Sticky football

Two lines of Beavers face each other, legs apart and feet abutting each other, hands clasped. Balls are released between the lines and Beavers have to knock them through the legs of the Beavers opposite. 

Three Skittles

Two chairs on opposite sides of the circle, three skittles in the middle, a beanbag on each chair. Split the Beavers into two teams and number. When a number is called the number from each team runs to the chair, kneels on it, and throws the beanbag at the skittles. Miss, go get it. First to two skittles wins.

Dodgeball

Beavers run from one end of the hall to the other, adults try to hit their legs with balls.

River Bank

Beavers all line up facing the adult. Adult shouts "river" and the Beavers jump forwards over the river, or "bank" and jump backwards. Switch it up. Jumping the wrong way or landing on the line in the middle and out. 

Buzzy Bees

Make a bee, whizz around. Adult shouts a letter: act an animal that starts with that letter (e.g. d gives dog, dragon, dolphin)

Four Corners

Use four cards, label each corner. Beavers run to a corner. Pull a card, all the Beavers in that corner are out.

Paper Snowballs

Take a great pile of newspapers, tear up and make balls. Split Beavers into four, drop the balls around. Beavers have to throw the balls onto the other Beavers' corners. Stop, count and score.

Beaver Story (Duck Duck Goose)

Beavers on the circle. Go round naming them with Beaver Story names. Read the story: when you get to a name, those Beavers jump up and run round back to their places.

Wink Murder

Beavers on the circle. Send one Beaver out, the Inspector. Appoint a Beaver the Murderer. Bring Inspector back in, centre of the circle. Murderer winks at other Beavers, who die: Inspector has to catch them. Three accusations allowed.

Find My Shoe

Everyone takes off a shoe and places it in a big pile in the middle. Lights off, everyone has to find their shoe before the lights come back on.

Paper Tails

Rip up long bits of paper. Beavers put them in the back of their trousers and run from one end of the hall to the other. Adults try to catch their tails as they go past. 

Clapping (What's the Time Mr. Wolf?)

Adult stands at the end of the hall, facing away. Beavers approach until the adult turns: any Beaver moving is out. 

Or adult stands at the end of the hall, facing the Beavers. Clap, they start moving, clap again they stop and freeze.

Or adult has a torch, turns it off, and Beavers move in the dark. 

Torch Finding

Play outside in a big contained area. Adult goes and stands in the area. Beavers set off with torches to find them.

Catch the Dragon’s Tail

This is actually a Chinese game!

All players stand in a line, their hands on one another’s shoulders. The first person in line is the head of the dragon, and the last is the tail.

The head tries to catch the tail by manoeuvring the line around so that she/he can tag the end player. The line must not break.

All the other players do their best to keep the head from catching the dragon’s tail.

When the head catches the tail, all players move forward one position while the player who was in front as the head now becomes the tail.

The Confused Dog

A game from Palestine.

Everyone in a circle, one person in the middle. Throw a ball around the circle until the person in the middle catches or touches it, then the thrower has to go in to replace them.

Kebeto

A game from Ethiopia.

Sit in a circle. One person is it: he goes round the circle carrying a necker. He drops the necker behind someone and tries to run round the circle back to that place. The person who had the belt placed behind her has to run after and catch him before he gets back to her place and takes it, or she now is it.

Straw Boots

A game from Lithuania.

Stand in a circle, holding hands. Walk round chanting “Straw boots, soles of sticks. Straw boots, soles of sticks.” Then hold your left foot in your left hand (everybody) and hop on your right foot chanting “Can’t jump, got a pain in my leg. Can’t jump, got a pain in my leg.” Circle back, chanting “Straw boots…” and then hold your right foot in your right hand and hopping and chanting “Can’t jump…” Repeat going faster each time.

Little Fishes

All the Beavers at one end. One Fish. The Beavers run to the other end, the Fish has to catch them. Anyone tagged becomes a sea anemone and can also tag and catch Beavers, but has to stand still. 

Annual Report 2023

AGM 30-9-2023

Chair / GSL’s report

Lease
We’re pleased to report that after several years we have a new lease, the land registry records are now correct and that we have agreed with the solicitor a fee and paid it.

Leadership
Some sections are still in need of more leaders, especially the scout section. We used to have two scout troops and had to amalgamate them due to lack of leaders. The number in the one troop is such that we really could do with being able to start the second again but we can only do this if we have more leaders. Brian Cosgrove has taken on the role of Explorer scout leader and Kevin Lowe has agreed to be his assistant. Brian is also helping out with a lot of group admin.

