Anzac Day BBQ

06 Wednesday May 2015

The Victor Scout Group was privileged again this year to be invited by the Holland Park-Mt Gravatt RSL Sub-Branch to host a BBQ for the community at the conclusion of the Anzac Day Service at the Holland Park Memorial.

Many dedicated parent volunteers arrived early in the morning and expertly wielded the BBQ tongs to successfully cook and serve 800 sausages and 15 kilos of onions on 40 loaves of bread, all by 8am! The sausages tasted great and we were also able to collect some donations from the public to support Victor Scout Group.

Predominantly, we like to look on the Anzac Day BBQ as a community service, rather than a fundraising activity. Still, it is nice to be able to report that, after costs, we raised $611.50 for our Group.

A huge thanks to our parent volunteers who planned, shopped, prepped, set up, cooked, served, collected donations and cleaned up! Thanks also to our youth members who helped with the donations collections, and represented Victor Scout Group so wonderfully on the day.

It was a great community atmosphere – a fitting way to pay tribute to those who have served our Nation.

Holly
Chairperson
Victor Scout Group Committee

Cubs Term 1

16 Monday Mar 2015

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2^nd Feb Welcome Back Night Our first night back at cubs saw three new cubs join us for the first time which is really exciting. We had lots of fun doing different games and activities. Our favourite part of the night was making paper planes and having group launches to see how far they would go. Turns out we are all really good at making paper planes – perhaps it was all the inspiration we got from the recent movie? Our cub leader Kaa has been quite unwell and has had to have surgery. She is having the term off to recover properly and Hawkeye will be filling in for her. Bagheera (Victor Joey leader), Echidna (Victor Scout leader) and Emu (District Joey leader) will give Hawkeye a hand and we would love for some parents to help out when they can too. 9^th Feb Law & Promise Night For many of us learning about the scout promise and law is a new thing. We had a great chat about how we can live the cub scout way by doing our best, being loyal and obedient, not giving into ourselves, helping other people and ultimately still having lots of fun living and sharing. We have also been learning how to do parades which can be a bit tricky sometimes. 16^th Feb Campfire Hawkeye loves campfire and he has a really funny hat that he wears too! We also discovered that Denae and Nolan’s Dad has an amazing scout blanket from Canada that he brought to use at campfire too! He has some really awesome badges. The cubs are starting to learn some new campfire ceremonies and songs. It was fantastic to see some of our parents be able to join us around the fire too. The highlight of the campfire was the ceremonial lighting where all the cubs called out in their biggest voices to the special ‘firefly’ that flew around the den grounds and then set fire to the campfire for our enjoyment! 1^st March Founders Day and JACS (Joey and Cub Scout) Rally Due to Cyclone Marcia Founders’ Day ceremony and JACS Rally had to be postponed to the 1^st of March. Unfortunately this meant that some of us weren’t able to go to JACS Rally. For those of us who did go it was an awesome morning of fun with Joeys and Cubs from the whole of Toohey Forest District joining in. Our favourite base was the Baden Powell Birthday Cake game that our fantastic Joey scout Leader Bagheera created!

23^rd Feb Bushwalk Tonight we went exploring off into Whites Hill State Forrest. It was an exciting adventure and we saw lots of things. Thanks so much to Archie’s Dad for spending time teaching some of us about all the cool insects and things in the forest. For some of us it was a fun opportunity to join in with Declan’s Grey Wolf hike. This was the last thing that Declan needed to do to finish his Grey Wolf award. We went up a big hill and together we made it!

2^nd March Fitness with Scouts We are starting to get right into doing our Boomerang award work and tonight was a great example. Hawkeye invited the scouts to come along and join us to help us learn about different fitness activities. It is always a good opportunity to get to know the scouts better when they come a help us and ultimately it will help us when we eventually go up to the next section because we will already know them. We split up into our Bronze, Silver and Gold Boomerangs to work on different fitness activities. The scouts help run each activity (and that helped them get their badge award work signed off too!) What we learnt was that lots of us a really good at skipping and doing funky basketball dribbling moves! We even had a go at big skipping all together – it was hard trying to do it all together but it was fun!

