Explorer News
Find out more about what our Explorers have been getting up to!
You can see recent photographs and videos from Explorers here: Explorer Photo Gallery Explorer Videos
Kandersteg August 2024
Our Explorers had an amazing adventure in August 2024, with return to Kandersteg International Scout Centre in Switzerland! We take our Explorers there every 4 years so that everyone can have this amazing international experience. An outstanding week of adventure and friendship was had by all with stunning alpine scenery as a backdrop to the camp.
The activities included hiking to a glacial lake followed by a chilly swim, tobogganing down the Rodelbahn, an overnight hike to Gfallalop Mountain hut as well as taking part in activities with other scouts groups from across the world in the camp and village. A lucky few were invested at the top of a mountain too! Lots of memories made that will last a lifetime. Thank you to all the wonderful leaders who made this all possible!
September 2023 News Update
This year's week long Explorer Summer Camp took place at Hoveringham, near Nottingham, and was truly an action packed week!
There was a lot of time spent on the water kayaking, canoeing, sailing, paddleboarding, and training in the powerboats. This year we also had a racing scull for a few days and everyone had the chance to try to get moving without capsizing!
The week also included Archery, GoKarting, Mini Golf, Skytrail and Lagoon Wipeout, and flying high in Gliders! What an incredible week, full of new experiences. Thank you to all the wonderful leaders who made this all possible!
A number of our Explorers spent a week during the summer holidays with the Discovery Sailing Project, sailing off the South Coast of England.
The plan had been to make a crossing to the Channel Islands, but the weather was not playing ball, so they sailed along the South Coast instead. Overnight stops included Lymington, Brownsea Island and Littlehampton.
What an amazing experience!
We are fortunate to have many wonderful long serving volunteers within our Scouting community, and two of our Explorer leaders were recognised for their long service in July.
2nd Warwick Sea Scouts are hugely proud to congratulate Barbie for her 25 years service, and Martin for his 30 years service in Scouting awards. What an amazing achievement!
In Summer term the Explorers got out and about about on the water both on the river and sailing at Draycote Water.
Every Easter weekend the Explorers go away on their "Easter Eggstraviganza", and this year they went to the Docklands Scout Project, where they slept on the Lor Amory boat, a 150 foot long Dutch Pilot Boat moored in London Docklands.
They did lots of activities on the water, with many choosing to do a powerboat or dinghy course, and coming away with new qualifications.
Spring term saw out Explorers doing lots of indoor activities, with an outdoor adventure on the first meeting of every month, whatever the weather!
One of their favourite activities was creating an indoor crazy golf course, and came up with some very innovative and fun ideas!
December 2022 News Update
Explorers had fun in the Autumn term in TS Norton, with an outdoor activity the first meeting of every month (whatever the weather!), and sailing at Draycote Water. They had fun learning to play golf at Warwick Golf Centre - more practise required!!
We were proud to see so many of our Explorers joining the group at the Remembrance Sunday parade in Warwick. We were especially honoured this year, as a Royal British Legion affiliated youth group, to be invited to parade our colours in the civic service at St Mary's church. Our flag bearers did a great job of presenting them with great dignity throughout the service, lowering them during the national anthem leading the parade.
Remembrance Sunday is always a great opportunity for a full Group photo with everyone looking very smart.
September 2022 News Update
Explorers have had lots of fun and games on and off the water, with the return of their Easter weekend away at Lymington and their camp at Lake Bala at the end of the Summer.
Pioneering games in the park in January!
Easter Eggstravaganzer at Lymington, with lots of sailing and powerboating. The highlight being the RIB adventure over to the Isle of Wight and evening navigation.
What a weekend all our youngsters had at #GetinCamp 2022 at Ragley Hall in May when they joined 1,000s of other Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers from across Warwickshire Scouts for an action-packed weekend of amazing activities put on by scout groups across the county
Lots of fun on the water throughout the Summer term!
We are proud to have joined the country in celebrating the Platinum Jubilee across the group with some of our Explorers were lucky enough to attend the Trouping of the Colour in London. Three of our Explorers were even selected to join the VIP section with amazing views of the parade, Palace and flypast.
We celebrated the Commonwealth Games #Birmingham 2022 with our own version in St Nicholas's Park
Some of our Explorers were lucky enough to join Thermopylae Clipper from Discovery Sailing Project. They all had the chance to work on their RYA Competent Crew qualification whilst sailing from Salcombe, Sark, Guernsey, St Peter's Port, Alderney and Weymouth back to Hamble!
This year we joined Scouts during the 2nd week of their camp at Bala, camping nearby, but doing our own activities throughout the week. We made the most of the lake for sailing, but also visited Surf Snowdownia for some 'Ninja' fun; went paddling on the river Dee, Climbing, archery sessions and of course some inflatable fun on Lake Bala and lots more fun and games!
December 2021 News Update
Explorers made the most of 'outdoor' Scouting by playing with fire and as soon as activities began again in 2021 they got out on the water on the river and at Draycote and got away on camp too!
November 2020 we spent in the great outdoors playing with fire and exploring the darker side of Warwick's past with the ghoul trail of Warwick.
