20 Sep Welcome & First meeting Sept. 22
Dear Beaver Families,
I hope you have had a great summer and I wish to welcome you all to 26th Halifax Beaver Scouts. I am sure they are ready for a season of great adventures in Beavers. Our Group has a long tradition at St. Agnes that has provided great experiences and adventures to Scouting youth dating back over 60 years!
I have attempted over the summer to make contact with you all as I received notification of your registration. However with limited internet access while I was away I may have missed some. As you know from our Group Commissioner we have a full list of youth registered at this time. Numbers are up significantly from last year. While this is exciting it also presents challenges in the form of Leadership. Scouts Canada is strongly committed to providing a meaningful and safe environment for your children. To ensure this we require a minimum of 1 Scouter for every 5 youth. Our challenge is that we currently have 18 youth which requires at least 4 Scouters. This means that we will need to find a minimum of three or more volunteers to make the 26th Colony viable. We have had a couple parents communicate a possible interest, however we need more!! Please think carefully about this, you can check out the Job Description on the link below, or on our website www.26halifax.org where you can also find the steps to becoming a leader.
First meeting
First meeting on Thursday September 22nd from 6:30 – 7:30 pm at the St. Agnes Church Hall, 6903 Mumford Rd, Halifax, Nova Scotia (View Google Map).
- Drop off/Pickup – Make sure you check your Beaver in with a leader at drop off, and check them out at pick up. We always make sure everyone is safe and accounted for.
- Uniforms – If your Beaver has a uniform, please have them wear it. Here’s a refresher on the Beaver uniform (they will only require hat and vest). New Beavers without uniforms don’t need to worry!
- What to bring – Running shoes and a bottle of water
We have an interim commitment from other Section Leaders (Cubs and Scouts) with previous Beaver experience to help us get started until we have a new Leadership Team in place. I emphasize this is temporary so as not to create burn-out of leaders working multiple sections.
We are planning a really great year; we’re working on developing a program with youth and families that we think will provide wonderful experiences, opportunities and life-long memories!
Highlights for this year:
- Introduction to camping and outdoor activities;
- new activities following Scouts Canada’s new Canadian Path program;
- new badge earing opportunities
- Beaver Buggies, community outreach and much more!
Fall schedule & program
We’ll be posting a calendar of Beaver events/event locations on our website soon. You can reach it through the Beavers page; we will send out a notice when it’s available.
Communications for this year
We’re going to relying email and posted information on the website so you can refer to it easily, when needed.
- Website at https://26halifax.org – We are going to post ALL events and info on our website at https://26halifax.org/beavers/. This includes:
- Emails – A weekly summary, but we’ll also post key info (such as this email) on the website
- Contacts for your Beaver – If you would like another email address added to this list to also receive emails, or want to change which email address we contact you with, please reply and let us know 1) for which Beaver 2) what the addition/change is
Parent participation
We encourage parents and families to participate in the program. Please read our For Parents page to learn about parental involvement in activities. We will be scheduling a Parents Night for early October where we’ll talk about the program and other related topics! More details to come.
2016-17 Leaders (aka Scouters)
- Akela – Robert Bray, our dedicated
- Rainbow – Scouter Elizabeth Burns (Temp. – also Scout Leader)
- Katherine Orlik – (New Leader – Parent of two Beavers, Lowen & Gregor )
- Scouter Bruce Campbell – (Temp. – also Scout Leader)
Volunteering
We are volunteers delivering this program to youth in the community. We need your help to make it happen. From assisting at and planning events, giving rides to youth who need a lift to meetings and events, or taking Scouts Canada training to becoming a leader, any help is appreciated and a very good use of your time! You don’t need to commit a lot of time to make a difference. Learn more about volunteering. If you have questions or comments please contact me.
See you Thursday September 22nd!
Yours in Scouting,
Robert Bray, Akela
902-221-0494 (voice/text)