Winter Sleepover Youlbury December 2011.

This winter the Beavers went Youlbury for their Winter Challenge Sleepover.  This year another first for the 1st Bartons Beasvers
all those who slept over earned their Faith Badge, aswell as doing either crate stacking or abseiling, following a day glow trail around the site, building  a beautiful nativity crib,a night hike, campfire singing, cricket and designing and eating pizzas for their supper - all this in 24 hours time certainly flies when your on a 1st Barton sleepover. 
Believe it or not the Beavers also had time for a sleep!!!. 








 











Village Walk and Investitures - October

In September we had a lot of new Beavers join us so we decided to combine their investitures with a trail around the village.  It was a lovely evening and I apologise if your peace and quiet was suddenly disturbed by the beavers counting skips, traffic cones, and satelite dishes in your neighbourhood.  Since Beavers are water loving creatures, it seemed appropriate that we should invest them by the ford at the bottom of Fox Lane.






 

Bee Hotels!

The Beavers had a fanastic 2 meetings making very superior 'Bee Hotels'.  The first week they all brought their hammers and built the frames and the following week they all had a go at sawing the canes to make the "rooms".  It was a brilliant activity and all the Beavers listened and learnt a lot. Not one plaster or bandage was needed!.
















Birthday Celebrations at Horley - September 2011

Beavers celebrated their 25th birthday in style with an activity day and an enormous picnic lunch.  It started with a procession with everyone in fancy dress and of course the theme was silver!.  The title of the party was 'Beaver Jive' and we all had a go at dancing with differing levels of enthusiam and success!  There were loads of different activties for us to take part in: circus skills, junk modeling, seeing how much silver icing and how many silver balls you could fit on a rich tea biscuit, Go Karting, inflatlables, African drumming. . . the list was endless. The picnic was amazing. All of us sat down on a huge plastic table cloth in the middle of the field eating hot sausage rolls, birthday cake, fruit and crisps.  I can remember the first beaver colony opening up in the District and as a cub leader I was not convinced the section would last!! - how wrong I was !






  



Shelter Box Hike

Not to be outdone by the Scouts,  we decided the Beavers could raise some money for Shelter Box as part of their badge work. So on a wet Saturday in July we met at Lower Heyford railway station and caught the train to Tackley.  We alighted the train and rather cautiously crossed the railway line (at the crossing) and made our way though the fields until we reached the canal path.  We stopped and had a light lunch , watched 2 canal boats negogiate the lock and then set off back to the station on the towpath.  When we set off it was pouring with rain but the sun came out and we had a lovely walk.  We hope to raise £300 but would like to see if we could raise more.










Beaver Camp at Youlbury - July 2011.

The Scout Association have changed the rules about allowing Beavers to camp in tents without their parents like Cubs! So to celebrate 25 years of Beaver Scouting, Buzzard decided to take the Beavers camping!
We had a fantastic weekend, the sun shone, the Beavers were fantastic and the parental help we had was second to none.
All the Beavers who attended, earned their Outdoor Challenge Badge which means that many of them are closer to getting the all important Chief Scout Bronze Award.
After pitching their tents, the Beavers had a weekend full of activites: Archery, Climbing, Blind Trail and an evening hike.We joined 1st Charlbury Scout Group for a campfire and our Scout patrol, Eagles were on site also doing their Outdoor Challenge Badge and they allowed us to visit their site and cook our marshmalloows on their fire.











Spring Hike March 2011.

Every year the 1st Barton Beavers walk to White House Farm from the
 AM Hall to see the new born lambs.  Sometimes we are lucky enough to see a 
lamb actually be born, but not this year. . . we were an hour late!.
We were joined by the beavers and their leaders from 1st Charlbury and the sun shone
 on us and it wasn't wet underfoot.The week before we had all learnt what equipment
 we needed to pack for our hike  and fortunately none of us needed our waterproof trousers!.











Deddington Fire Station.




The beavers visited Deddingtdon Fire Station in March and had a tour of the station, the engine and heard what it was like to be a real fireman.
The evening culminated with everyone being able to have a go with a real fire hose!











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Beavers Earn Bronze

 Eve, Matthew, Matthew and Jamie were presented with their Chief Scout Bronze Awards at Beavers last month by
 Brian, our District Commissioner.  All 4 had completed the 6 Challenge Badges over the past 2 years and will be soon 'swimming up' to cubs.