9^th March Health & Safety, New sixes, Induction of Sixers Tonight was extra special. We had a really big opening parade. Everyone got assigned to new sixes (Grey, Black, Tawny, Red and White). We have five new sixers and four seconders. From now on we will do activities in either our sixes or Boomerang award levels depending on what the activity is. Being chosen to be a sixer or a seconder means that you are growing up and starting to demonstrate some leadership skills. It is hoped that the majority of cubs will at some point have the chance to be at least a seconder if not also a sixer before they move up to scouts. We have had quite a few new cubs join us from other groups who bring a lot of experience with them from their old groups. They will only be sixers for a short time until they’re nearly ready to go up. When they move up to scouts new sixers and seconders will be appointed. Those cubs who are moving up to scouts very shortly get to be in a special six – Grey. Here they are able to finish off any badge work they would like to complete (hopefully Grey Wolf awards but not necessarily as not everyone wants to do badge work and that’s fine too) before going to scouts and their job will be to help the cub leaders with activities. Congratulations to all our new sixers and seconders and we hope you enjoy your new sixes!

Six Colour	Sixer	Seconder
Grey	Austin	–
Black	Jack R	Taliesen
Tawny	Jack LS	Alex
Red	Emily	Nicole
White	Ciara	Sean

Our sixers Black Six Tawny Six Red Six White Six For activities tonight we were looking at health and safety. Each six developed a skit together that demonstrated something dangerous to cubs that might happen in the home. After each skit we talked about what we could do to make sure that the bad outcomes didn’t happen and that we could be safe. There were lots of great topics – Granma’s medicine cabinet, a home invasion when parents weren’t home and the dangers of sharp knives. At the end of the night we played some really cool games with the scooter boards Hawkeye made for us. The first game was Cub Hungry Hippos where we had to work as a six to catch as many balloons as possible from the middle of the hall.

The second game was Creek Crossing where we had to transport our whole six across the entire den by using just the scooter board and a piece of rope.

There was lots of laughing and fun and we all worked really well together.

Scout Section Blog Weeks 4-6

16 Monday Mar 2015

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Investitures

27^th Feb – Investiture Ceremony & Lightweight cooking Mt Gravatt

Tonight was a very special evening. We went up to the Mt Gravatt lookout to have a combined cub linking and scout investiture ceremony.

It was really beautiful and memorable with the sun setting over the cityscape.

Appointment Ceremony on opening parade. Our three new Patrol Leaders (Elliot – Penguin, Joseph – Panther and Koala’s PL) all took their Patrol Leader Oath and were presented with stripes, whistles and patrol staves. Two of our three Assistant Patrol Leaders (Panther – Michael and Laura – Koala) were able to be there and to be appointed.

Our linking ceremony was for Declan and Annie. Some of their cub leaders were able to come along and share some special stories with the cubs about Declan and Annie’s journeys through cubs and their achievements – both of whom have earned their Grey Wolf Award.

One of our new traditions is that anyone who is invested into the scout section (be it from cubs or new) writes their name and the date of their investiture onto the gateway crossbar. We use the same bar every time so over the years we will have a fantastic record of everyone joining Victor scouts!

We also invested a new scout all the way from the UK – Michael.

It was great to be able to share this ceremony with lots of parents who stayed and many people in our community who were at the lookout. It was also a great night to do a first link night for two of our linking cubs Austin and Adam. We are happy they are joining us and looking forward to when they too will have a special investiture ceremony. In the mean time they are starting to get to know what scouts is like.

As it happens everyone in the section received a badge of some sort tonight too; that doesn’t happen very often! Either for award work they had completed, a new patrol patch, investiture or linking badges.

For our activity tonight we also learned about light hike cooking methods using solid fuel (hexamine), liquid fuel (metho) and gas fuel (butane). Each patrol chose two of these methods and then cooked themselves some supper. Koala and Penguin patrol made s’mores (short for some more!) and Panther patrol made chocolate dipping sauce.

