{"id":2092,"date":"2024-10-20T15:46:31","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T14:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/?p=2092"},"modified":"2024-10-20T15:46:41","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T14:46:41","slug":"the-end-of-a-scout-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/?p=2092","title":{"rendered":"The End of a Scout Group"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>1st Stoke on Trent & Newcastle st. Andrews Porthill Scout Group 1908 – 2024<\/p>\n

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I am sad to say that my Scout Group, 1st Stoke-on-Trent & Newcastle, St. Andrews Porthill has now closed. This is due to a lack of people willing to volunteer and take on leader roles and because our meeting place since 1909, St. Andrews Church Hall is closing.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I have officially been a Porthill Scout, since I was 8. Unofficially, since I was born. Mum and Dad ran the Cub Pack for many, many years and we went on lots trips and camps as a family.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I have been camping in tents, buildings, bivvys, under the stars and HMS Belfast. I have abseiled, climbed, sailed, canoed, rafted and bell boated. I\u2019ve shot arrows and guns. I\u2019ve camped with Greek and Swedish Scouts and camped with many Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Explorers, Ventures and Leaders. I\u2019m a Queen\u2019s Scout. I\u2019ve celebrated the Group\u2019s centenary with families and friends at a camp, then been on many family camps. There\u2019s been Remembrance Day parades, especially the big ones in 2014 & 2018. I\u2019ve taken Beavers on their 1st train rides to Manchester & Cadbury World, Cubs Bell Boating on Trentham Lake and Scouts to London and the top of Snowdon. I\u2019ve helped keep Scouting going through the pandemic and helped with online cooking, making lava lamps and singing (our Leader\u2019s ingenuity during this time was fantastic!). I have helped raise thousands of pounds for the Group, St. Andrews Church and various other charities. The Group has done a lot!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I\u2019ve had to deal with endless paperwork, bureaucracy, politics and people who didn\u2019t have the Group\u2019s interests at heart, only their own narrow agendas. I\u2019ve had emergency phone calls at odd times, had to visit hospitals and tended to wounded, upset and scared children. I\u2019ve seen people leave Scouting for various unfortunate reasons. COVID. I\u2019ve been stressed, harassed and lost a lot of sleep.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I\u2019ve seen shy, timid children join Beavers and seen them leave Scouts as confident young adults. I\u2019ve seen hundreds, maybe over a thousand, young people pass through the Group and gain many, many awards. There are even some of them who now have their own children who have joined Beavers (I feel old!). My own children have been through Beavers, Cubs and Scouts and have had a fantastic time. I\u2019ve worked with many brilliant Leaders and adult volunteers and we\u2019ve run some absolutely fantastic activities and events for our Scouts of all ages. I\u2019ve made many lifelong friends. I met my wife!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I have been a Porthill Scout all my life.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I am a Porthill Scout.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1st Stoke on Trent & Newcastle st. Andrews Porthill Scout Group 1908 – 2024 I am sad to say that my Scout Group, 1st Stoke-on-Trent & Newcastle, St. Andrews Porthill has now closed. This is due to a lack of people willing to volunteer and take on leader roles and because our meeting place since … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The End of a Scout Group”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scouts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paTxP-xK","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2092"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2094,"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions\/2094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.nawbus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}