Upper south Island Region Scouting

Care and greetings from afar.

2010-09-24T17:35:00.001+12:00

Patrol Handbook :: Little Scout Book 12

2010-08-04T12:31:00.001+12:00

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Patrol Handbook LSB 12.pdf (9845 KB)

Kea Day a huge success

2009-10-31T11:02:00.003+13:00

Keas were in the news last week, see the article from the Pegasus Bay News here

It was another fun day out for 267 young people aged between five and seven and a half at Willowbank Wildlife park in Hussey's Road, Christchurch.

Celebrating 30 years of Keas, Keas from all over the Upper South Island region descended on Willowbank with their parents and leaders for a celebration cake, badges and a treasure hunt around the wildlife park.

Keas is the first section of Scouts, catering for girls and boys with adventurous spirits who are too young for Cubs and Scouts proper. It is a programme of adventure plus that's focused on caring, sharing and having fun in the outdoors. Keas were begun in New Zealand 30 years ago this month.

Organised by regional Scouters on behalf of all the Keas, more than half of the Upper South Island's Keas came along today to represent almost 99% of the region's groups.

Ella Winter and Oliver Hlavac with the stuffed Charlie the Cheeky Keas that they made at one of the activity bases.

The Keas took part in many activity bases around the park, took notes and collected litter to earn their Kea Day badge. They took part in activities that used their creative skills, taxed their observation skills as they hunted for answers to the questions in the guide book, and kept them occupied learning whilst having fun. They certainly made more noise than the Kea birds they're named after.

I found out about this too late, JOTT Jamboree on the trail

2009-05-11T08:45:00.002+12:00

more details here

Jamboree On The Trail is an annual day for the World Scout Movement to hike together. All Scouts, whatever their age and wherever they may be in the world, are invited to participate in whatever way they can. Beaver Scouts could visit a local park, walking the trails and playing games. Cub Scouts could visit a local nature trail as part of a weekend camp. A Scout Troop might check out a hiking trail while working on badge requirements. An Explorer Unit might make a Service Project out of restoring or maintaining a hiking trail. In their own way, everyone will be hiking the same direction; towards a better future through Scouting.

Get along to their web page and sign up for next year

There's some interesting tweets about one troops activity here and see their whole Twitter stream here (Don't forget though that the last link is dynamic their posts about JOTT will be replcaed by the most recent posts as time goes on)

I'll add it into the national calendar for next year

See you on the trail

USI Aviation Camp

2009-04-29T22:33:00.013+12:00

Over the weekend of 17-19 April Scouts from all over the Upper South Island descended on Hororata Domain for a weekend of flying around in the air.

If you've got any images you'd like to share email them here:

If you leave the subject intact as in the link, your images will be added to the Aviation camp album.

If you've got any stories to share, please use the comments area below this post

See everyone's photos in a slideshow here or click the image below to see the photo album

Operation Missile Coming

2009-04-28T12:44:00.004+12:00

Your mission on 2nd May is to bring your soldiers to practise all they have learnt, put them to the ultimate test and help disarm the bomb that is set to blow at Omaka.

Operation Missile takes stealth, skill and scouting to complete this mission. The mission begins at 1930 hours at the main hall; come dressed ready for combat - make sure you’re going to blend in with your surroundings. The mission will terminate at 2200 hours whether the bomb is
disarmed or not. All participants must be of Scout age, and have a torch or headlamp, warm clothes, and closed footwear (no jandals, etc).

The cost is $5 per person; this includes supper.

Please give number of people attending by 1st May (at the latest - earlier if possible) to
Mike O'Connell
383 9330
021 155 0646
fast_323@hotmail.com

View Omaka in a larger map

How Scouting began in Kaiapoi in 1908

2009-04-22T15:29:00.003+12:00

Advance warning of the following event. It's on our calendar, make a date in your diary to get the inside story on Te Wa Timata-The place it began

Family History Society of New Zealand
Public Meeting
2pm. Sunday 7th. June
Papanui Methodist Church
Cnr. Chapel St. & Harewood Rd.
Gold coin donation – afternoon tea.

Presenter Kevin White

Kevin & Margaret White researched the beginning of scouting in New Zealand, so that they could conduct bus tours for scouts and leaders attending the centennial Jamboree Dec. 28th. 2007 – Jan 5th. 2008.
They hosted 24 tours which took the scouts and leaders to the historic sites associated with early scouting. These included the site of NZ first scout camp, the first scout group and the grave of NZ’s first scoutmaster, Ted Mallasch.

Scouting pictures challenge

2009-04-16T15:46:00.001+12:00

I've just seen this amazing image from Ireland

read the whole story here

Whilst New Zealand probably hasn't got a group as large as this, there must be a lot of photos out there we'd all love to see.

Every event you hold, please take a photo, take a group shot and immortalise the moment so we can all share it.

Send me your images, and I'll share them from here...

Adrian

Scouts do the right things right.

2009-04-16T15:32:00.001+12:00

I was heartened to see this story from the Scout UK site about some Scouts on an activity in Snowdonia, where I spent many Scouting outdoors moments.

