Tonight the OSR scout troop invited Joel in to talk about and Christianity and explore their own beliefs and thoughts on religion. Joel is a youth worker and is fab, the scouts had fun working in groups and as individuals giving their thoughts and outlook on religion and Joel clarified some things about Christianity. Big thank you for an excellent session and well done to the scouts for really getting into the My Faith session.

Much fun was had by OSR scouts during the annual swimathon at Bradley stoke pool, we had 3 lanes and managed 303 lengths between us. The scouts definitely deserved fish and chips for dinner after all the calories that were burnt off. The sponsorship will go into our Cyprus camp account. Well done all.

So its that time of the year that Avon County hold there cooking competition and OSR scout troop as reigning holders of the honours are getting ready to defend their title. Janet is running the team and Jack, Sasha, Ollie and Ella are representing the troop. The practise held at St. Michaels school went very well the desert was heavenly and with some small tweaks to the prawn cocktail and main course all based on the Royal Wedding as the theme is Celebration the whole menu should be fabulous. We will put photos of the comp on this post. Good luck to the team. Today was the competition at Keynsham and the team did great finishing 4th (4 points separated the top 4 teams). Everyone had fun and the food looked fantastic.

Tonight the OSR troop attended St. Micheals school in Stoke Gifford to use their ICT equipment to complete lvl 1 and 2 of the digital citizen staged activity badge. The session was run by George and Andrew both of whom are working towards their wood badge. The scouts had fun completing the e-safety awareness, emailing, creating and having fun. Good job all and ty to school for letting us use their equipment.

So last night 17 of the OSR scouts put themselves through an evening of sleeping rough at St. Michaels School in Stoke Gifford. The evening started at 8pm with the scouts undertaking a 5 mile hike to simulate the sort of distance a homeless person may have to travel looking for food or other items to make their lives a little more comfortable. This follows on from The Julian Trust evening a few weeks back, the homeless charity gave the scouts information about rough sleeping and the scouts wanted to experience it for themselves.
When they returned to the school they were given cardboard to make shelters for the night (it was expected to be about 2 degrees and raining in the morning). A hot meal and drink and then to bed. There was a lot of excitement at first but everyone had some sleep waking at 6.30am to dismantle their shelters and get back to their warm houses and comfortable beds. Everyone had a fabulous experience one that they will never forget, but what we must remember is there are people that have this experience every night.

Kathryn Gibbs Assistant Scout leader is presented her wood badge after returning to scouting following a short break to start a family. She has been involved in scouting most of her life and completed her training requirements many years ago whilst at university in Wales, this is recognition of all her hard work and achievements as an adult in scouting and more recently with OSR scout troop in Stoke Gifford, Congratulations Kathryn. Presented by Paul

This week the Black Dog group from Bristol University returned to OSR scout troop to work with the scouts and explain about mental illness, anxiety, stress and bullying. The session was great with lots of fun and games finishing up with small groups with role plays re bullying and confronting the bully and reporting instances to teachers / scout leaders etc and getting them to intervene. The main message was that there is always someone you can go to for help and advice, someone to listen and get you through difficult times in our lives.