Last Wednesday, Phoenix Scouts visited a forest in Tervuren (Overijse) for a treasure hunt.
First we were split into separate groups, then we received three sets of instructions and two maps from the leaders. The instructions help you get to the end and find the treasures along the way.
Here’s an example of one of the instructions – ‘Walk 1.78km until you reach a big clearing with a huge tree stump on the far right.’
It was very confusing but everyone was desperate for the treasure (which was Toffee!). Our group got lost several times but everybody made it back in the end, though. I think…
– CG, a Phoenix Scout
Scouting is a lot of fun for the adults, and can help you develop skills in new areas.
We offer training and support and you will be working within a team.
The following sections need new leaders to join the existing teams,
although any section will welcome extra help.
- Beavers (age 6-7) Weds 17.15-18.30 or Friday 1730-18.45
- Cubs (8-10) Wednesday 18.30-20.00
- Scouts (10.5-14) particularly on Friday 18.55- 21:00
- Explorers (14-18) Friday 18.55- 21:00
- We also have a Tuesday Beaver section which is currently closed- if you would be interested in helping restart it, please let me know.
Most of our leaders are parents from the group, but people without children are also very welcome. Some leaders started out with a scouting or guiding background, and experience working with children is handy, but some people had no previous experience.
Perhaps you could help- whether that’s every week, once a fortnight, or irregularly due to other commitments. Training & support is available. All adults working with young people are asked to undergo clearance procedures.
Social Events/Fund-raising working party
Can you help with the preparation and running of one or more of our Group social events? Our leaders do a great job of weekly meetings and camps, but there are also group social activities like the bonfire, carols, grand prix etc. We are hoping to expand some events and add more fundraising, but for that we need extra help. This means a couple of (mostly online) meetings per event, a specific task in either admin or something practical on the day.
Please help us fill these vacancies
speak to your section leader or contact our group scout leader- or indicate when filling in the waiting list.
 We are delighted that a number of young people from the group have been selected to attend the WSJ in the US in 2019. Our Explorer leader Jon Copner is the BSO contingent leader.
In total 8 local young people from 1st Brussels, Central Brussels and Guiding have been selected. Over the next 18 months they will be working together to fundraise for the costs of the camp. Their fees will also help support other young people from countries who could otherwise never afford to attend such an event.
Their first fund raising event was the cake stall at our Grand Prix and St Pauls Church.
Their delicious cakes raised a total of €382
A big thankyou to all who bought cakes, and well done to the bakers!
Want to know more about the Jamboree?
 As  part of their work for the World Challenge Award, Fundraising and Community Impact badges this term, Phoenix Scouts got down to planning and organising the 1st Brussels Summer Fair on June 05, 2017 at St Paul’s British Primary School. The troop raised approximately 600 EUR that afternoon. It was a great achievement for our scouts and also a fantastic opportunity to promote scouting and recruit volunteers!
At the beginning of the term, the troop listened to a talk on homelessness and shortly after, some of the oldest Phoenix Scouts participated in an evening handout of food and other necessities session at Gare du Nord.
Following this, the troop decided to take action to help the less fortunate and raise some money for charity. Initially, they proposed selling some cakes but in order to reach as many people as they could, after a troop forum, it was decided that the best way to do so was to organise a Group event and help raise some money for the Group as well. Hence, the 1st Brussels Summer Fair idea was born.
With the help of their leaders, the Scouts worked hard on publicizing, planning and organising the fair.
At  the fair, they ran 3 stalls – the Orange patrol sold cakes and biscuits, the Blue patrol ran the Murder Mystery Tour and the Green Patrol sold drinks. There were also other stalls from the other sections including the sale of paracord bracelets and woggles made by the Cub packs, games run by the Beavers, a second hand book sale and a BBQ.
From the amount raised, half (approximately 300 EUR) was to be donated to charity and the balance is to be used by 1st Brussels to enable the Group to continue to run a good and balanced programme for everyone.
The Scouts also voted to split the 300 EUR donation between two charities (approximately 150 EUR each) – ASBL A Place to Live http://www.aplacetolive.be/ which provides scout-like outdoor activities for children living below the poverty line and UNLESS http://unls.be who now manage the handouts of food and other necessities at Gare du Nord (they took over from Serve the City some time ago and earlier in the term, welcomed some of the oldest Phoenix scouts who participated in an evening handout session at Gare du Nord).
Phoenix Scouts would like to thank everyone for their time and effort and for helping the troop make the event successful.
