The skills learned through Scouting, can play a major role in helping to secure employment, apprenticeship or improve an academic record. If you’re aged 14-25 and have acquired abilities through the Movement that helped you in this way we would like you to use your experience to help others.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Youth Affairs will meet on Wednesday 10 March from 4.30pm to 7pm to discuss ‘Skills, Development and Transitions into Employment’. This event will be attended by Kevin Brennan, Minister for Further Education, Skills and Apprenticeships, who will listen to delegates’ views and discuss possible solutions to the challenges faced by young people – and we would like you to be a part of it.

You will have the opportunity to work with young people from organisations such as the Prince’s Trust, YWCA and the Foyer Federation to share your aspirations and concerns and play a role in shaping your future.

To take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity, contact the Public Affairs and Campaigns team at citizen@scout.org.uk with the subject line ‘APPG Youth Affairs.’ Please include your age, parent/carer email address if you are under 18, and the name and location of your Scout Group/Unit/Network.

Sent on behalf of Semakaleng Moema

Ed Miliband met with campaigners, stakeholders and youth groups to answer questions following the Copenhagen Climate Conference. The Prime Minister linked up via a video conference stream. Ed Miliband was also joined in London by Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander and Minister of State for Climate Change, Joan Ruddock. The gathered guests also included numerous Ambassadors and High Commissioners keen to hear Ed’s first analysis of the conference.

The event was a direct opportunity for the Scouts to ask Ed about the progress or indeed lack of progress made and question him on what it meant for the UK and for the future.

The whole event was transmitted live on Sky News and the Scouts present were given the opportunity to raise a number of pertinent questions. James Ferguson, aged 17, from Carlisle asked the Secretary of State, “what changes are we going to see in the UK rather than on a global scale… for example public transport?”

Ed Miliband responded by saying that “this emphasises need to redouble our efforts in the UK, we have very ambitious plans in energy trying to build 10,000 wind turbines across UK and moving forward with a variety of forms of low carbon energy. In the household sector we need a much bigger push on energy efficiency in the household sector, we will be saying a lot more about this in January about how people can insulating their homes and move to renewable energy in their homes and then thirdly with transport it is about cycle lanes, it is about high speed rail, its about those things moving forward and part of the road from Copenhagen is for us is to redouble our efforts.”

After the meeting, Andy Clare, also aged 17 from Carlisle said that “the meeting was a great opportunity to share what Scouting does to raise awareness of climate change and environmental issues. It was pleasing to see the government giving a voice to young people through the Scouts at the meeting. The route taken after the summit will have major implications for all young people in our region and it is great that we had an opportunity to question the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change directly.”

Thom Lawson, aged 18 from Carlisle added, “Scouts have always cared about and participated in a variety of environmental and community projects to help make the world a better place. With a global membership of 28 million Scouts in nearly every country in the world, we are ideally placed to spread the environmental message and it is our future after all.”

Written by Eddie Ward of Ayers Extreme Explorer Scouts for eXtremescouting.co.uk

Thanks guys, sounds like a worthwhile trip !

Russell @ eXtreme !

The team at Extreme hope you are having a great start back to the scouting season. The weather has really been beating down hard on us all over the UK and Ireland but it is good so seen that scouting goes on, this is the stuff we are made of and it will take more than a bit of weather to put us bunch off !

If your living in a flood effected area please use your scouting knowledge and skills to aid in the clean up operation and make our founder proud !

What have you been doing lately ? we want to know !! Tell us by emailing hello or join us on Facebook and Twitter.

We have selected some great stocking filler ideas which are on the front page of the website and remember we are one of the cheapest places on the web to get your troop neckers with prices starting at below £2, we also specialise in one off designs so if you are planning a trip and want a special scarf or the occassion, put us to the test !

Keep Scouting and enjoy the rest of 2009

The team at Extreme Scouting !

We have been busy at eXtreme, weekly scouting may have finished until September but the camps rock on !!

Sea Scout 100

The team at eXtreme had the pleasure of attending Sea Scout 100 this month in Nottingham which seen over 1800 sea scouters come together for a week of land and water activities to celebrate 100 years of sea scouting. This was the largest outdoor event we have traded at and we had a blast! hello to all the new people we met from all over the UK, USA, Sweden and Australia.

We made some special Sea scout and proud hoodies and T’s just for the event and we still have some left – grab them while you can.