A huge thank you to all the parents and leaders who were able to stay for the investiture ceremony and also to Komodo for his brilliant orchestration of the tea/coffee/hot chocolate for supper.

1^st March – Postponed Founder’s Day Ceremony and Clean Up Australia Day

Due to Cyclone Marcia Founder’s Day was postponed to this date.

Some of our section were able to join the ceremony to celebrate Baden Powell’s birthday which is the date we use to remember the fabulous opportunities and experiences we all have through scouting that wouldn’t be possible without BP.

6^th March – Kitchen Fly Construction

An important scouting skill is learning how to set up a camp site. Tonight we learnt and practiced a few different knots and then used them to learn about teamwork and constructing a kitchen fly. The kitchen fly keeps the rain and sun off our camp kitchen and uses wooden spars, rope, pegs and a tarp. It also covers both Pioneer knots (clove hitch, rolling hitch, sheet bend) and Explorer knots (bow line) so opportunity for everyone to learn together. Even basic skills like how to bang a peg into the ground safely and how to look after gear. We didn’t quite get them completely up but that’s OK and we gave it a really good go!

7-8^th March – Family Camp

Most of our scouts were able to join in the fun of family camp. As a section we were able to do some sewing of badges onto uniforms and to also get award work signed off. Camps are often an excellent opportunity to do these sorts of activities. Our patrol leaders taught everyone how to sing “Road Kill Stew” and some of our scouts either organised and performed skits or helped to lead songs. We also held a special ceremony at sunset on the Burleigh Heads Beach to invest Ellie into the troop and to appoint Tadgh as an APL. Congratulations to both. Well done everyone – camp was so much fun and you all helped to make it happen!

See the separate blog post of all the things that happened at family camp.

13^th March – Operation Butterfly Preparation

In a couple of weeks some of our scouts are headed off to Operation Butterfly – this is a lightweight hiking camp over a 24hr period. Scouts navigate through bushland to reach different bases. At each base there are activities to complete as a patrol. This is a competition camp where points are awarded based on navigation skill execution, teamwork and completion of base activities. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter about points, it’s a great opportunity for scouts to meet other scouts in the South East corner of Qld. There are generally about 400-500 scouts that participate.

To prepare for this camp we had three bases – Navigation (run by Komodo), Teamwork skills – Walking on Mars (run by Falcon) and Menu planning (run by Echidna). Even for scouts not attending Butterfly these are all general scouting skills that are part of award work but also just having fun doing scouting things.

We also played some new games that were a hit – Evolution with almost everyone turning from an egg into a Butterfly and the Anti-gravity tent pole!

Declan’s Grey Wolf Award

16 Monday Mar 2015

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Investitures

Declan has been in scouting since he was a Joey up in Rockhampton. He started cubs with another group and came to Victor at the start of the year having started linking into Victor scouts.

Over the summer holidays Declan worked really hard to finish off all the components of his Gold Boomerang and planning his walk to complete the award. It was a great effort and he did a fantastic job!

On Friday 27^th of February we held a ceremony at the summit of Mt Gravatt to award Declan his Grey Wolf award and to also invest Declan into the scout section. It was really great that some of the Victor cubs and Declan’s old cub leader, Lorikeet, were also able to come along and share this special event with him.

It was a fantastic night as you can see by the pictures. Declan’s Mum also made a yummy cake to celebrate.

Family Camp at Camp Kallaroo 7-8th March

14 Saturday Mar 2015

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Cubs, Family Camp, Investitures, Joeys, Scouts

On Saturday 7^th of March we had our very first Victor Family camp at Burleigh Heads Camp Kallaroo. It was an absolutely beautiful weekend for a beach camp with nearly 60 family members attending.

We spent part of both Saturday and Sunday at Burleigh Heads beach. There was lots of yummy food and we all had a great time getting to know new and old Victor families better. It was so lovely to see everyone pitching in and helping out and working together for a great weekend.

At the beach there was lots of swimming, body surfing, digging, sea princess headpiece creations and sand castle building along with afternoon tea on the beach which always tastes great!

