Friday, August 31, 2007

Alien Attack - 31 August 2007

After having fun building their spaceship, deciding what equipment needed to go on board, cubs had to climb out of the spacecraft using the "ladder."

Here they are stepping very tentatively!

This was a fun meeting with many games and activites one of which was when they were blindfolded whilst sitting in a circle and "alien" items were passed around during a story. "It was cold and dark on Planet Kryptolite. As I walked down the ladder I felt something touch my cheeck (pass a feather duster over all the cubs faces). I was scared but nevertheless took the next step. My foot touched something that I was not familiar with so I bent down to get a better understanding.... it felt all mushy (let each cub feel some jelly in a bowl)"........ and so it went on. The cubs imaginations go crazy!

After getting over that scary episode, they settled down to imagine and draw the alien they saw on this planet. A nice way to end off a cub meeting.

Till next time

Keep Cubbing

Akela Joy

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Meeting the Planets - 17 August 2007

It was time to meet all the planets..... the cubs learnt the order of the planets and how to remember them.

Planets come in all shapes and sizes - some close by and some far, far away....
Each cub made their own bit of "space"..... the earth was represented by the potato and the planets by the tomatoes, celery and cheese!

Greetings Card were made as part of the Advancement


Working hard on those Greeting Cards....
Till Next Time
Keep Cubbing
Akela Joy

Saturday, August 04, 2007

J is for Jamboree

That is right! J is for Jamboree, which one day you may be lucky enough to attend.
When asked why a Jamboree was called a Jamboree, BP said: "Well what else could you call it!" It began in quite a small way. It was hoped to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Scouting in 1917, in some way or other, but there was a war on and it wasn't till 1920 that what was to be the first Jamboree, was held. It wasn't quite like the Jamborees which were to follow as it was an indoor display and exhibition at Olympia, while a camp for Scouts who wished to attend it was held in the Old Deer Park, Richmond.
It was a tremendous success although its pattern wasn't to be repeated: the pattern of future Jamborees was set at the second at which the Danish Scouts were the hosts of the Scouting world. They planned the Jamboree as a camp where Scouts of all nations might meet to become friends to share different ways of camping and pioneering, to entertain one another at camp fires and arena shows and to enjoy just being together.
And this is what the Jamborees - although differeing in detail of course, according to place and time and opportunity - have been ever since.
(The Scout Annual - 1957)

Here are the dates and places of others:
1933 3rd Godollo Hungary
1937 5th Holland
1947 6th France
1951 7th Austria
1955 8th Canada
1957 9th UK
1959 10th Philippines
1963 11th Greece
1967 12th USA
1971 13th Japan
1975 14th Norway
1979 15th Was cancelled
1983 15th Canada
1987 16th Australia
1991 17th South Korea
1995 18th Netherlands
1999 19th Chile
2003 20th Thailand
2007 21st UK (Brownsea Island)

9th Benoni Cubs celebrate with a Party

Happy Birthday Scouting! .... 100 years old and still going strong!
We celebrated with a party..

... afterwich the cubs continued on the journey through space! learning all about the Orion and the Southern Cross.

Till next Time
Keep Cubbing
Akela Joy

Brownsea Island - some interesting facts


Every Scout I suppose knows this about the 500 acre Brownsea Island : that in August 1907 a famous soldier named Robert Smythe Stephenson Baden-Powell held a camp there for boys, what was in fact to be considered afterwards as the first Scout camp ever. But I thought you might like to know a little more about this strange island that is now so well know all over the world.

Unfortunately of its past we know less than we should like to do. We know that at various times it was called Bronnecksey, Brunksea, or Branksea, and we know, too, that as far back as 1154, the King, Henry II, gave the monks of Cerne Abbey the right to worship on the island and they built a small chapel there dedicated to St. Andrew.

Leaping forward to Henry VIII's day, that well-known monarch gave the island to the then Earl of Oxford who built a castle and a barbican - that is an outer fortification - with walls nine feet thick. In her turn the first Elizabeth gave Brownsea to one of her favourite courtiers and statesmen, Sir Christopher Hatten. A certain amount of mining - of sulphate of iron - caused the population to grow and before the Civil War there were probably about a hundred people living on the island.

We know rather more about later owners. For example, in 1722 it was bought by William Benson, who was successor to the great architect Sir Christopher Wren as Clerk of Works to the Government. He was called "Mad" Benson and he was undoubtedly rather eccentric, at one time burning all his books on the shores of Brownsea in front of the castle, which , incidently he enlarged. He is said, too, to have planted about 10 000 saplings and to have employed a botanist to survey and collect the island's plants.

In 1848 another owner cut his throat in the library of the castle and it was thus that the island came to Colonel William Waugh who bought it from the widow. He was a retired army officer. He restored the castle, built the church, and a school and a long sea wall and established a pottery and a brickyard, employing a hundred or so men and even building a railway to carry the clay to the jetty. But alas! there was no white clay to make fine porcelain and the Colonel by now owed over half a million pounds and so had to go bankrupt.

In 1869 the Castle was largely destroyed by fire. Now came what were perhaps Brownsea's best days. In 1901 Charles van Raalte bought the island, restored the castle and spent generously to make it a happy and prosperous estate. There was an island band in uniforms of grey and red; nearly 200 islanders worked in the pottery and on the estate - there were, for example, ten gardeners, 52 children attended the island school and Mr van Raalte had a fine motor car, and yachts and dined every evening in splendour, the beloved squire of a lovely island. It was he who welcomed BP to his island for an experimental camp in the famous year 1907. Mr van Raalte, unfortunately, did not live to see Scouting march forward on its splendid way, for he died in 1908 on a visit to Calcutta. But his body, brought home in HMS Golconda was buried on the island and you can see his marble effigy in the church.

With his death, the island's glory declined. Mrs Mary Bonham Christie bought it in 1927 and lived as a recluse: she used only a few of the castle's roms, abandoned the farms and the pottery and allowed the discouraged islanders to leave. Cottages fell to ruins, and the island became, what Mrs Christie preferred it to be, a sanctuary for wild birds and the wild animals of the island. During her lifetime hardly anyone was allowed on to Brownsea and certainly no Scouts were. When she died in 1961, her ahses were scatted over the island she loved in her own way.

Now Scouts (and others) may visit the island again but it will remain a nature reserve where blackcaps and sedge-warblers and curlews and stonechats and oyster-cathers and terns and heron and even peacocks can be seen and heard. It belongs to the National Trust and funds have been generously given by various trusts and interested people to maintain the island as the beautiful place it ought always to be.

Scouting had its birth there: Scouts may visit and some may even be allowed to camp there. BP's spirit cannot be far away.


Written by : The Editor - The Scout Annual 1966

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Sunrise Service - Arrowe Park Benoni

Scouting is 100 years old and still going strong! BP would be very proud.
This morning we met in Arrowe Park, Benoni, South Africa for the Sunrise Service to re-affirm our Promise.

Re-affirming our Cub Promise.

Re-affirming the Scout Promise

Some interesing information on BP and Arrowe Park.

Those that attended the Sunrise Service.
Till next Time
Akela Joy