Connect on Facebook and Twitter

We will be running competitions and keeping you up to data with all things eXtreme via facebook and twitter. Click here for our facebook page, and here for our twitter page. Keep us up to date with your adventures by uploading your pics and videos !

New Products

We are just finalising the design for our new clothing range ‘eXtreme scout’ and will keep you updated as soon as we have more, in the mean time have you seen the new Scout and Proud character range ? Keep well and keep Scouting. The team at eXtreme !

Keep well and keep Scouting.

The team at eXtreme !

eXtreme Scouting are proud to be sponsoring the 100 year anniversary of Sea Scouting in the UK at Sea Scout 100 !

The event will see around 2500 sea scouters from all around the UK ascend on Nottingham for a special one week event with activities ranging from river boating, canoeing, wind surfing and more.

We will have a stand at the event with all of our latest gear including this years new arrivals ‘sea scout and proud‘  We will also be launching our new clothing line at the event ‘eXtreme Scout‘ – a large % from everything sold at the stall will be directly donated to the UK Sea Scouts.

So are you going ? If you are come and say hi, if not – grab some exclusive sea scout and proud gear while it is still available by clicking here

Keep Scouting!  Russell

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After months of debating the best type of transport in Ireland and of
course chatting about the legendary show that is Top Gear, we (Lagan
Valley Explorer Scouts) decided to take the debate one step further
and run our own version of one of Top Gear’s races across a country.

The challenge was set; we would meet at McDonalds Sprucefield at 5am
on Saturday 27th June and see who would be the first team to arrive at
Cafe Hi, Merchants Quay Shopping Centre in Cork 250 miles away.

We had three teams:

Team 1, made up of Harriot, Alison and Mark went for the public
transport option, taking the bus to Dublin (no trains at 5am, shame!)
and then catching a train to Cork.

Team 2, made up of Warren, Clare and Pudz decided to fly however the
only flight they could get left from Dublin at 9 – so they to would
need to grab the bus to get that far.

Team 3, made up of myself, James, Stu and Hylands took 2 cars and
would drive the full way.

We then had three weeks of excitement, doubt, double checking routes
and talking big talk of who was going to lose.

It very quickly became 5am on 27th June and the race began, and this
is what happened.

I was in the Car Team.

Too much talking and eating of burgers meant we did not actually
realise 5am had passed and we set off, all be it 5 minutes late.
Straight away we had an advantage as we were rolling whereas the other
teams would have to wait 15 minutes on the bus, zero traffic at 5am
meant the drive was the most pleasurable I have ever taken added to
that the banter between the other car over the CB radio and the
banging tunes on the CD player I cannot think of a better way to
travel.

At 6am we had made great progress, I received a call from the two
teams on the bus who had just came past Newry but we had just zipped
through the toll road at Drogeda.

At 7am we had shot round the M50 in great time and where on the road
to cork, The other two teams had got off the bus and split up at the
airport with the Plane team checking in for their 9.00 flight and the
train team grabbing a cab across Dublin for their 8am train, this is
where (for them) the fun began !!

At around 7.10am I received a call from Warren, my brother in the
Plane team who informed me that Clare had forgot to print her boarding
card all was not lost though as the lovely girl at the check in desk
of (lets call them) Bryanair offered to reprint it for her for a mere
€40, what a lovely company to fly with!

Things were not running smoothly for the train team either, the bus
had came into Dublin 10 minutes late making it incredibly tight to get
the 8am train, the taxi agreed to zip across Dublin for them, getting
them into the station 6 minutes before the train was due to leave.
That however was not the end of their problems, their tickets had been
pre-booked and the reservation machine was not finding the tickets
against the credit card they had booked with, a long queue meant they
could miss the train.  They got sorted though with minutes to spare
and boarded the train just as it was about to leave.

With everyone now south of Dublin, adrenalin was starting to pump and
everyone was getting excited and concerned that the other teams would
arrive first.  At this time we spotted a sign by the side of the road
- CORK – 39KM, What? Really? Fantastic, we where defiantly going to
win.

The phone call’s pretty much stopped at this stage, the plane team
were through security, the train team had boarded and we where very
close to Cork – the race was on big time.

