanks to all those who came along and supported us, and especially to those who helped pull this together.

A special mention of Thanks to Jo C, Jacqueline L and Samantha J for all their hard work. Very much appreciated. Well done!

The final amount raised on the day is around £ 800 – We have also applied to The Barclays £4£ Matched Giving Scheme and we are hopeful that this will at least double. This money raised will be a huge help towards our new minibus fund

Why not click on the photo to see more of the event?

Many thanks to those of you who ordered your Amazon purchases via the 3HH website. As a result of this campaign we have raised a very respectable £104.77 (subject to any refunds due to items being returned).

This is a great achievement in that it is essentially free money for the group, easy to achieve and is no extra work for us.

As a reminder you can continue to place your orders through our Amazon link all through the year and in doing so, continue to generate some much needed extra funding for the group. Just use the search box on the right.

Thanks again.

Another member of 3rd Hampton Hill Scout Group has been recognised for their achievements and successes:

Alex L has been awarded the Jack Petchey Foundation Achievement Award.

This award has been given based on a recommendation made by the Group detailing Alex’s enthusiasm, sustained attendance, commitment, help and service to others.

Who is Jack Petchey?

Born in 1925 and brought up in the East End of London. He was a Scout and holds the Silver Acorn. He received the OBE in 2004 in recognition of his contribution to young people. He established the Jack Petchey Foundation in 1999 and gives grants to programmes and projects that benefit young people aged 11 – 25.

The Group has received a cheque from the Foundation which will be spend on items and suggestions given by Alex.

Well done Alex!

As Christmas approaches, you might be interested in a lovely new book called “Beaver Scout Oddie” that The Scout Association is offering on the Amazon site – as well as a series of ever popular favourites for Scouters both young and old!

For every £10 customers spend in Sainsbury’s stores, online grocery site or petrol stations, customers will receive one Active Kids voucher.

We would be really grateful if you could please donate to 3rd Hampton Hill Scout group. Just bring them in and give to a Leader; we’ll do the rest!

No, not the scouts .. the tents!

Thanks to Sheila L’s hard work the group have won the huge sum of £4353 to help pay for some of the canvas the section leaders have been crying out for. It was courtesy of the Lottery’s ‘Award for All’ programme.