Garden
The garden is looking better than ever, the garden was judged as part of Didsbury in Bloom. We do not know the results yet. A big thank you to Helen Hampson, Rosemary Fielding, Hilary Lowe and Penny Robinson for all the work they put in throughout the year to keep it looking so good.

Chair
Chris Pearse has asked to step down as chair. Chris has been chair since 2012 and has done sterling service helping steer us though the lease negotiations. We thank Chris for all his support over the years.

Many thanks, to all our leaders and supporters, who are all volunteers.  Well done.

Keith Hampson
Group scout Leader                                                   

Treasures report

Treasurer’s Report Financial Year 01/04/2022-31/03/2023

The accounts are still in a very healthy position with a credit balance of £38005.38 at 31/03/23.

We have ring fenced £10000.00 to pay for the legal fees which we will incur for the renewal of the lease of the land.

This year we have seen an increase in income over the previous year ie. Subs £14,952.30 and gift aid £1845.02 but we have also seen an increase in expenditure in part due to an increase in running costs for the hut.

Also the accounts show an increase in rent/rates this is because the rent for the current financial year had to be paid before 31/03/2023.

Another area of increased expenditure is on camps and activities as the group appears to have been more active. We collected £5427.70 for camps and activities and paid out £8523.35 this figure includes £717.84 for the previous financial year due to late submission of receipts.

I will shortly be submitting a claim form gift aid for this financial year.

Pat Ramsden
Group Treasure

Beaver report

We have had an extremely busy year in beavers with lots of games, badge work and 2 activity days. One to visit Eureka and the other held locally, these included an overnight at the scout hut for those aged 7.  A total of 321 badges were gained, three of which were Bronze Chief scout awards which is the highest award that can be gained in beavers.
We are keeping our numbers down due to the lack of spaces in cubs which meant that last term we had to hold back a number of beavers. We are hoping that spaces will become available in cubs but their moving onto scouts is restricted as we only have one scout troop due to lack of leaders.

We currently have 2 Lead Beaver volunteers (leaders) on a Tuesday with assistance from 4 parents who help and a young leader. On a Wednesday we have 3 Lead volunteers with the help of 5 other volunteers who help when commitments allow. At the moment we do not have a parent rota but call on them when needed, thanks to those who previously assisted.

Thank you to all my leaders for all their commitment.

Helen Hampson
Beaver Lead volunteer (Beaver scout leader)

Cub report

The two cub sections, Celts and Saxons, have continued to work together sharing a similar programme with special joint meetings and camps.  We went to Didsbury Park to allow a massive 44 cubs to gain their athletics badge in an action packed night in May.

In October we ran a successful Sixers and Seconders’ camp at Dunham Park. The smaller group of older cubs allowed us to focus on skills such as backwoods cooking, wood chopping and fire lighting.

Then in April, we were able to enter 3 teams into an extremely muddy Pike View Hike. As well as providing a suitable christening for several pairs of pristine new hiking boots, the cubs had a chance to practice their navigation and team working skills. We were also able to support Rama, one of our former leaders, to bring his new unit to PVH for the first time. We were very proud of all our teams, but especially the Saxon Steppers/Team Racoon that won the Pip Hartley Memorial walk beating teams from all over the North West and beyond winning a trophy and a giant novelty cheque.

In contrast, our large joint camp took place at Tatton Park on one of hottest weekends of the year in June. We were delighted to discover that Nikhil is a qualified watersports instructor so we were able to take the cubs kayaking alongside other activities of archery, go-karting and  backwoods cooking.

We have gained 3 much needed Leaders, 2 for Celts and 1 for Saxons, which has allowed Shere Khan to move to Scouts where he was desperately needed. We would thank him for his time with cubs, but he hasn’t been allowed to fully escape and was back running a meeting last week. Our Young Leaders, Will, George, Caelan and Maaria have been a huge help- thanks to them.  Our parent helper Yasmin moved on after her son transitioned to Scouts and Glenn joined as another parent helper-thank you both. The two Robs and Al helped us with our camps providing expert catering, washing up and cub wrangling skills. Thank you as well to them and to all the parents who helped with our outdoor meetings over the year.

We have awarded a huge 625 badges this year including an impressive 13 Silver Chief Scout cub awards, the highest award within Cubs.

We currently have 30 cubs in Celts and 25 in Saxons. As we move into Autumn we are planning another Sixers and Seconders’ camp and concentrating on badge work in the hut.

Claire Lydon (Celts, Monday cubs)
Matthew Cameron (Saxons, Thursday cubs)

Scout report

The scout group meets on a Wednesday with the number of scouts at 34 as we ended the year with an average of 24 coming each week.

It has been a busy and fun year for the scouts with a number of changes in the leadership team

We had 8 scouts go up to Explorers at Easter and 12 cubs come up at the end of the summer.

