Our Cubs are loving to Bake and Cook

Many of our Cub Scouts are busy baking at home; some for their Chefs badge, some for fundraising, one or two to simply give cakes to neighbours and others just to enjoy themselves. We've seen many very tasty examples of both meals and cakes!

Lockdown Scouting!

And then, on Monday March 16th 2020, our World changed. Scouting in person was suspended because of the Coronavirus pandemic. We had to cancel a couple of meetings, but by Tuesday 31st March we were up and running Online! We held our first meeting, told the Cubs about doing their badges online and started planning The Great Indoors as a style of Scouting.

March Badgework

Wow! We only held two meetings before all the restrictions around Coronavirus were introduced and that meant that we had to re-think and plan a little bit differently. Scouting in person was suspended across the UK and our meetings on 17th March and 24th March ware cancelled.

However, we managed to do a Book Reader badge night and start the Navigator badge.

February's Badgework

The main badge activity this month was the Astronomer badge. It involves looking at the planets, the moon and its phases, learning about stars and aspects of space such as exploration. It's a great badge for those who love looking up and night and wondering about all those different planets and star formations.

Our first Chief Scout's Silver Award of 2020.

We were delighted that Edie was our first Cub of this year to be presented with her Chief Scout's Silver Award. She was presented it by the Reverend Dr Paul Edmundson from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He conducted the Plough Sunday service and Edie received her badge and certificate towards the end of it.

As a reminder, Cubs need to complete all seven Challenge Awards (Adventure, Outdoor, Personal Skills, Teamwork, Team Leader and World) plus at least 6 Activity badges. The congregation laughed at that last part as Edie had an armful of Activity badges. Well done Edie!

January's Badgework

Tin Can Cooking has become a bit of a tradition now as one of our first meetings of the year. There's no doubt that this would make many of our Cubs' top 5 favourite things.

We also used January as a time to challenge the Cubs with their teamwork skills and catch up on badge work that some of them had missed.

January - Plough Sunday 2020

The observance of Plough Sunday on the First Sunday of Epiphany goes back to Victorian times, but behind it there is a much older observance, associated with the first working day after the twelve days of Christmas (hence ‘Plough Monday’ in some places). In medieval times, many ploughs were kept in the parish church, and some churches kept a ‘plough-light’. In days when work was scarce in winter, the observance looked forward to the time of sowing with the promise of a harvest to come. The blessing of the plough was very important, as the village was primarily dependent on a good harvest later that year.

In Wilmcote, Plough Sunday is celebrated on the third Sunday in January and again this year, our Cubs (and Beavers) went along to Mary Arden's Farm in Wilmcote and paraded behind the plough as it was carried aloft by the farm hands.