This year has been a very good year for Explorers we are now at a unit of 16 members. We have both congratulated colonel for his long service award and have had to say goodbye albeit temporarily. Kaa (John) and Claire have both joined the Explorers as leaders and we have welcomed a number of new faced from scouts as Explorers. And to top it all off Kaa and three of the Explores have been successfully selected to partake in the 2020 Tanzania Scout Expedition!
Summer Term.
Summer term consisted of Hike planning followed by the hike itself which went smoothly no one needed rescuing! I ran an international Evening about Japan the Explorers learned about the significance of the Daruma and how to make Sushi. We took the unit to a climbing wall in Bristol which always goes down well and held a cooking competition where I was the victim… I mean judge!
Summer Camp
Summer Camp was made up of 6 visiting the delights of Devon. We stayed at the Watcombe Campsite in Torbay which hosted a number of onsite activates such as hill sledging and axe throwing which went down well with both the Explorers and leaders. After we arrived the Explorers organized their traditional night hike which was undertaken with success. Over the course of the stay we were able to organize a number of day trips such as high ropes adventures where we go to scramble over an aerial assault course containing zip wires of which Hode managed to get himself stuck halfway down one, caving where the explorers were able to experience total darkness and see an underground lake 100s of feet underground and sea kayaking where we had a bbq on the beach and got to say hello to a local seal. It was a fantastic trip, one I am sure that will be remembered. One of my most memorable bits of camp was investing Schibil
Winter Term
Winter Term was a good laugh watching the Explorers complete when taking part in the Task Master Games Evening. We had a Halloween themed cook off and took the unit bowling which was not very competitive at all… On the topic of competition 7 of the Explorers participated In the Monopoly Run held in London where they took on some of the Explorer and Scout leaders… and because the leaders cannot show weakness they won of course!
Spring Term
Spring term consisted of rocket building in the hope to fly them soon. The explorers were given a lecture about the different components of a model rocket and then had to go off in teams ad build one of their own. Hopefully when the weather improves and I am back from japan we can see which one flies the best! We held an open forum / discussion on knife crime which was really interesting almost everyone inputted to the session which was good since it had been a rather hot topic at the time. Claire organized a Mosque visit which was very interesting and seemed to go down well with the explorers. It was rewarding to see a number of the scouts ask some challenging questions to gain more insight t0 their traditions and beliefs. The Explorers organized their spring hike and unfortunately one of the teams required picking up. We finished up spring term with a couple sessions on First Aid and now all who participated are newly qualified first aiders!
Yours in Scouting,
Aaron (No nickname yet)
Explorer Leader.