According to a study by the General Practice study group at Gent University adults who undertake regular voluntary work tend to be as healthy as those 5 years younger than themselves… There are apparently several reasons, voluntary work has a positive effect on mental health, it allows care related hormones to be freed which help with stress and against infection. It can also provide activities which help protect against the effects of dementia in the eldery.
Many volunteers have a higher than average income which also has a positive effect on health. This ties in with previous results which show that listing voluntary work on your CV increases the chance of work.. The full Dutch language study can be seen on the UGENT website
So why not volunteer with us?
We have vacancies for
- Group membership administrator: to help process clearances for parents who wish to help regularly or attend overnights.
- Supplies and Equipment supervisor: someone who can keep the equipment inventory up to date and order replacements and purchases, or repairs as necessary- reporting to the Executive
- Maintenance– additional help with servicing equipment (depending on skills) gas appliances, or canvas…
We can always use additional help in the various sections; from September we need additional assistant leaders in both Beavers, Montgomery Cubs, Scouts and Explorers. You don’t need experience- training is available.
Please contact a section leader or Helen our Group scout leader gsl(@)1stbrussels.be if you are interested in knowing more.
Members and their families are invited to our annual carol service; details above.
Your sections will be practising in the next few weeks. Please come in smart uniform and be ready to take part!
The charity we are supporting this year is – Le Petit Château. It is the largest centre for asylum seekers in Belgium. The centre has the capacity to offer 720 places for asylum seekers and provides them with a shelter and food. They also receive social, legal and medical care. In addition to this the centre also offers activities so that the residents can best utilise their time.
We will be asking the children to donate games as seen in the invitation above.
To celebrate bonfire night we held a scout social event for the whole family at De Kluis.   
A lot of people were away for half term but around 100 came along to enjoy burgers and hotdogs and a big bonfire.
We aren’t allowed fireworks in the woods so in addition to the fire we had some games involving glow sticks. The balloon shaving proved very messy and glowstick hoola hoop was also quite a challenge. Most popular with the younger sections was the glowstick treasure hunt in the woods, with as a prize a glow bracelet each. Some young people went around collecting tokens several times. As usual the scouts and Explorers enjoyed the lazertag games
Lights and music added to the atmosphere.
Thanks to everyone who helped out by preparing, cooking, serving food or drinks, cleaning or bringing wood etc.
This October we had our first group camp at De Hoge Rielen in Kasterlee. 
After a wet start for the scouts and explorers hiking in from the railway station on Friday, the weather cleared up and we had 2 nice days for our activities. The site is large and has lots of woods and sandy areas as well as a lot of camping space. It was great to see all ages from Beavers through to Explorers working together on the Belgian folk games and challenges.
We ate lunch in the restaurant and the typically Belgian chervil soup was a new taste for many! In the afternoon the young people separated into their sections and did some other activities with low-level slack lines, a blindfold course, a zipwire, a craft and GPS search depending on their ages. Just walking between activities meant the cubs walked 15km during the day, no wonder they were tired by bedtime! The scouts and explorers built shelters from tarps and pioneering wood. Network were having their own camp alongside ours and 6 members were there. They kindly transported some of the young people and baggage around in the heavy ‘trailer bikes’ and also collected wood and built us an excellent campfire.
On Sunday there was time for scavenger hunts, a wide game and a few other games in between packing up the site and clearing the buildings.
There are more pictures in our smugmug gallery
You may have seen pictures on the Belgian news of parents camping outside scout buildings to get their child a place. Luckily we work with a ‘ joining in’ list, but it still isn’t possible to enrol everyone. Your children’s safety, the capacity of the rooms and the quality of the programme all have to be safeguarded. Our coordinator has been working hard offering spaces, where possible, to those on the list. We have 47 new members starting this month. You should hear by September 7th if we have a space available for your child. We have now filled all the places we can for this term, but there will be some more spaces available in January.
A good tip is to be flexible about which section night you want, we had to disappoint a lot of people this time who only wanted Friday Beavers. Please sign up for a group near your home; there are other English-speaking groups in Waterloo, SHAPE and Central Brussels. For British girlguiding (girls only) please sign up on their uk website.
None of the British groups meet at the weekend, except for special occasions, unlike the local scouts. So if weekends are what you want, please look at what they offer. There are also other expat scout groups in the Brussels area eg Danish, Polish, Hungarian and Boy Scouts of America.
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