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John Charles Hall MBE

ben@bennuttall.com (Ben Nuttall) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:16:00 +0000

I am very pleased to announce that our long time legendary Scout Leader John Hall was included in the Queen's New Year's Honours list for 2009 for his services to Scouting in Sheffield. He has been awarded with an MBE and is therefore a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

This is an amazing recognition of John's ongoing voluntary work towards the youth community in Sheffield over the last 50 years. The news was announced to the Unit members on the New Year Trip by Andrew Biglands on the 31st December at breakfast, to a standing ovation from the fourty or so members present; this was followed by a modest speech from John in which he claimed he was merely the 'front man' leading the others and that he was the one collecting the recognition for everyone else's hard work. We all know what he's done for the Unit and for Scouting in Sheffield and fully appreciate everything and know full well that he deserves it.

At the age of 70, John has been a Scout leader for 52 years and still present on every trip - he was with the Unit in Slovakia in 2005, Slovenia in 2006, at the World Scout Centenary Jamboree in 2007 and in the Spanish Pyrenees in 2008.

John has helped hundreds of young people (some of whom are now what we call 'old people') by giving them opportunities they never would have had, as well as thousands of awards and achievements from Bronze Medallions and SPAs to Duke of Edinburgh Gold and Queen's Scout Awards, and the countless trips all over the UK and even across Europe.

We all have things to be eternally grateful to John for and I'm sure he'll agree that the best way to show our gratitude is to pass on the skills we learned in Scouting to the next generations.

"The greatest Master is not the one with the most students, but the one who creates the most Masters" - Confucius, Chinese Philosopher

To read more about the Order of the British Empire, see the wikipedia article

Read the Sheffield Star's article here

Join the JCH facebook group!

EDIT: I have added a guestbook for everyone to leave messages for John to congratulate and thank him - it's easy to do, just click here and enter your name and email address and type your message and it will appear on the page immediately.

South Yorkshire Network on Facebook

ben@bennuttall.com (Ben Nuttall) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:22:00 +0000

I was contacted earlier in the week by South Yorkshire Scout Network, it seems the county is trying to sort its own Network out, so has started a Facebook group which they invite us to join.

Don't forget to join our own WVU Facebook group if you haven't already! Also our Bebo page.

Coast-to-Coast Bike Ride

robert.batley@gmail.com (Rob Batley) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:22:00 +0000

We are currently looking at cycling a coast to coast from Southport to Hornsea, just north of Liverpool to just north of Hull. At the moment I am gauging people's interest. It will be taking place next summer, however, exact dates are to be confirmed. It's 260 miles over 4 days. Please send an email to rob@nortonbeavers.com with your name, email address and age, and I will get back to you with details when they are confirmed.

Join the new Unit mailing list

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Garrett) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:46:00 +0000

You can now keep up to date with all the units activities by joining the new mailing list.

There is a total of 4 lists you can subscribe to, depending on the type of information you want to get - you can subscribe to more than one, and always change or unsubscribe at a later date.

All subscriptions are held securely in our database, and won't be passed on to non-Scouting organisations. And we won't spam you either!

http://www.woodseatsventureunit.com/lists/?p=subscribe

Woodseats Apex Winners in the Papers!

ben@bennuttall.com (Ben Nuttall) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:18:00 +0000

Two Sheffield newspapers decided they wanted to let the public know about the amazing achievement that the Woodseats team made earlier this month at this year's Apex Extreme. As posted previously, a team of four of our Explorers came first out of a whopping 64 teams from all over the nation to win the Apex trophy as well as the personal prizes of quality outdoor gear.

The story was seen in the Sheffield Star and Sheffield Telegraph this week and this is that story:

Scout team takes success to the extreme in gruelling challenge

Published Date: 18 October 2008
By Richard Marsden

WITH a relentless series of challenges, hostile terrain and dozens of teams to battle against, it must have seemed a daunting challenge.
But Woodseats Explorer Scouts showed their mettle and proved to be the toughest of the bunch at the weekend-long Apex Extreme contest, in Langdale Forest on the North Yorkshire Moors.

Richard Hollingworth, 17, Andrew Webster, 16, Dominic Sharpe, 16, and Torin Cowen, 15, represented the Sheffield group.

They were rewarded for their efforts with trophies, LED head torches and top-of-the-range digital mapping software to help them on future adventures.

The foursome had to complete a gruelling assault course supervised by the Army, a 30 metre-long aerial rope course and even extreme lawnmower racing. There was also a night navigation task.

Andrew said: "Last year, we finished 24th so were only expecting to be inside the top 15 this time around. The first day didn't go so well but we finished with 1905 points, 100 better than the nearest rivals.

"Points were awarded for speed and how well we did the tasks.

"We're hoping to be back next year to defend our title."

More than 280 scouts from across Britain took part in 64 teams divided into two age groups, Explorers aged 14 to 17, and Network Scouts aged 18 to 25.

The Woodseats lads did so well their points score even beat the winning team in the older age group.

The news story can be seen here. Pass on to your friends to spread the word or you can post it to Facebook!

WVU Wins the Apex Challenge (Again)

ben@bennuttall.com (Ben Nuttall) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:27:00 +0000

Woodseats entered seven teams into the Explorer competition of this year's Apex Extreme and one of them came first out of sixty-four teams! That team was If In Doubt, Follow The Sheep, which consisted of Richard Hollingworth, Andrew Webster, Dom Sharpe and Torin Cowen.