Saturday night, just on sunset, the scouts headed down to the beach for a special ceremony where we invested Ellie into the section and appointed Tadgh as an Assistant Patrol Leader with Burleigh Headlands in the background, the sun setting over the mountains and the tide rolling in.

After a great BBQ dinner we headed to the campfire, where Hawkeye, with his funky campfire meister hat, lead us together in a rousing cub-type campfire. There was singing and skits and jokes and riddles along with a lighting ceremony and a Mowgli Jungle Book yarn. Turns out all our favourite campfire songs are rather macabre but funny. For many this was their experience of a scouting campfire and followed with supper of hot milo!

Sunday morning was a lazy start with egg and bacon rolls for brekkie and back to the beach. There were all sorts of activities going on with sewing lessons, camp face squares, board games, soccer, skateboarding and signing off some badge award work.

Unfortunately some of our families were unable to attend due to prior commitments. We missed them all. Overall it was an absolutely fabulous weekend and we hope to do the same thing as an annual event.

Clean Up Australia Day

14 Saturday Mar 2015

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Clean Up Australia

On March 1^st a group of our Joeys, Cubs and Scouts were able to get together and give up a couple of hours of their morning to help clean up our local area – Mott Park. We were fortunate enough to have our local councillor, Ian MacKenzie, and his wife come and join in with us. It’s great to see scouts and government working together to make our community a better place. We had a fun time working together and found some interesting rubbish too – like a car exhaust pipe!

Busy Start to Term 1, 2015

24 Tuesday Feb 2015

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Scouts

It’s been a very busy start to Term 1, 2015
Week 1
Well, it was a fabulous start to the year when Victor Scout section met on Friday night.
We welcomed two new patrol members – Ellie and Michael.
Our linking cub Declan was also back for another night – he has nearly finished his Gold Boomerang and Grey Wolf and will be joining us permanently in scout section very soon.
Everyone had a fantastic time getting to know each other playing games and learning new knots. Together Penguin patrol constructed two chariots and had fun racing them around the den.
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Week 2
This week we welcomed another linking cub, Annie, who will be a lone scout as her family travels Australia but having Victor as a home base when she is in Brisbane.
Our activity for the night involved learning how to do basic navigation then determining and navigating a path between the den and Holland Park RSL. Here we completed some community service for our RSL friends. Just rubbish pick up in the park and sweeping the front stairs as the memorial is temporarily undergoing some renovations ready for ANZAC Day. This community service will be an ongoing activity for all Victor Scout Group sections.

Week 3
Tonight was a very exciting time in Victor Troop. Following sign-on day our troop has grown to 11 with 5 linking cubs joining us over the next few months. With this in mind Troop Council voted to split the troop from just Penguin Patrol into three new patrols. So Victor Troop have 3 patrols now – Penguin, Panther and Koala and look forward to exciting times ahead.
For this week’s activity we completed emergency and first aid procedures. Learning all about DRSABCD, how to manage and treat various emergency situations and finished the night by creating bush stretchers and carry fellow patrol members 500m through the park.

We had planned to attend the Chinese New Year celebrations in the Valley for International Cultural awareness but unfortunately Cyclone Marcia had other ideas. Instead we had a great night of games and catching up on award scheme work. A scout sized version of Hungry Hippos was fantastic (and let us practice reef knots and bowlines along with teamwork to achieve a goal) – can you believe every round ended up with each patrol collecting the same number of balloons! We also played Mousetrap Attack; Scout, Scout, Joey; Stuck in the Mud and Marco Polo. Alex shared his rock collection with his patrol as part of his collector badge, Elliot finished off his World Scout badge, Tash and Livi finished off their Pioneer citizenship badges with a bit of first aid. Everyone else started or continued to work on various parts of their award work.