When we started activities in 2021 we thought go big or go home (and we did a bit of both). We managed 8 Draycote sailing sessions this year for Scouts and Explorers together. We were not able to go away at Easter but we did kick off our boating season on the river having fun in kayaks, pioneers, canoes, SUPs and powerboating!
As we headed for the summer we were lucky enough to be able to organise a summer camp and what a camp it was! We were lucky with the weather and took full advantage of it, we walked and mountain biked in Sherwood forest, sailed, canoed, kayaked and rafted on the lake that was right next to the tents. We also got the chance to do high ropes and an inflatable assault course on the water and even tried our hands at flying with the local gliding club!
As we moved towards Autumn we had the opening of the new HQ, TS Norton, by Scout Adventurer Sal Montgomery, which was a relief to many who thought they would never see the day. It's great those who have grown up through the group from Beavers can now benefit from it.
We have had some fun projects this term including bridge building, a talk about Wimbledon and the Olympic games, wide games in the park, done sections of the nautical skills badge, set fire to stuff and before Christmas we are going to the Laserquest in Coventry!
September 2020 News Update
Explorers have met online or virtually every week, except for when thunderstorms stopped play!
The explorers have had quite a summer all things considered, some helped out with "scout camp" in Warwick but also got out doing weekly activities outdoors.
It has been a challenge running face to face meetings for the last couple of months but the young people have been excellent, careful and respectful of others who need to be more careful. One upside is that the canoes and kayaks are cleaner now than they have ever been.
The explorers have done Dinghy sailing at draycote, Stand up Paddleboard expeditions and a lot of paddling on the river in Warwick.
As we roll into autumn and the light disappears we will be moving from the water to land activities and where possible for the near future at least doing as much outside as possible so this term is going to include some fires, cooking on them and working on scouting skills with a few hikes and a night bike thrown in for good measure.
Playing a fairly full on game of kayak polo with quite a few capsizes but lots of skills being unknowingly put into practice!
The Explorers were lucky to have some fantastic daytime and evening sailing at Draycote over the Summer
SUP Adventures on the River Avon
Paddling up to Warwick Castle; an amazing view from the river!
May 2020 News Update
Explorers had a busy couple of months before they had to move to #ScoutingAtHome!
They've been pioneering (making bridges from one side of the scout hut to the other); learning all about land navigation making route cards and a night hike (arriving back at 3am!) ; taking part in the District Shooting Competition; met the 'street doctors' who are medical students who deal with stabbings; cooked pancakes on 'can' stoves and went to see WAGS
Lots of our Scouts, Explorers and older Cubs attended WAGS (Warwickshire Gang Show) at the Royal Spa Centre in February. It was a fantastic evening’s entertainment and everyone enjoyed supporting the 2nd Warwick members taking part with 3 of our Explorers taking part.
Well done Grace, Isobel and Lauren, and one of our Leaders, Hannah!
In February, our Scouts and Explorers took part in the annual District shooting competition. On a combined rifle and pistol score, Joey was the top Scout in the whole district – well done!
Pancake cooking on self-made stoves!
During lockdown we have been meeting regularly by 'Zoom' with 20 Explorers joining each week
We have had 6 weeks of zoom meetings: a nautical quiz, 'who's the baby'; played 'taskmaster', '8 our of 10 explorers do countdown' and even tried virtual cooking! We also took part in the Camp@Home
Our Group necker throw challenge!
Our Zoom Cooking session making Lamb Tagine!
The Camp@Home was great fun when we slept out in our gardens on 2nd May along with lots of other members of the group!
January 2020 News Update
Boat building
Since the last newsletter we have had a full range of Wednesday evenings; we did a little of the following:
Night hike and Navigation
Strava art (drawing in the park using the GPS log on phones)
Disability Awareness
We had the street doctors in to teach us about emergency first aid "in town"
We made street food from around the world.
tried Yoga with a professional Yogi
and a few more besides
Next week we are going to have an epic night hike from Kineton back to Warwick.
We have trips to look forward to as well. At Easter we are heading to London to do some boating in the Docklands and maybe on the River Thames.
We are also just beginning to sort out our Summer camp in Norfolk so watch this space!
Yoga - and breathe....
November 2019 News Update
Summer Camp Trip to Kandersteg, International Scout Centre
The explorer unit have had a busy term after our summer trip to Kandersteg (Kandersteg Photos) where we did everything from swimming in glacial lake and white water rafting to hiking to remote Mountain huts to spend the night; the second of which had its own cable car for delivering supplies as it is an hours hike up from the road 600m vertically!
You can see more photos from our trip here: Kandersteg Photos
We had a great turn out from Explorers at Remembrance Day Parade
We have an interesting mix of activities on a weekly basis and have been continuing to build our two wooden boats that hopefully we will be testing on the river in the summer.
We have done a wide-game on the racecourse which adds some interest a and extra challenge, as there is much less light there than in St Nicks park!
Those lucky enough not to work at the weekends have joined us at Draycote water to do some sailing. This Wednesday we will be trying a little yoga, broaden the mind and see how inflexible some of the adults are!
A number of explorers have or are about to finish their DoE & Chief Scout Bronze/Platinum awards this term so well done to them!
