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Beavers, Cubs and Scouts from 159th (St Aidan's) Scout Troop

Thank you to all the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts plus their leaders and helpers who visited Troopers Hill on Wednesday 9th July. A particular thank you to leader Kevin Neville from the 159th Scout Troop who did all the behind the scenes organisation. He contacted the Friends of Troopers Hill at the end of April to start organising the activities to achieve an Environment Partnership Award.

To support the Friends Clear Up campaign the Beavers had created anti-dog fouling posters. 12 were hung at entrances around Troopers Hill, the Field and the Woodland. When these become a little sun-faded or become torn they will be replaced by the others. Suzanne Tapping has kindly scanned all the posters and will be sending them across to us so we can carrying on printing and putting up new copies. Thank you to Rob and Steve, Friends of Troopers Hill volunteers, who led the cubs and their leaders to the places for posters.

Here are all the beavers at Troopers Hill before going off to hang up their posters.Image

This is a close up of one of their posters.
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The cubs were testing the Troopers Hill Tree Trail. This is the first time it has been properly tested. We wanted to know how challenging the trail was and whether it could be improved.

The cubs were split into two groups, with their leaders. One group went round the trail backwards starting from Z, with Susan from Friends of Troopers Hill, the others went the usual way round, starting from A with Chris from Friends of Troopers Hill. They met in the woodlands and then sat on tree trunks filling in their feedback forms.

Here is the form they were filling in.
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Here is what they said (not everyone ticked the boxes):
16 used their map reading skills.
9 learnt something new
6 found the leaf challenge challenging (some people didn't do it).
Susan decided not to do the bark challenge with her group to keep things simple.
10 are definitely coming back to do the fruit challenge in autumn

Here are the answers to "What would have made the tree trail and the challenges more fun?
Maybe at each tree a clue
Nothing
Different challenges, including making the signs bigger
A bonus challenge
No they are great as they are
Good for it to be harder
Try having a tree or something to use team work
It was brilliant I can't think of anything to make it better

From the adults:
Add a flower trail

In answer to "Any other comments"
Make the signs bigger. ITS EPIC.
I liked it, it was very fun. I wouldn't change it.
It was very fun and I will come back
It was very fun

From the adults:
Bigger writing, shorter names, add quirky fact to signs/ details of whether edible

Here's the team, in the sunshine afterwards, under a Norway Maple tree, which is X on the tree trail.
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The scouts had made bird boxes and bug houses. A special modification had been made to the bird boxes thanks to feedback from the Friends. Our local squirrels are terrible vandals and gnaw round the entrances to bird boxes and then raid them. The scouts' bird boxes had metal edging round the entrance holes to prevent this. Kit, a Friend of Troopers Hill, lent his ladder, which was portered in true expedition style by the scouts. Here is one of the bird boxes being put in position.
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Some of the scouts paused for a while on Little Elizabeth's bench. Is this a record for the number of scouts on that bench?
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Thank you once again to the scouts, cubs and beavers. We hope you'll carry on enjoying the Hill. See you again soon.

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