Industrious scouts

Funding is always an issue as it seems you can never get enough money. Some scouts in Scania applied for funding from the EU Offices and got a grant for developing the sustainable thinking around their activities. They will also arrange a "green" camp this summer.
For those of you who have a translation tool on your computer you can read the article here.

In Santa's kitchen

The Challengers have been promised their own stall on the first of Advent market in town. The group has been there for ... as long as can be remembered, selling tombola tickets, sweets and hot dogs for the group. The Challengers are going to sell x-mas cakes and biscuits and all the money will go the the Challengers's own account, to finance among other things the Great Bath Tub Race in April.








So, at 11 on the Saturday everyone got together with ingredience donated by helpful parents and grandparents, to practice their baking skills under the supervision of Christian and myself. Hard toffee, butter fudge, sweet Lucia buns, swiss rolls.... The scouts worked extremely hard.






Oops! Not everything went according to plan.

I left them at seven in the evening. After that they were going to wrap everything nicely and decide on the prizing. And then play the X-box and watch a couple of films, the standard Challenger sleepover activities :-)
Not the common uniform, but very stylish!

St George

As we did last year, we celebrated St George in the town square, by meeting up, talking about the Scout Law and the St George message, and acting out the legend of St George and the dragon.

As we also are helping out at the opening of a new shopping complex in town this week, to raise funds for the group, most of the adults were there, but we had a good turn out of kids.

After a few good years, we unfortunately feel that the money is a bit short at the moment. It's the upkeep of our houses that costs most - activities are for the better part funded by the scouts themselves, and also we are lucky to get a generous grant per scout from the local council when we hand in lists of members and our program at the end of the year. Also, there is a gouvernment grant for each six (so the more sixes we have, the better!)

But this last year we had to install a new heating system, fix some of the piping in our cottage and also we've had vandalism in our town hut almost every week for the last few months. It's mainly been broken windows, but we have also had a couple of break-ins where little things have been taken. Unfortunately, insurance doesn't cover this, and all the glass amounts into lots of brass...

Fundraising ideas

Hmmm, you can tell there is a recession... The Christmas market was very successful, and all the raffle tickets were sold and the climbing wall was very popular, but the takings just about took us up into the black. So now, the thinking caps are on until the 12th of January, when we get together to brainstorm ideas for fundraising.

Socks seem to be the in thing. Lots of companies advertise on the Net with "big winnings for your club or class". But it doesn't seem very Scouty, selling underwear?

In Britain a lot of groups have race nights, with beer and betting, but betting is state controlled in Sweden, and we don't allow alcohol at scout activities... I'm thinking, it's really more of a raffle than betting, as the races are pre-recorded, but have to look into the legalities of it before I go and order a DVD...

To me, it's important that fundraising for the group should be consistant with the ideals of Scouting, and should be easy and fun for the kids to parttake in. Anyone have any bright ideas of fundraisers that have been successful? Please, share!

(After the 12 of January, I will be back with all the (mad) ideas that we've come up with!)