25th November 2023

1st Ferntree Gully has also appeared in the November issue of local paper with a write up in the most recent edition - please check out the fully newspaper at their web site... Ferntree Gully News 

23rd November 2023

Life is busy. Our leader cohort are doing it tough just like everyone else - work pressures, home commitments, taxiing around kids to sport and after school activities and on weekends. I get it. 

We can all still help out a bit. Coming up in December, our Scout and Venturer sections will be assisting with a few events.

• 08Dec23 Bayswater South Primary School Christmas Fair - we will be assisting with the plaster painting activity

• 09Dec23 Knox Carols by Candlelight - we will be distributing the songbooks to the concert attendees.

• 09-10Dec23 Christmas Tree sales - this year, our supplier has had very limited supplies due to heavy rains in 2021 that stunted growth to the trees. That means we'll be limited to a single weekend of tree sales. 

2nd November 2023

At the Stringybark Festival at Rowville Community Centre on 15th of October, 1st Ferntree Gully Scout Group had community stand where we made damper. I’m not sure how many damper sticks were cooked, but it would be in the hundreds easily. I do know that we used 32Kg of self-raising flour, nearly 20L of water and about 8Kgs of butter to make the dough. Hundreds of kids and adults joined us to cook the damper over an open fire. Thank you to everyone who came along and enjoyed the festival and our damper.  At the stand, we had a big display of photos of our youth members having fun at activities including sailing, bushwalking, abseiling, cooking, and playing games.

Most recently, our Scout and Venturer Scout section attended the Boost camp at Gilwell Scout Park, Gembrook. Being Gilwell, it rained (of course) but the scouts had a ball doing activities including sailing, canoeing, rock climbing, bushwalking, alpine skills, zip lines, abseiling, cycling, cooking, rocket making, electronics and robotics. This camp was open to all levels of scouting – from Joeys, Cubs, Scouts, Venturers and Rovers and was intended to boost the skill levels of our youth members. Our Scouts and Venturers certainly picked up new skills and came away with some additional badges for their arms to show off the new skills they’d attained.

9th October 2023

Our Scout section have just come back from the Knox District Survival camp where 12 scouts from groups across the district learned new skills that could save their lives in extreme circumstances:

• Building fires without matches or lighters

• Building and sleeping in survival shelters

• Cooking without normal utensils and implements

• Navigation with and without compasses

• Native flora usage - what you can and cannot eat and using native flora in survival situations

• Scaling, Gutting and cooking fish

• Evaluating and prioritising options in survival situations

• Emergency signals and options for those

• Identifying weather conditions and what they mean for a survival situation 

Through all of these areas (and more), the scouts  got practical hands on experience and in all of these areas. The Scouts built tools, shelters and skills over the weekend. I'm not sure many of them got a lot of sleep over the weekend, but it did give them a taste of a survival situation with the temperature getting down to just 4° C overnight. The Scouts worked in patrols of three scouts, and with limited time, needed to construct their survival shelters, collect enough firewood to keep their fires going all night to provide warmth and cooking needs. Below are some of the photos from the weekend and what our scouts managed to achieve...

5th October 2023

1st Ferntree Gully has also appeared in the October issue of local paper with a write up in the most recent edition - please check out the fully newspaper at their web site... Ferntree Gully News 

10th September 2023

At 1st Ferntree Gully Scout Group’s recent Annual Reporting and Awards Presentation (ARAP) we celebrated the achievements of our Youth and Adult members for the past year. Among our youth members:

• Samantha Theodoru was awarded Cub Scout of the Year 2023

• Leif Alsop was awarded Scout of the Year 2023

• Lachlan Francis (Rover), has been approved for his Queens Scout Award, a tremendous effort is needed to earn this peak award in the Venturer section. The fact that he's now a Rover and has persisted for this long demonstrates his ongoing resolve. 

Both Samantha and Leif are well deserved winners of these annual awards having demonstrated skills, leadership and independence – characteristics that the Scouting movement tries to build in the youth members.

A number of our Adult volunteers also received significant adult recognition awards.

The first one is the Meritorious Service Award to Emma Brockman, one of our fantastic Joey Scout Leaders. This award is awarded to Adult Members and Supporters for service of a higher standard and intensity than reasonably expected for a period of six to eight years. It demonstrates how much she cares for her Joeys that she has consistently performed at a higher standard and intensity for the years that she’s been an adult member in scouting. Well done, Emma!

The next award was to Brett Cole, one of our incredible Venturer leaders who was awarded the Silver Wattle award. Brett was formerly the Regional Commissioner for the Mt Dandenong region, a huge region with a massive population of scouting youth and adult members. The Silver Wattle is awarded to an Adult Member active in Leadership roles for a period of ten to twelve years for performing at a consistently high standard on multiple projects which provided positive outcomes for Scouting. This award demonstrates that Brett’s contribution to Scouting clearly stands out from that of his peer group. Congratulations Brett!

Two others of our adult volunteers have amassed many years of volunteer service.  Leanne Brockman (Joey Scout leader) surpassed 20 years and Leanne Cole (Venturer Scout Leader) has 10 years of volunteering service within the community.

30th August 2023

Another trip around the sun and we have our Annual Reporting and Awards Presentation (ARAP) next Tuesday, 5th September 2023. We will be presenting a number of awards including Cub Scout and Scout of the year and Encouragement awards. Additionally, a number of our fantastic leader team will be receiving awards (shhh, don't tell them, they don't know yet). We'll be electing a new committee as well, so I look forward to working with them to help grow 1st Ferntree Gully within the community.

18th August 2023

Well, two of out international contingents have returned from the 100th anniversary of Kandersteg Jamboree Site (KISC100) in Switzerland and from the World Scout Jamboree (WSJ2023) in Saemangeum, South Korea.  Our Venturer leaders, Brett and Leann Cole were at KISC100 at the end of July, while Group Leader, Andrew Larmour and Venturer, Merrick Patterson were at WSJ2023 for the first two weeks of August. Both International events were memorable for differing reasons.

1st Ferntree Gully Scouts in the local news (Winter edition of Ferntree Gully News)

25th July 2023

We have a new web site! Yay!

As a small scout group, it's important that we stay at the forefront of scouting aged children and their parents when they're looking for a scout group to attend. Without members, we cannot exist. Additionally, having more members makes it easier from a leader perspective to plan camps, activities and expeditions, and the youth have more fun too!  With my Group Leader hat on, I'm hoping this new site will enable more families to find us online. Our previous online footprint has been very small for a long time.

As I write this, I am in the midst of preparing for the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea. I'll be leaving this coming Saturday and I am losing sleep over the stress to make sure I don't forget to take something. Recent reports from the site indicate some significant problems with flooding following extreme rainfall in the region - while that may make it a bit unpleasant, I'm really not fussed about that, as I'm confident that the event will be incredible. I am really looking forward to it.

Two of our leaders (Brett and Leanne Cole) in our Venturer section have just returned from KISC100 - the 100th Anniversary of the Kandersteg standing Jamboree site in Switzerland. I havent had a chance to catch up wtih them yet, but I'm sure they'll have some fantastic stories to tell about their experiences. I've seen some of their photos from the event and it really looks beautiful.

As an ititial post, this probably isn't too exciting, but as we get updates from Brett and Leanne, and as we see this term's activities kick off in properly, I'm sure we'll see updates from our leader cohort and from our youth members. Stay tuned!