Coffee Morning Saturday 12th October

All members, parents and supporters are invited to join us for a coffee morning on Saturday 12th October in the Church Hall at Christ Church, Consett from 10 a.m.
As well as enjoying coffee, cakes and snacks you will also have the opportunity to take part in a tour of the new headquarters. Be amongst the first to go inside and see what a fantastic building it will be when completed.

Thank you for an Excellent AGM

We would like to thank all the parents and young people who came along to our Group AGM and Presentation Evening.

It was amazing to see so many of you there; around 70 in total.

The AGM is an essential part of the Scout Group, where we look back at the past year, and plan for the next. And what a year it has been. New leaders, new headquarters being built and many exciting activities shown in the leader presentations. There were also a large number of badges given out all sections, including Chief Scout Awards, and some trophies for 5-a-side and Camping Competition.

Thank you again. With your support the next year will be even more successful.

Join us for our night of Celebration and AGM

All parents and supporters are invited to our Presentation Evening and Annual General Meeting on Monday 23rd September.
The event will take place at St. Patrick's Primary School, Consett, starting at 6:30 p.m.
As well as the business of the AGM there will be reports on what each section has done over the past year and what they are planning for the coming year, and presentations of awards and badges. Following the meeting there will be a quiz, raffle and buffet.

Successful Summer Fundraising

The hard work to raise the money needed to complete our headquarters continued over the summer. A stall and activities at the Shotley Bridge Family Funday over the summer bank holiday raised £546, and the scout sections took part in bag packing at Iceland, raising a further £386.

Well done to everyone who helped out. The fund raising committee will be organising more events for the autumn which we hope will continue to be just as successful.

Autumn Term section meetings

As we mentioned in our newsletter before the holidays, our new headquarters will not be ready for the start of the new term in September. We are still waiting to hear from several grant giving trusts whether or not they will be donating any money to our efforts to complete the build.
Therefore, all section meetings will continue as they were before the holidays; Cubs and Beavers at St. Patrick's School and Scouts at the Methodist Church. Days and times will remain unchanged.

New Headquarters: Shell almost complete

Back of the building; plenty of room for tents and games

Second Hall

See the latest photos: The new headquarters for 1st Consett and 1st Blackhill is coming along at a very fast rate.
The work started in March, and now the shell of the building is almost complete. It just needs the doors to make it watertight, and external drainage to be put in.
However, it is still along way from being finished, and work may have to be put on hold as we hope for further grant funding to come in. £100,000 is still needed to be found to completely finish the building, as it still has no electrics, gas, heating or plumbing, and the landscaping still needs to be done.

Inside the corridor, looking towards the main hall

It was, though, very nice to be able to go inside and have a look around. The main hall is very impressive, and light and airy thanks to the roof windows, extra high ceiling and large rear windows. The second hall is slightly smaller, but also has roof windows and a large window overlooking what will be the grassed area. The toilets have Sun pipes to enable daylight in to them.
We are almost there! Lets just hope some of the grant giving trusts look favourably on us in the near future, and our fundraising events continue to be well supported.

The main hall, looking back towards kitchen

Scouts win District Camping Competition

A team of Scouts from 1st Consett has won the Teasdale Trophy, Derwentside District Scouts' camping competition.
The team of six competed against teams from across the district, in what is a real test of Scouting skills over two days. Each team is completely self sufficient for the weekend, without leaders helping, and had to plan their own menus for the weekend camp and a programme of activities that demonstrated their skills.
Scout Leader Marc Reeves said "The Teasdale Trophy is probably the toughest Scout competition. It is a real test of teamwork and leadership by the patrol leader. Our team should be extremely proud, especially as some of the younger team members had never been camping before this year".