Author Archives: highfield

Scouts Winter Camp

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Our Winter Camp marked the first camp of the “Camp a Month Challenge” and it went off with a bang! Putting the tents up in 50mph gusts of wind in the dark was a challenge, but eventually everything slotted into place!

Throughout the weekend the scouts cooked what I honestly believe was the best camp food we’ve ever had! Chicken curry (no jars of sauces, just spices/chillies/garlic etc) with mango chutney and poppadoms on Saturday night, and home baked “normal” pizzas, cooked in the new camp ovens that we made at the start of the term. Phenomenal! Even the fires were a roaring success – thanks to Josh’s tumble drier fluff, Simone’s fire steel, and the home made firelighters that we made the previous week, we lit two fires without matches!

[simage=329,200,n,left,left] On Saturday we split into two groups and went on a mammoth bike ride in the New Forest. On Sunday we tried something different – the new High Ropes course at Ferny Crofts; and after our delicious pizzas, we invested Max into the troop.

A brilliant camp – and we raised £13 towards our first twinned toilet.

Next camp: March indoor camp/sleepover.

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14th Beavers, Cubs and Scouts Swim to Victory!

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Last night we saw another great swimming performance by the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts of the 14th!

Our Beavers set the tone with a win in the Beavers final, and competititive swims from all our Beavers. Our Cubs reclaimed the Cub District Swimming Trophy from a strong team from the 22nd and, once more, our Scouts swept the board, winning both the under 12 and the over 12 trophies. The 14th claimed the overall Group Championship.

Very well done to everyone who took part! Please check out the photos on flickr.

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Scouts Go Sailing

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[simage=228,512,y,center] Thanks to Paul Jones and his brother Nick, 13 scouts and 2 leaders went sailing on two 41ft boats on the Solent for a day. With aims to get to the Isle of Wight and have several races, we actually ended up floating locally for a few hours before lunch waiting for wind!! During that some of us experienced “Halyard Swinging” – it was great fun!! After lunch the wind picked up, so we returned with a couple of races.

One cheeky stowaway scout swapped boats during lunch and was discovered below deck on the way back – and conveniently managed to claim victory for all races – either “his” team won on his original boat, or “our” team won when he was with us!! That’s scouting initiative for you 😉

All in all, a great day – amazing to be out on the water in sunny, calm weather in November!

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Restoring Southampton Common, November 2010

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A group of Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and their families made time on a busy Saturday morning to help with some restoration work on Southampton Common. We joined up with an Environment Working Party organised by the local “Common Sense” Group and the Hawthorns Urban Wildlife Centre to clear brambles and scrub from an area of the Little Common.

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Much of the Little Common was open heathland until the 1950s. Along Highfield Road it had become overgrown, creating an intimidating atmosphere for those who use it for recreation or travel through it by foot or bike.

Successive working parties have made a real difference to the area and it was great to see members of our Scout Group helping in that process.

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Pinewood Derby 2010

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On Sat 16th October 2010 the 14th Southampton City (Highfield) Scout Group held their ninth annual Pinewood Derby and Fete.

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Everyone bought a wooden car kit and made their own wooden cars which we raced down a track under power of gravity at our Scout Hut. There was an amazing variety of designs and there were prizes not only for the winning cars in the races but also for the best and brightest cars. We also had a barbecue, a raffle, bouncy castle, cake stall, and chocolate tombola plus our tin can football alley on the go so everyone had a lot of fun and we raised money towards some new camping gear.

The winning cars 2010 were:

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First: Carrot#7 by Jim
Second: Rocket by Liran
Third: Astronomer by Daniel

Best looking car:
First: Submarine by Chris
Second: Cool Runnin’s by Josh
Third: Tay1 by Taylor

Most original design:
First: The Electric Car by Michael
Second: Dot by Finn
Third: Fail to plan, plan to fail by Joe

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Brightest coloured car:
First: Eco Warrior by Matthew
Second: Kez-i-kar by Keziah
Third: The Banana by Robert

“Mad Mad Mad”:
First: Three-wheeled tank by Gregory
Second: Schnitzel von Krumm by Ben
Third: Racing Rapids by Ethan

Cubs: The Fantastic Five Magic up Hogwarts

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Here’s a report on the Southampton City Cub Scrapheap Challenge by Captain Ned

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The five crafty cubs that took on the challenging competition of scrapheap challenge were me (Ned), Mathew, Jay, Fraser and Quinn.

What we did

Thumbs Up from one of Ned's team

First of all, we got set a theme [this time it was harry potter]. Subsequently we discussed what we will make and we all agreed on Hogwarts .

