Good evening,
The St James Sea
Scout group has been doing well with a good number of Keas, Cubs and
Scouts taking part, and a number of positive initiatives underway.
Recent
changes to the committee have seen the appointment of a new Chair,
Scott Rodgers, the introduction of Chris Smith as Secretary, and Rodney
Grindey volunteering to take on the role of treasurer. We have been
fortunate that James Scott and Marcus Smith have been able to support
our group for so long as Chair and Treasurer, they deserve our thanks.
One
of the roles of the committee is to raise funds for the group and to
that end Kevin Rikys has volunteered to lead a fundraising
sub-committee to help us manage the fund raising activities and submit
grant applications. We recently submitted a price for delivering the
white and yellow pages to Eastbourne and Petone and have been advised
that we were successful. The fact that we were awarded the contract
without compromising on the price is, I believe, testament to the
quality of the service St James had provided over the years.
For
the calendar: we need all families involved in packing the books into
plastic bags on the evening of Wednesday 30 September or Thursday 1
October and delivering books to all residential addresses and business
in our area during the week and more particularly on Saturday the 2nd
of October. Please note – this is St James’ major fundraising activity
and the income supports a lot of discretionary activities. We do need
the full support of the St James families at this time.
We
are currently going through an exercise to update all of our fire
safety equipment. We have bought new extinguishers and fire blankets
and buckets for camping and are replacing all extinguishers in the hall
that are due as well as making a number of other small improvements
that will see the hall well set up for the foreseeable future. Much of
the money for this improvement has come from a grant from the Hutt Mana
Charitable Trust.
During
the coming summer we hope to make progress on building a boat ramp to
improve access to the river for our boats. We have a plan from an
engineering company that provides an excellent basis for obtaining the
necessary resource consents and other approvals. Before we formally
start fundraising and engaging builders we have decided to canvas the
families to see what knowledge and skills we have available. On Sunday
the 30th of August at 11:00am we are having a meeting at the
Hall/Boatshed to confirm with our leaders what they need and to seek
your advice and the input. I am happy to forward you all of the
documents and concept plans, please let me know by return email if you
wish a copy emailed to you.
We
have recently benefited from a healthy discount on paint from Guthrie
Bowron in Upper Hutt (thanks to Donna) which has enabled us to buy the
paint needed to tidy up the whole hall. When the weather improves later
in the spring we will have a working bee to start work on painting the
hall. At this stage we intend that the working bee will only paint the
west wall as it is reasonably accessible. More information on the
timing of this project will follow.
Thanks
to a grant from the Eade Estate we are investigating building a trailer
to take both a 17’ Cutter and a Sunburst. The sailors in the group are
finalising their requirements so we hope to be able to make a final
decision on exactly what we need soon.
Finally,
to make this Group work well we need you to help our programmes. Each
of the sections would benefit from parents able and willing to assist
by taking a leadership role – we don’t need people to to take over
leadership of the sections, but we do need to support our current
leaders. If you are in any way able to help please talk to the leader
of your children's section – Keas, Cubs or Scouts. While we have a
healthy committee, we need your views and input. Our next committee
meeting is tomorrow night, Tuesday 18th August at 7:30 and every month
on the 3rd Tuesday of the month.
I hope to see you soon.
Regards, Scott
Scott Rodgers
Chair, St James Sea Scout Group