Our program has tried to balance badge work with practical skills and fun experiences. We've sampled climbing, route planning  hiking, winter survival skills, cycling , camping skills.  

We scouts have earned 77 badges and there will be more when I have a better mastery of OSM's system of awarding them.

Whilst we were unable to deliver a major camp we did enter 2 teams into the Pike View Hike competition and are looking to do more events in 23/24.

Simon our leader decided to take a sabbatical from December and the core Leadership team of Hannah, Dan and myself were bolstered initially by 2 parents Matt and Mike (Stars). Alistair has now joined scouts on a Wednesday, so we now have a stronger team, although with work commitments, we could do with 2 to 3 more adults in our team. 

We are looking to create more opportunities to get outdoors and have nights away this year and already have an event planned for Mid October.

Peter Mayhew
Phoenix Scout Leader

DVESU (Didsbury Viking explorer scout unit)

This year we have been rebuilding the leadership for explorers. We now have Brian and Kevin as the Explorer Scout leaders supported by Keith.  This year we have entered a team in the Bibby Farm Yomp, the explorer event at the Pike View Hike. We have also completed the expedition portion of the Duke of Edinburgh for 9 of our explorers we are now finalising the other parts of the awards and we hope to complete them over the coming months. We have had a joint summer camp with the scouts and have an upcoming camp in October. We are focusing on building the scouting skills of the explorers with a view to the young people being able to arrange their own camps. We have a number of the explorers who currently help in some of the other sections as young leaders and their help is appreciated by all the other leaders. Finally, we had one explorer attend the World Scout Jamboree in August in South Korea, it’s a great opportunity and they had a fantastic time despite some of the issue on the ground. We currently have 23 explorers and we are looking forward to a busy year ahead. 

Brian Cosgrove
Explorer Scout Leader

Scouts is famous for its badges. You don't have to get them: it's what suits you and your Beaver. But we use them encourage Beavers to take part, to do new things and to achieve things and grow. 

You can just leave it to us: your Beaver will get a few badges if they just come to Beavers. You can pick some badges that look fun and do them at home. Or you can go for the Bronze Chief Scout Award: this is the top award that Beavers can get, and you will have to get some particular badges. 

• Beaver Challenge Award Badges
• Beaver Activity Badges

Doing badges at home

This is how to tell us you've done badges online: if you want to just bring things in and tell us, that's fine too!

We do all our badges in Online Scout Manager - the same place we do all our admin. You can log in there and see badges your Beaver could get or have got: just click on the Badges link on the left:

Click on a badge and you can see the requirements. You'll also see a button labelled "COMPLETE AT HOME":

Click on COMPLETE AT HOME and you can tell us your Beaver has been working on a badge:

1. Submit a photo showing your Beaver working on the badge, or their work, or anything else. 
2. Tick the box for what part(s) of the badge this covers.

We then look at it and check it off and try to send your Beaver an encouraging message.

That's it! When a badge is completed they will be presented with it at the end of an evening (often the last week of a half-term). You are always welcome at 7.25pm to watch.

Bronze Chief Scout Award

If you are ambitious, the Bronze Chief Scout Award is the top Beaver award. Your Beaver can put it on their Cub uniform when they go up. You get this automatically by completing other badges:

• All of the six red hexagonal Challenge Badges.
• Any four of the round blue and yellow Activity Badges.

The hardest ones to get are all the Challenge Badges: we'll do a lot of the parts at Beavers, but you will have to do parts of them yourselves. We're happy to help, though, do get in touch!

Annual Report 2022

AGM 1-10-2022

Chair / GSL’s report

Lease

We have a new lease but the solicitor is still waiting to resolve the land registry anomaly. He took on the job as a favour to the county chairman but it has proved to be a lot more involved than expected and we are likely to need to pay him a substantial amount.

Leadership

We had a successful recruiting day at Didsbury Festival which resulted in 2 new leaders. We still need more leaders, in all sections.   Some sections on paper look to have a good number but they are all not all able to turn up every week due to their work commitments often leaving the section with the minimum leader operating ratio which is not desirable. Rolando and Gemma have now moved to Colwyn Bay . Brian Cosgrove has taken on the role of running the explorer unit helped by Sarah Harris(leader recruited from Didsbury festival), Keith and Karen (leader at  241^st). The lack of leaders has meant that the Tuesday troop now meets on a Wednesday with the  Wednesday troop.

Garden

The garden is looking better than ever, the garden was judged as part of the  Didsbury in bloom . We do not know the results yet. A big thank you to Helen Hampson and Rosemary Fielding and Penny Robinson for all the work they put in throughout the year to keep it looking so good.