Founders Day – Toohey Forest Orienteering Afternoon February 22nd, 2015
Unfortunately the morning Founder’s Day was postponed due to weather from Cyclone Marcia. However, our orienteering activity was able to proceed as the weather cleared. The Toohey Forest scouts were welcomed by the Toohey Forest Orienteering Group to join in their Bush Navigation and Coaching session in the Toohey Forest bordering on Griffith University. It was a fantastic afternoon, despite the rain sprinkling in the middle as a by-product of Cyclone Marcia. The club orienteers were very patient and helpful teaching the scouts the basics of orienteering. After an hour of practical instruction through the bush the scouts were sent out in pairs on a course of their choice (easy, moderate or difficult). Given this was the first time participating in this kind of activity we are very proud of the efforts of the Victor scouts. Alex (11) and Declan (10.5) coming second with Elliot (13) and Joseph (12) third only beaten by Samuel and Alistair from Rochedale. Out of a field of 28 attempting this course it was a great effort. Thanks to Aquilla from Rochedale for helping to organise the event.

Australian Scout Jamboree 2016

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

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JAMBOREE INFORMATION SESSION

Jamboree is an amazing opportunity for scouts to participate in.

To qualify you must have turned 11 but not 15 by 3^rd Jan, 2016.

Echidna would love you to please come along to the AJ2016 Information session.

Victor Den Scout Room Downstairs

Saturday 7^th February, 2015

12pm-2pm

Sign On Day ! Want to Join Scouts and find out more…nows your chance!!

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

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If you have ever wanted to join scouts but didn’t know how, come along to our sign on day at the Den to find out more!

Saturday 7th February

State Sign-on day for new scouts

10am-2pm Victor Den

Victor scouts Term 4 2014

16 Friday Jan 2015

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Investitures

Well it was a very busy and exciting term for Victor Scouts

We reopened with a fun night and the rest of term went like this:

Badgers Wood Camp & JOTI

Our first Camp as Victor scouts was awesome and was held the first weekend back. We spent three nights at Badgers Wood Camp (Noosaville Sea Scouts).

Over the weekend we had lots of amazing experiences. There was lots of official investitures: We invested our Penguin Patrol leader Annie, We invested our Assistant Patrol leaders Elliot and Joseph. Most excitingly we had an amazing linking ceremony and investiture for our two newest scouts – Tash and Livi. This ceremony was held on Peregian Beach at Sunset. The Penguin Patrol created a linking gateway. This gateway has a special flag and the crossbar is special as each new linking scout will put their name and link date onto the timber after their ceremony. The patrol also carved woggles from some salvaged timber where we camped and used these to carve woggles to present to new members. Our resourceful District Joey Leader also found some cool penguin stickers to put on them! We went swimming and fishing, beach games, carving, hiked through Noosa National Park and participated in JOTI which had us using the internet to talk to scouts all over the world! Camp finished with a traditional leftovers breakfast – a novelty for some of our scouts and swimming at Caloundra.

Crazy Russian Hackers Night

Inspired by the You-Tube collection, the ‘Crazy Russian Hacker’ teaches us all about how to do cool stuff that makes life simpler, or easier or practical. Penguin patrol tried out a series of different hacks. These included ‘making candles out of oranges’ and ‘cooking popcorn in a modified soft drink can’.

Spooky Disco

This year we went along to the District Spooky Disco hosted by Tarragindi. The Venturers and Scouts had lots of great spooky ideas and we had fun too. Next year (2015) Victor will host the spooky disco so get your thinking caps on!

Backwoods Cooking

This is another term for cooking without utensils. Food is cooked on an open fire using things like foil and plant leaves to cook. The scouts learnt how to dig a fit pit correctly, to practice their fire construction skills and fire safety. This time we cooked chicken and mixed vegetables and also chocolate smores. Yummy!

Water Safety Target Badge

Every scout at each cord level works on at least one target badge as part of their award work. Tash, Livi and Alex all earned their Pioneer Water Safety Target Badge this term. Elliot and Joseph have almost completed their Adventurer Water Safety Target Badge requirements. Awesome; BRAVO everyone as this was lots of hard work and effort!

