Scouts

Struggling for something to do during the lockdown? Want to do something that keeps your Scouting values going whilst also having some fun and keeping fit?

The Scouts have partnerned with BBC's Big Day In and Big Night In this Thursday (23rd April) to have a virtual 'Hike to the Moon'. 23rd April is a really important day for us every year in The Scouts as this is St George's Day. St George is the Patron Saint of Scouts!!! So every year we renew our promises and have a big celberation of Scouting, usually on the nearest Sunday. This year, we are doing something different as a national organisation and are supporting Comic Relief and Children In Need for the Big Day In and Big Night In.

Together with Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers from across the UK, the plan is simple: Hike 1 mile inside your house or using your allocated exercise for the day, and when put together we will have hiked enough miles as Scouts in the UK to have hiked all the way to the moon!!

To put it into perspective, this is roughly 20 minutes of walking on the spot or continually walking around the house. 

Here is a message about this from our own Chief Scout, Bear Grylls: https://youtu.be/7gkcPGghInQ

Our Scout Leader, Skip, would love to put a video together of 5th Risca participating in the Hike To The Moon, and so please do make sure that you are wearing your 5th Risca necker and take a photo or video  and send it through to rhys@5thrisca.org.uk by 5pm Thursday and we will get it complied and published on our Social Media! 

Here is more information about the Hike To The Moon, together with some cool Lunar themed activities as an alternative. 

Whilst you are filming, we have got another video that we would love you to take part in:

• Necker challenge - This simply involves having someone off-camera throwing a necker towards our Beaver, Cub or Scout, and then they throw it off camera in the opposite direction. Here is an example: https://twitter.com/MynyddIsaScouts/status/1249955676413210624. (You might want to make this a little more interesting by adding a 'Necker flip' into it, where you kick the necker off your foot and catch it straight onto your head. Here is an example. Just don't forget to still have the necker being thrown in and back out!)

If you could get the Necker challenge video to us by 5pm Friday we can then put that video together seperately. 

With both of these videos, here are a couple of handy tips:

• Film in landscape - phone on its side
• Don’t zoom on your phone/tablet – move the camera closer instead!
• Make sure it’s well lit
• Keep the camera steady

Lets show the world what 5th Risca have been doing in lockdown!

All

Thank you to those of you who have responded to our snap poll on Facebook which we also emailed to you all earlier in the week. The results are in and attached to this email. As you will see, the majority of parents were happy to continue paying £10 a month subscriptions during this temporary postponement of face-to-face activities. 

However, the Executive Committee are keen not to leave anyone behind during this, and want to ensure that we are looking after each other as a 5th Risca Scout Family. 45% of the responses were for some form of reduction in subscriptions, which highlights that we need to act to ensure that we are supporting a sizeable proportion of our members during this time and doing what we can to continue their membership of the organisation. We have therefore taken the decision to implement a temporary drop in subscriptions to £8 per month. The OSM direct debit schedules have been updated and so no action is required of you. The subscriptions will revert to £10 a month once we are back to face-to-face Scouting.

There are still some people who are going to struggle with this, and so can we please reiterate... if you are going to have difficulty maintaining the subscription payment for your child(ren) please do get in touch with either of us, or with Becky our Group Chair or indeed your elected Executive Committee members. We can look to support families on a case-by-case basis.

With that in mind, a large proportion of you were happy to continue to pay the full subscriptions to the group during this time, and so could we suggest that if you are indeed keen to pay the full £10, that you make a payment of £2 to our PayPal account (mail@5thrisca.org.uk). This will in turn allow us to support families who come to us for further support with their subscription payments. 

Thank you for your ongoing support of Scouting during this time. These are unprecedented times, and we need to look out for one another. Please do utilise our Facebook group to keep in touch with one another (5th Risca Scouts - Parents).

Many thanks

Gareth Tanswell and Terri Wiltshire