Scouts assist in emergency Snowdon rescue

Scouts aged 13 and 14 have been commended by Mountain Rescue teams for their handling of an emergency situation during an expedition in Snowdonia.

Once again, being able to rely on the skills we teach in Scouting has saved lives and resources. It underlines, for me at least, the importance of the work that's getting done in Scouting and reminds me of why I run these weekly sessions for our youth.

See the whole story here

Adrian

We're on Twitter!

2009-04-03T13:27:00.003+13:00

Twitter is a cool 'new' tool for one to many communication, try it for yourself, click the follow me on twitter link.

See what all the fuss is about here

follow me on Twitter

Cool new movie coming -UP-

2009-03-20T16:15:00.004+13:00

Seems there's a new movie coming to our screens featuring an [American Boy] Scout. It's opening the Cannes Movie Festival in May '09

See the trailer here, and get your Group Leader to organise an outing to see it when it hits town soon.

Kontiki Coverage in newspapers

2009-03-19T14:55:00.004+13:00

Another good bit of news in the local Nor'West news

more on Sam's Flickr account: Recession Invention

Coverage in Christchurch's Nor'West news of 18/3/09

Nor'West news can be seen in you letterboxes every fortnight and on the web here

Easter Holiday Programme now Spring holiday programme

2009-03-17T11:56:00.000+13:00

Although there's been some late interest from Heaton School pupils, the Regional Office has confirmed today that we're deferring this programme to the Spring term holidays in October.

New calendar link for this event here and here:

We'll begin marketing this to Christchurch schools in August, with planning for the actual programme and staffing beginning in July.

This office will keep you posted with progress on all these issues in the interim. If your availabilty changes, please let us know.

Thanks for your continued support of these initiatives.

Adrian

Easter School Holiday Programme latest news

2009-03-12T17:58:00.000+13:00

We are making a continued effort to create a recruiting holiday programme that will run twice during the Easter school holidays 2009.

Currently we've presented the idea to around 100 year 7 intermediate youth and we're hoping to here more back from them soon.

Frankly though the likelihood of this programme going ahead on schedule is small right now.

What we've done so far is contact two high decile schools on the basis that if we can't get them to try the process out, we won't get it off the ground in the lower decile areas at all. It's a test bed for this year and what we learn we can plough back into next year's effort. Timing hasn't helped us and we're rushing to try and make this happen in a very short time frame.

Mike went into Heaton school on Wednesday and talked to the entire year 7 pupils at the start of their weekly assembly. There was a brief powerpoint with some exciting images from Mudslide 09 as well as other recent Scout events. This went down well and we await action from those parents whose kids badgered them that night. We left behind fliers with information and contact details as well as putting banners like the one above on the Scout site.

We've also contacted Cobham Intermediate and still wait to hear back from them on whether we can talk to their youth or not.

Of course, we'll keep you updated on any progress, thanks for your interest in helping us stage this programme. More news as it happens.

Adrian

Kontiki Raft race

2009-03-10T16:06:00.000+13:00

Every year since the early seventies there've been Scouts competing for the Kontiki Raft Race trophy. This year on Sunday March 8th the peace of lake Roto Kohatu was broken by more than 300 scouts and their handmade rafts as they prepared their rafts and barbecues for a very tightly contested trophy.
Groups had been preparing for several weeks, and many of them had their eyes on wresting the trophy from the incumbent "masters of rafting" Malvern Scout Group.
Each entry has to make a raft without using screws or nails, have it vetted for safety, cook a meal to a theme and then race it round a course on the lake. This years winners of the trophy (a model of Thor Heyerdahl's original balsa raft used to cross the pacific) were the team from Marshland Scout Group.
Novelty rafts were also present, most noteworthy of which was the Dean's Rover Crew in their amphibious car.

A big thank you to the organisers: the Aoraki Region and safety manager Roger Horton.

Malvern Scout group photos here

Mudslide coverage in newspapers

2009-02-25T18:07:00.000+13:00

Thanks to Sam who took the photos and set the pages we managed to get ourselves into the newspapers

Nor'West news can be seen in you letterboxes every fortnight and on the web here

Mudslide was a success [again]

2009-02-24T12:32:00.000+13:00

On the birthday of it's founder Baden Powell more than 800 youth members: Keas, Cubs, Scouts, Venturers and Rovers had a muddy ball on Sunday February 22.

152 years after BP was born Scouting is still going strong and still providing fun in the outdoors for boys and girls of all ages. Whilst you might not have seen the smiles on their faces, it was only because they were crusted in mud.

Youth from the three local Scouting Zones converged on a paddock off QEII drive to spend four hours in a variety of activities which were open to the general public as well: all the activities involved water and most of them some opportunity to get muddy. Canterbury's washing machines may never recover.

Locally organised by the Avon Cossgrove Rover Crew and Pegasus Zone annually, Mudslide has quickly become a big favourite of all involved in Scouting in Canterbury. A big thank you also has to go to the owner of the property: Kerry Sergeant.

Mudslide Day is a national event and this year more than 10,000 youth had fun getting muddy with their mates.

See some of the photos here