Large Construction

Construction is always a part of scouting from small gadgets, to general purpose camping equipment, to awesome large constructions. The scouts wanted to construct a log swing. This is an awesome project for a team to work together on and it includes knots and lashings from all award levels (Pioneer – clove hitch, square lashing; Explorer – Figure of 8 lashing, diagonal lashing; Adventurer- Japanese & Filipino lashings (which can substitute for square and diagonal)) along with a painters hitch. Having a mini model helps a bit to work out all the pieces you need and what needs to get tied where. Of course the best part of making such a construction is that at the end of it you get to play on it! We heard (at the Bunnings BBQ) from a local family who are too young for scouts yet that they saw the swing and thought that it was brilliant! The scouts were keen to leave it up for the cubs to play with but safety and security were other considerations. Not to worry the District All Sections Camp in 2015 will be a large-scale construction camp for the scout section so I’m sure there will be more of this to come.

Visiting the cubs for Water fun night

The scouts went to visit the cubs and join in their water activities night. Elliot and Joseph were able to talk to the cubs about pool water safety (including why you shouldn’t pee in the pool) and what to do in an emergency. Then the scouts split up and joined in each sixer group to play some great games Kaa had organised and then a massive water fight. It was a great night and we will be trying to plan at least one cub/scout activity every term.

Christmas Woodworking

On our last night for the term the scouts learnt about woodworking by drawing, cutting, painting and assembling a timber Christmas tree each. It was fantastic to have Raven (Assistant District Commissioner) and Hawkeye (Group Leader) along to help out. We also had a couple of cubs (Declan & Nathan) from another group come along to do a link night to see if they might join Victor scouts in the new year.

Massive Achievement Celebrations to finish the year: Komodo’s Woodbadge and Anastasia’s ASM

We finished the year off in style with the presentation of Komodo’s Woodbadge and Anastasia’s Australian scout Medallion.

Woodbadge

The Woodbadge is the culmination of formal and required leadership training for any scout leader. It involves many hours of paperwork and several weekends away learning much about scouting. It is a fantastic achievement and one to be proud of.

Joining us to celebrate these achievements were Kiwi (Bill Whitestyles, DC), Raven (Warren Hope, ADC), Baghera (Leaza, Joey Scouts), (Bruce, Joey Scouts/Activities Branch Team) and Emu (Emmi Thomas, District Joey Leader) with apologies from Pieter Van der Kamp (Regional Commissioner). It was a pretty impressive parade too as almost all these leaders also belong to the Gilwell Troop (the name of the group of leaders who have completed all training).

In our group this means that we now how three woodbadge qualified leaders with our other three leaders well on their way to also completing this training. Something to remember though – this is the formal training, all our leaders have lots of other training and skills too, gathered throughout their life be it in or outside of the movement too.

Australian Scout Medallion

Anastasia (Annie) has been in the scouting movement since she was nearly 9. She started as a cub where she earned all boomerangs and her Grey Wolf award. Since she has been in scouts she has worked hard and learnt lots of different things to achieve the ASM. The scout section is the only section where scouts have to regularly demonstrate and teach many of the skills they learn. As a result not every scout will actually achieve the highest award level. To earn the ASM a scout must earn Pioneer then Explorer and then Adventurer Cords, attend leadership training and run a camp on their own. Each cord level requires a journey to be completed. At Adventurer level this is a 3 day, 30km journey where the scout has to plan and meticulously prepare every element of the journey, gather a group of scouts to go on the journey and write a reflective report that has to be approved at district. If anyone would like to see this report there is a copy available in the den. By progressively developing skills over 4 years Anastasia was able to successfully complete the award. We remember too that no scout can ever achieve any award alone. It is a joint effort between the scout, their patrol, troop, leaders and parents. It was lovely to have Justine come and help Annie celebrate as they had been in the same patrol for six months. This achievement is even harder earned as Annie has completed it having been in two different groups and three different troops due to changes in times and other family commitments. She has also been a patrol leader for Platypus and Penguin patrols in this time since she was 12 (which is quite young to become a PL). Annie is currently linking to Venturers and we hope she will continue in the movement and earn her Queen Scout Award. Hopefully in the future we will have our own Venturer leader and be able to open a Venturer unit at Victor Scouts too. BRAVO Annie!