Operation Christmas Child

We managed to get 61 boxes this year. That is 11 more than last year! These boxes will go to Bosnia. We hope to get more next year.

We would like to thank one of the explorers Nans for knitting most of these hats.

BBC Newcastle Tour

At the weekend 15 explorers took part in a tour round BBC Newcastle. They showed us the studios, offices and the gallery - where they do all the technical bits we don't understand. We also did an off-air broadcast using the basic equipment that you would need.

"...and tonight's broadcast was brought to you by chickens"

DofE Bronze Weekend

At the weekend 5 groups set out to complete their Bronze expedition near Morpeth. They had to demonstrate their leadership and map reading abilities to pass the assessment. It is a 2 day expedition over 25km and a one night camp. They all passed expedition part of the DofE Bronze award.


They see me strollin'

 

Are we there yet?

 

Everybody loves rainbows!

Operation Twilight 2012

Operation twilight was held on Saturday 6th October 2012 this year, over 400 Scouts, Explorers, Network and Leaders will again take part in the biggest Scouting manhunt around! Twilight is The Event ran from 8am to 9pm at a different location each year, this years locations was stamfordham.

What is operation twilight?

Basically it is a giant game if hide and seek and takes place in the Northumberland area. The winning Team is the Team that arrives at the finish within the time window, with the least lives lost.  Teams are caught by twilight marshals and once you are caught your team lose a life. Teams are a minimum of 4 members (maximum of 6) and consist of explorer scout unit teams.

what happened this year?

This year operation twilight was held at Stamfordham Village Hall, and lasted 12 hours. The actual hunt lasted 9 hours and there was good weather with no rain (that s quite an achievement for this year) This year Whitley bay explorer scouts did not win, and mid Northumberland explorer scouts were victorious.

Current Activities: Challenge

One of the activities currently on at explorers is challenge. This involves completing a variety of tasks that may be difficult in one way or another!

 

 

Current Activities: Entertainment

Entertainment is held at the 5th Whitley Bay Scout Headquarters on a Monday night. Entertainment involves things like: Comedy, Drama and general performing.

Current Activities : Archery

One of the current activities running at explorers is archery! it is on a monday night at the 15th Whitley Bay Scout Headquarters.

 

 

Notice how we are using a different style target than usual. We are using a darts style target.

Charity Work

Last year we helped a charity called Tyne Sound.

Who is Tyne sound?

Tyne Sound is a charity that was established 30 years ago which enables the blind to catch up on the latest news by sending them free audio recordings. Every year they send out 25,000 tapes and CDs, absolutely free of charge to blind people. The work they do is not possible without donations and all of the recordings are done by volunteers.

What Did We Do?

We hosted a variety of events including:

• A mexican meal, prepared, cooked and served by our own explorers who took part in Cooking With Chris. this raised more than £450.
• We encouraged friends and family members to fill up empty smartie tubes with money and return them to us.
• We had a second hand book auction.

Overall we raised £1,165 which has allowed the charity to modenise the way in which they send out the audio to the blind. This includes a number of high- speed CD copiers  which means that the charity can send out even more free audio recordings.

Another charity  event we plan to do this year is the shoebox appeal. We did this last year and managed to fill 50 shoeboxes. We hope to increase that number this time round. To find out more on how we did last year, click the link below

Last year's appeal

What We're Doing This Term!

This term, things are a bit different from previous Explorer Scouts terms. We have changed the main layout of the terms so insted of doing one activity for the entire twelve weeks,You can choose one activity for five weeks and another for the next five weeks. Between these sections of the term we will have a fun night which could include:

• Bowling
• Swimming
• Movie night

The activities which we have available this term are as follows :

• Climbing
• Archery
• IT / Blog
• Challenges
• Entertainment
• Chess

Most of these activites take place at the quarry center but some are also held elsewhere such as climbing is held at the Burnside climbing wall and archery is held at the 15th Whitley Bay Scout headquaters.
Although the Monday night activities are set out differently, cooking with chris is still held for the full twelve week term on a Tuesday night.

Keep on checking the blog to find out more about what we are doing.

The Minecraft Experience

For the past few weeks at explorers, we have been set many challenges to be completed on Minecraft. The tasks have been to build several creations in a race against time between the other teams.

We had to build a castle to start with. We had fifteen minutes to build the best castle that we could. We had many versions of the default castle layout, including a basement of creepers and some amazing interior decorations. The winning castle was the one that didn’t explode and actually looked like a castle.

Next we had to build a spaceship. With this, the imagination could go wild. As with before there were many variations of the basic designs, but ultimately the winning ship was one that looked aesthetically pleasing, complete with a multitude of levers which do nothing.

After that, we had to build a tower. This could be done very easily and with a time limit of 25 minutes, we could go outrageous. There were towers with lava, amongst other things, but they were all pathetic compared to the winners. This tower had many a water feature as well as slit walls and heli-pad.

The final challenge was to build a maze. We had 25 minutes to build the biggest, the hardest and the best maze that we could possibly think of. We had many laptops and computers to work with and so there were more teams than for the previous challenges. Each team had to build and then we all swapped around to test everyone else’s maze. There were some problems involving disappearing worlds and needing to reset everything after each go but apart from that they worked well.

Even if Minecraft isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, they were very fun to do and what is even better they could be anything. Let’s hope we have the opportunity to do more in the future (hint hint).

The Not So Christmas Meal 2012

On the night of 9^th of January 2011, almost 59 people in total from our explorers unit descended on Picasso’s Italian restaurant in Whitley Lodge for a slap-up three course meal with our fellow scouts. 

Despite the post-Yule time date, the outing was a great success.

“I had the lasagne…mmm, sublime” exclaimed Graham, reminiscing nostalgically. Both explorers and leaders were treated to a variety of foods including: Potato skins, soup, garlic bread, Spag Bol, calzone, pizza and for dessert there was the choice between ice cream and cream flavoured ice.

“…and the ice cream was actually alright” said Andrew, in a generic manner.

“The night couldn’t have gone better,” said Katie Willis. (This quote may be slightly exaggerated).The evening went off without a hitch and look forward to the next.

24 Hour Pantomime

THE 24 HOUR PANTOMIME

THE SHOW OF A LIFETIME (OR 40 MINUTES)

I heard one person say why a show that is written, rehearsed and performed in 24 hours can be better than a show which is planned for months. Whatever the reason, the Network 24 Hour Pantomime was hilarious. What more can be said. The cast delivered the wonderful story of Peter Pan to the audience in a funny and slightly more adult way (hint hint). Even the new hands were indistinguishable from the old hands.

Individually, the performers were all stunning. Some notable appearances were of Graham as Snow White getting booed. Well he would, he’s the baddy. Also Robbie as the Panto Dame, with possibly the catchiest theme tune in the history of the world.

Who would have guessed that they had such limited time? Peter Pan shot right up there with other 24 hour favourites such as Aladdin and Cinderella. Let’s just hope that Network can keep going with these side-splittingly humorous additions to the year, because we will all be waiting for them.