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C O - C U R R I C U L A R
Virtual Scouting
The summer term for the Sea Scouts would normally be
spent on the water, this year the scouts still faced a full and
challenging programme on dry land.The Sea Scout leaders
seem to be particularly unfazed by the need to adapt to virtual
Thursday night meetings.The imagination and innovation shown
by the leaders is a fantastic example of what can be done
under lockdown. Each week they set the Scouts a series of
different challenges and tasks: re-enact a scene from a favourite
film; draw a seagull using a pen between your toes; create a 3D
model of one of the scout leaders; turn your bathroom into a
venue for a night or day out; recreate a famous painting.
The Hogwarts Escape Room challenge proved a great activity
and it was certainly the most stressful behind the scenes with
ten adult leaders managing 61 children. The Scouts were joined
by the Cubs– their first online scouting session. A few parents
joined in too.This proved a truly collaborative activity. All of the
10 teams ‘escaped’ and completed the set of riddles and puzzles
in just over an hour.
The Scouts also had a virtual camp at the end of half term
starting just before 7 on Friday night and closing at 8 the
following morning. About 50 Cubs and Scouts attended,
covering six different year groups from the Prep and Senior
Schools. Up until midnight they organised a number of different
collaborative challenges every hour: making pizzas from scratch
- dough, toppings, baking; two online quizzes; preparing deserts;
a scavenger hunt. Tradition wasn’t lost as there were campfire
jokes, stories and the Scouts and Cubs sang camp fire songs
together with everyone on audio and video (they won’t win
any acoustic awards but it was great to see the cubs and scouts
dancing away in their own dens).There were two online games
rooms and various breakout rooms for the Cubs and Scouts to
hang out together. Everyone, including the leaders, built dens in
bedrooms, living rooms and gardens.
At 7am on Saturday John Hasslegren, now 82 an OB and ex-
Bancroft’s scout, woke everyone with the traditional bugle call for
‘all hands’. Mathew Balchin Scout Section Leader said, “We had a
number of parents and some younger brothers and sisters online
together and in some houses we had both a Cub and a Scout
join together or on their own devices. Apparently they want to
do it all again.”