Many thanks, to all our leaders and supporters, who are all volunteers.  Well done.

Keith Hampson                                                                        Chris Pearse

Group scout Leader                                                                 Chair

Treasures report

After taking over as Group Treasurer from Matthew Rushton last October it has been a challenge for me as the handover has had some difficulties, which we will hopefully over come in the near future.

As regards to the Groups finances they are in a healthy position.

The Groups income for the financial year 21/22 has come from subscriptions and I will be submitting a gift aid claim in due course.  The way in which we collect the subscriptions from parents has changed from paying by standing order into the groups bank account to being collected via the Go Cardless system.

There has been no major expenditure, we have just paid out for the running costs of the Group and buildings.

It was decided at a recent executive meeting that we will ring fence £10,000.00 for legal fees that may be incurred extending the lease of the building.

Pat Ramsden

Group Treasure

Beaver report

We have taken into beavers 8 new beavers this term. We still have28 on the waiting list which is now closed except for siblings. We will assess the situation after Christmas.
We have had a busy year concentrating on badge work, but unfortunately no beavers gained their bronze chief scout award, which is the highest award in beavers. The Beavers have gained numerous badges including teamwork, world and personal challenge badges; activity badges - animal friend, cyclist, book reader, experiment, gardener and hobbies; staged activity badges - swimmer, hikes, emergency aid. We have not been able to have a trip out or an overnight as we have not had enough leaders to organise these events. The situation has changed as previously the leadership team had difficulties attending each week. We now have four parents who come on a regular basis and another person who is starting soon. We now are able to plan a trip and an overnight in December. We still have a parent rota but we may soon only be calling on parents when we need extra help.

149 badges have been earned over the year.

Thank you to all my leaders and to those who are able to help us

Helen Hampson

Beaver Scout Leader

Cub report

The cubs have been very pleased to be able to get back to our usual meetings this year, and ran a very successful joint camp in the Lake District in June. We all travelled up together on the coach on the Friday night, which is something we haven’t done before, and excitement was high by the time we arrived! There were lots of activities, which everyone enjoyed, including bridge building and climbing, and a big campfire together on the Saturday night. 

We also had some amazing parent helpers who got stuck in and lent their skills in wrangling and feeding large groups of Cubs and who hopefully learnt some new bridge building, campfire singing and climbing skills in return! We really appreciated all the leader and parent help for the camp and it couldn’t have run without them, so thank you to everyone involved.

We also had a number of joint meetings over the summer preparing for camp and also in the park, looking at the wildlife and plants and seeing how they changed across the seasons when we returned a couple of weeks ago. We have recently been focusing on getting some badge work done and are looking forward to running our sixers and seconders camp for the first time in a couple of years to help the older cubs work towards their Chief Scout Silver before they move up to Scouts.

There are now 26 Celts (Monday) and 33 Saxons (Thursday), with one young leader. Celts have a new parent helper and Saxons have two new (much needed) leaders this year. We also sadly said goodbye to one of our longstanding leaders, Rama, who has moved out of the area. However, we are still down on adult helpers and are only taking new cubs who have come up from the Group’s beaver colonies, until we have additional adult help.

This year we have awarded 304 badges, with a further 65 due to be awarded in the next few weeks (once we have had a restock!).

Claire Lydon (Celts, Monday cubs)

Matthew Cameron (Saxons, Thursday cubs)

Scout report

It has been a fun, yet tough year for the scout troop/s. As a result of the pandemic and a number of volunteers leaving the group, we had to merge our two troops into one. Phoenix troop meets on a Wednesday, and we have done our best to keep an interesting programme of activities. That said, we have been unable to offer many camps or overnight activities.

We are looking forward to a much more active and outdoor 2023 and we hope you’ll join us. If you would like to see us back to our full strength, in one or even two troops, we’ll need your help to make that happen.

Over the last 12 months the scouts have earned 171 badges.

Simon Jermy
Phoenix Scout Leader

DVESU (Didsbury Viking explorer scout unit)

This year we report that Gemma has moved away and is no longer our Explorer scout leader. Brian Cosgrove from Tuesday scouts has taken over the running of the unit until we can find a dedicated team to run the unit.

He is helped by Sarah Harris (recruited from Didsbury festival), Karen Heil from 241^st helps regularly but not every week and Keith is down most weeks too.

• 22 Explorers
• 39 badges have been awarded which includes 13 young leader and 6 Emergency aid
• Rohit for achieving the Platinum Award and Gold DofE (though school)
• Due to the change in the leadership team we’ve been playing catch up again.
• It is hoped that some explorers will do their Bronze DofE expedition next month

Explorer scout leader
Brian Cosgrove