The Winning Team: Richard,Andrew,Dom & Torin

The other teams (mostly) did very well too:

1. If In Doubt, Follow The Sheep - 1905 points
15. Welcome To My Moon Base - 1524 points
22. Baah - 1382 points
28. The Spikey Hedgehogs - 1260 points
36. Don't Follow Us, We're Lost! - 1137 points
47. Team Bin Bags - 927 points
62. The Spiney Raiders - 554 points

The full list of results can be found here.

Well done to all those who entered and a huge congratulations to If In Doubt, Follow The Sheep for keeping up the Unit tradition of winning! Let's hope we can keep it up.

Your Videos and Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Thomas Hollingworth) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:33:00 +0000

At the up coming Unit Dinner, A Review of the Year video for Woodseats Venture Unit is shown to all parents and members after the evening meal has been cleared away.

This video is also used as a feature for scouts looking to start Explorers and is shown at various events throughout the year. With the production of the video starting soon, we need any pictures/videos/mobile phone footage of the unit's members and activities that have taken place since November 2007.

Any pictures/videos are most welcome for review and will be needed within the next two weeks. If you would like to send us any individual photos/videos please send them to Richard.

However if you have a selection of files that would take to long to email, bring them on Thursday on a memory stick or CD/DVD.

The New Exec

r.t.hollingworth@gmail.com (Richard Thomas Hollingworth) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:56:00 +0000

After 30 minutes of voting and counting, it was revealed that the new 7 EXEC members are:

Edward Watchorn

Louis Sheeran

Dominic Sharpe

Emma Charlesworth

Sasha Doyle

Charlie Newton

Harriet Ives Owen

Over the next year, these Exec members will be deciding your Thursday Night programmes, camps and weekly activities as well as keeping the store rooms tidy and organised.

If you have any ideas for Thursday nights, just tell it to any one of the above members and they'll raise it in their next meeting.

Exec Elections

r.t.hollingworth@gmail.com (Richard Thomas Hollingworth) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:11:00 +0000

The Exec will be re-elected this Thursday (25th September) after the Karaoke, so this is your chance to help run the Unit!

Do YOU want to have a part in making decisions about what the Unit does? You don't have to be one of the older members - anyone over 14 can stand for a position on the Exec. Speak to Richard Garrett or one of the other Exec members if you want to know more. It's also worth noting that most of the current Exec won't be around this year as they'll be going away to university, so the places are wide open!

Update

ben@bennuttall.com (Ben Nuttall) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:38:00 +0000

First of all, a huge thanks to everyone who came to help marshal at the Great Yorkshire Run and for the 8 Explorer Members that helped out at the Penistone Agriculture Show. The Unit has now received a cheque for £100 for the efforts put in at the Agriculture Show which will help to keep the unit running. The Penistone Show saw all the members becoming Ring Stewards for the Horse Show Classes, despite the wet weather at the beginning. You all did a great job of picking up those poles! Your help is much appreciated and the volume of support at this event is a credit to the current membership! For the Great Run we had 15 volunteers on the Saturday and 35 on the Sunday which is fantastic! We raised £750 for the efforts put in by the unit members over the two mornings, which is fantastic!

Secondly, you may have noticed a few small changes to the website - I've altered a few parts and generally made it easier for the site to be updated by the new web team when I'm gone. The news now appears on the homepage so that important information can be accessed immediately. I also completed the list of WVU Queen's Scouts to update it to include those who have completed the award since 2001, as the names were only recently made available to me. The honours board at Helmton Hall has recently been filled with names, so we had to get a new board fitted to add recent and future names of Scouts who achieve this.

If you would like to help out by adding updates to the site, please email me and I'll let you know how it works. Updating the site is very easy, it does not require any web design knowledge - if you can use social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo then you'll have no problem with this. The more people we have on the web team, the quicker the site will be updated each week.

Great Yorkshire Run!

ben@bennuttall.com (Ben Nuttall) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:01:00 +0000

We have been asked to help marshal at the Great Yorkshire Run again. They're going to pay us per person per day, so if you are available both days that's brilliant! If not, then either day would also be great (we're in greater need of people on Saturday, but if you can only do Sunday you should still come).

Saturday 6th September
Don Valley Stadium at 9:00
Register in the main stand
Collect your free Nike jacket, lunch and poncho (if wet)
Finish by 12:30

Sunday 7th September
Sheffield City Centre
Register at Winter Gardens at 8:30
Collect your free Nike jacket, lunch and poncho (if wet)
Finish by 12:30

We have been allocated the job of handing out water and goody bags like last year. It's just a few hours in the morning so you can easily have something planned for the rest of the day. We're currently short of volunteers for the Saturday despite the fact that it's shorter.

Please try and spread the word, get your friends from the Unit to come - the more people we get, the more fun it will be and the money we will get. We got over £400 last year - we need this money to help pay running costs - subs could be higher but we rely on your participation at events such as this to help pay for trips and general costs of running the Unit HQ.

UPDATE: There will be a minibus going out on the Saturday, so be at Helmton Hall by 8:30 PROMPT for a lift to Don Valley, or meet us there