There has been lots of activity going on at explorers again recently. The latest district joint Explorer activity involved groups of explorers using their pioneering skills to build a bridge across the river the aim being to get their whole team across the river without touching the water whilst crossing. One of the 2 teams succeeded in this! Needless to say there was a great deal of getting wet in the process of both building and using the bridges and we were lucky that it was a really warm summer evening. Thanks to Ross Edwards and Kathryn Power for organising it.
Congratulations from the Explorer Scout section to Fudge and Becky McKay who got married a few weeks ago on a beautifully sunny day. This provided a slight diversion to their main activity of the year as joint organisers of the county Explorer and Network Suisse 09 trip. 32 Romsey explorers, and 6 Romsey leaders are going on this with our explorers plus another group of Romsey leaders as members of the county Staff team including, Tris Harris, John Papworth, Becky Papworth and Alan Digby. Our thanks to them for all the work they are doing and will do in the future. There is loads of planning activity for our own explorers and leader team who are firming up their personal programmes to include over night stays in mountain huts, dawn hikes, glacier hikes, white water rafting, service activities on the site, climbing and snow and ice activities.
Unfortunately we have sadly lost Dusan Gemersky as an Assistant Explorer leader from Apaches Explorers based at Wellow. Dusan has decided to return back home to Slovakia with his wife Monica, but may come back to the UK one day. He will return to being involved with scouting again in Slovakia. He is very happy to be a contact for scouts wanting to camp in Slovakia and I have his contact details. We wish them both well for the future.
We held the District Explorer of pushball competition again this year. It was hard fought, but won in the end by Lockerley explorers. This was a well supported event with over 40 of the district explorers present. Well done Lockerley and thanks to JP for organising it.
A group of explorers successfully completed their DoE silver training expedition on Exmoor in May. Thanks to Mike Baxter and Mel for supervising them.
Robin Taylor-Milton DESC