We were given a pile of junk in the middle of the hall and we set off.


Scrapheap Challenge team

Our design

We had lots of sections the sections were Hogwarts, swamp, vegetable patch, mini tower, rocky zone and a field what made us seem strong. We spread around the sections.

Best of all we were 2nd



by Ned

Group Camp – Foxlease, Sept 2010

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The Cubs and Scouts came together last weekend for a brilliant group camp. We were fortunate enough to have absolutely perfect weather so managed to do all sorts of exciting and challenging activities.

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Ed: From a Scouts point of view, it was fantastic to see the new troop gel together, with new assistant patrol leaders and patrol leaders taking over from where the old ones left off at the end of summer camp – congratulations to them. Equally impressive was seeing scouts helping each other, even the brand new scouts helping older scouts!

This is the start of what I am sure will be a great year for the scouts and us leaders! Roll on the next camp – sadly we’ll have to wait 5 months now!!

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Neil: Our Cubs had a great time too. They seemed to be up for everything from the massive Foxlease zip-wire to doing the washing up! My favourite activity was our big Saturday afternoon Treasure Hunt through the New Forest which was set up by George, one of our Young Leaders. I was really impressed with how the Cubs hiked with maximum enthusiasm – and minimal moaning! – and was pleased to see they had a real and well deserved sense of achievement at the end.

As well as the Activities, I think they’ll also remember the Wide Games in the dark, the Campfire Circle, the Tin Can Football Challenge, the “Adder” in the woods (ask them) and the fantastic food, courtesy of Maggie and Susy. I think our four newest Cubs deserve special mention too – they camped like Cub Camp Veterans and we were delighted to be able to Invest them on Sunday afternoon. Follow this link to see the Cub Photos on flickr.

Finally, from Nico, Ed and Neil, many, many thanks to all those who made the Camp possible, who dedicated countless hours of their precious time to make it happen and who helped it to run so smoothly.

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Scouts Summer Camp

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The troop set off to Chelwood Scout Campsite, near Bath/Bristol for a week of fun and games! The scouts set the camp up in record time on the Sunday afternoon, leaving loads of time for exploring, fires and games. After a decent breakfast on Monday, we headed into Bristol for a bike-ride along the canal. On Tuesday we pioneered a couple of bridges over a stream, cooked pizzas in a cardboard oven (can’t see the flaw in that idea) and cleaned ourselves in a swimming pool! We then went caving in the Cheddar Gorge area on Wednesday, and hiking in the Mendips on Thursday.

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Some scouts decided to spend the last night under a bivouac despite the terrible weather forecast – but got off lightly – no rain! We packed camp up on Friday morning and then demonstrated how not to communicate effectively as we attempted to take the group climbing! We split up and I drove the minibus up a recently closed tiny road (thanks SatNav) and did a million point turn in a driveway, then were given directions to the Split Rock by a resident and turned up there to find no other leaders and were told to meet somewhere else – several phonecalls later and many wrong-turns we found the others and followed them to our destination – and no guesses for where we ended up – Split Rock, an hour after we were there before! Anyway, we managed to do some fantastic climbing and scary abseiling, and drove home (without getting lost!)

The camp marked an end of one era and a start of a new one for the scout troop. We said goodbye to several veteran scouts who are moving up to Explorers, and we also kind of said goodbye to Stuart, who handed over the troop to me on the last day so that he could take on the district role of ADC Scouts. The patrol leadership has also changed, with Peter & Thomas continuing to be patrol leaders, joined by Chris and Adam. A new generation of APLs are joining the team – Finn, Michael, Matthew and Nina – congratulations to everyone!

Roll on the winter term – we already have a camp planned, two incident hikes (one overnight), a swimming gala and lots of Friday evening fun!

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Another Victory for the Scout Troop – Raft Race

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[simage=177,200,n,left,left] 14th Highfield scouts seem to be making a habit of winning! Joined by various other scout groups in the district, we pioneered a raft out of barrels, poles and plenty of rope. Powered by four scouts with four make-shift oars, we paddled ourselves into victory! Not only did we win the overall competition, we ended up totally undefeated in every single race! Congratulations to all that took part!

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Sailing Cubs

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A group of our Cubs took part in a Sailing Taster session at the Hamble River Club yesterday evening. A big “thank you” to Peggy, Geoff and James from the Club who arranged and ran the session for us and, as you’ll see in the photos, our Cubs had a great time mastering the Optimist Dinghys!