(LESU) Explorer Unit Annual report 19/20
Good evening everyone. Things have been continuing on steadily at Explorers. We currently have a dip in our numbers as several explorers reached the age of 18 and moved on to bigger and brighter things over the past eight or so months. Obviously not having any face to face meetings for 16 weeks during the COVID lockdown and over summer has also not helped. This is because some previous Explorers lost interest in meetings and some potential recruits form Scouts never had the opportunity to try Explorers. To combat this, Jess and I have partnered with 3rd Bookham Explorers (PESU) to organise meetings and share the burden of planning. Hopefully over the coming months we can create a good programme that will attract new explorers to us.
Over the last year we have tried to create an active programme, not actively meeting during the time of year when the weather is nicest has also made that a bit difficult but we still managed to: try out Tomahawk throwing, archery and shooting, we had an awesome time doughnuting at the Guildford dry ski slope, learned about taking care of our mental health from Jess, went bowling at the big apple in Woking and built bridges out of left-over cardboard. Outside of the programme we took part in the first annual District Explorer event; The 2019 Golden Flip Flop Challenge, which was a night time incident hike with challenges for each team at each checkpoint. This wasn’t the only camp that we went on since the Explorers went on a much more chilled out camp over the 2019 October half term. The Explorers also helped the unit to raise funds over the Christmas period by helping out with the Leatherhead Lions Santa’s Sleigh collection.
Looking forward to the future, Jess and I are trying to increase the numbers of new recruits by creating an engaging programme, advertising ourselves to Scout groups that do not have explorer groups, and hopefully, becoming more visible within 1st Leatherhead so that kids know who we are and feel less intimidated coming up to explorers.