We entered Cork city at around, 8.15 and began looking for the
shopping centre.  We parked up to asked a taxi driver who informed us
it was right behind us, a quick lap of the one way system we parked
and began to laugh hysterically (knowing the plane has not taken off
yet!)  At 8.35 we arrived at the cafe and won the race.

The next hour and a bit was pretty boring, we were waiting on the
plane team landing and checking in…… not wanting to let people
know we had won – I decided to update my facebook with ‘ flat tyre,
this could cost us the race!’ straight away Harriet texted me to laugh
(the joke is on you now Harry) at around 10.15 the Plane team checked
in again to say they had landed and were on route to the meeting
point, the race (or so they thought) was on again.

Sat in the Coffee store, two of my party had gone to cash machine and
I began to panic – the rules stated that all the team had to be
present when the 2nd team arrived to count as a victory, oh noes ! I
quickly rounded them up and we sat quietly in the corner waiting, I
could hear Pudsey from the plane team coming around the corner saying
(I think we have won ……….. oh f&*^$£^%£)

That was it, the car won, the plane came second and later the train
team came running in and lunch was on them !

Times….

We all left at 5am, checking into the end-zone at

Car 8.35am

Plane 10.35am

Train 10.55am

Good times…….. Russell

eXtremeScouting.

The race was long to find his replacement, and in the end came down to Richard Hammond – a keen scouter who came right through the movement from a boy and Bear Grylls who eventually won the race.  The post is for 5 years and completely on a voluntary basis.

Bear Grylls will bring a wealth of ‘outdoor’ and ’survival’ skills and go a long way to promoting Scouts as an outdoor, adventure organisation.  He is the 8th Chief Scout to have served time in the armed forces and the 10th Chief Scout to take on the role since Lord Powell created the movement in 1907.  Bear is the youngest Cheif Scout to have ever been offered the role.

The splitting of roles,

Up until now the Cheif Scout has been responsible to all UK Scouting and all Overseas scouting with the appointment of various head of movements around the globe, This appointment of Bear Grylls is different though, whilst his title is still Chief Scout for UK and all overseas territories, announced today is also the appointment for the 1st time of a UK Chief Commissioner responsible for leading the volunteers and programing in the UK.

This position goes to Wayne Bulpitt, a scouter from almost birth, he began as a Cub Scout at the age of 8, and worked his way up the movement with roles including, Cheif Commissioner for Southern England and Chairman of the board of trustees since 2001.

This means that whilst Bear’s appointment is fantastic and will go along way to shaking our boring image, the movement obviously thinks the job is bigger than one person, Bear’s role in my mind will be more of a figure head and leader whilst Wayne will be moving through the movement day by day, looking after the more mundane side of the business.

Which ever way you cut it, today is a great day to be a scout !

Are you ready to join the adventure yet ?

Yours in Scouting

Russell

Tell us on twitter ! Click here !

Hopefully your Christmas shopping is well on its way and with the last few weeks of term perhaps you could give your Section a Scout and Proud Badge for each member, or perhaps a Furry Bug? Reward the best Patrol with Beanie Hats each, or say thank you to a Leader or Helper with a Scout and Proud Calendar or 5” Bear.

VAT Rates Dropped
Due to the new VAT rate of 15%, our prices have dropped – buy now for extra savings on low prices!

Regatta Ainsley 2-in-1 Trousers
These trousers are fantastic for a wide range of activities, hardwearing and with a water repellent finish. They also have the added bonus of being able to zip-off the legs to turn them into shorts. Currently at the special price of £16.39 who can refuse?

Are you spending £30 or more?
eXtreme Scouting would like to say thank you to all our customers, so we are giving away a free Drawstring Bag to everybody who purchases £30 worth of products. Simply enter the Offer Code “FREEBAG” when prompted during checkout.

eXtreme Scouting would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and look forward to more Scouting in the New Year!

The Team from eXtreme
www.extremescouting.co.uk

P.s. Need more scarves for the New Year? Order now!

Ayers Explorer Scouts are an eXtreme Scouting Unit based in Carlisle, Cumbria.

They have been embracing eXtreme scouting on a global playgroud !

This year alone they have been :

*White Water Rafting in Wales
*Skiing in Austria
*Ghyll Scrambling in the Lake District
and much more!

They are also planning in 2009 to do a Coast to Coast, Bridge Swinging and Coasteering!!!

Keep up the good work guys ! And Keep eXploring !