Fancy a wee dram of Blank? Maybe a little Purple Power to take the edge off? Perhaps a can of Hyper-drive? What am I taking about? Well, to contribute to the Scouts Creative and Teamwork badges over the past few weeks the Scouts have been taking part in The Apprentice Challenge. After dividing into teams, each had to produce a new soft drink to avoid being fired. All aspects of the soft drink were looked at such as branding, poster design, even a TV or Radio advert script! Needless to say, all the Scouts were hired on this occasion so no need for the solemn trudge to sad café.

YIPPEE-KI-YAY! The first of the skill challenges that the Scouts faced may be familiar to Die Hard fans. Scouts had to channel their inner John McClane and solve the water jug challenge. For those of you who aren’t acquainted with Die Hard the water jug challenge goes like this: There are two containers. One container holds 3 litres of water. The other holds 5 litres of water. The task to solve is how to measure out exactly 4 litres of water using only the two containers. If you haven’t seen Die Hard 3 then you might find it a bit tricky. Maybe try it at home and try not to google the answer!

Don’t worry we’ve not forgotten about you, we’ve just been very busy here at Scouts for the past three weeks. To follow will be a trio of articles to give you all a head’s up on a what’s been going down around the Scout Hut. The Scouts have been engaged in a series of challenges, working towards earning their Local Knowledge, Physical Recreation and Sports Enthusiast badges. What are they when they’re at home? Well, I’ll tell ya. LOCAL KNOWLEDGE BADGE – One of the ways to earn this badge is for Scouts to learn where amenities and landmarks are within a designated radius. They must then be able to point out one of those locations and plot the quickest route there from home or Scout HQ. PHYSICAL RECREATION BADGE– Regularly taking part in any extracurricular sporting activity from football team to gymnastics is the way to earn this badge. You also need to show off a nifty bit of skill, explain the rules and give us the lowdown on equipment such as what you need, for example, football isn’t the same without a ball. SPORTS ENTHUSIAST BADGE – If you’ve a real passion for a sport this badge could be for you. To grip yourself this bad boy you’re going have to demonstrate the in’s and outs of your chosen sport such as the rules, related sports personalities, equipment and more. You can also get more than one of these. Look out tomorrow for more information on the challenges the Scouts have done to win their badges.

Following a well-deserved break for the holiday season, Thursday 5th 2017 saw the return of Scouts. Fun and games was the order of the day featuring all the classics such as gigantic Jenga blocks, snakes and ladders, dominos, draughts and chess. Scout leader Scully became the biggest surprise of the evening by sweeping all before him at chess like battlefield general incarnate. Is he THAT good at chess or was it all just bad luck that that conspired against his defeated foes? Either way, I think a rematch is the only way to settle it. 2017 has started out with great news already as we are pleased to announce Hannah Buckley has returned to Longford to help at Scouts. Welcome back Hannah! Glad to have you on board.