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Scouts meet HM The Queen and Chief Scout Bear Grylls during St George's Day National Queen's Scout celebrations at Windsor Castle.

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A slideshow of pictures taken of Queens Scouts from our District taking part in the parade. 

The stench of sitting round a campfire can stay with you all day long thanks to Canadian company Mythical Matters, who created the “Smells Like A Campfire!” spray. 

Mythical Matters warns: “May attract people holding marshmallows on sticks, do not use if allergic to Kumbaya”. The 240ml fragrance is yours for £15 ($25).

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I am very proud to report that four members of Southampton City DUCK network have completed and been presented their QSA recently. Naomi Kench, Jason Ledwich, Neil Boulter and Fran Upshon all worked very hard to complete the award only 1% of all Scouts achieve.

The presentation evening took place on 14^th March and the Awards were presented by Adam Jollans the Hampshire County Commissioner and attended by many from the District.

All four members took different personal journeys to complete their modules including Naomi flying to the Canary islands to take part in a week long experience aboard the tall ships for her international, Neil completing ‘ The Marathon Des Sables’, a 6 day / 151 mile (243km) endurance race across the Sahara Desert in Morocco for his Physical activity.  Jason completed over 6 years continued support at his local Scout Group helping the Group at many challenging times. Fran completed her NHS graduate training scheme with over two hundred participants carrying out many personal and group tasks about different parts the scheme for her skill.

In August last year, as a collective, they completed a four day expedition from Abergavenny to Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. They decided to challenge themselves by completing the route by bike, all having very limited experience (except passing their cycling proficiency test when still at school!)  A very tiring but rewarding adventure learning that preparing your kit is so important and showing off cycling no hands doesn’t pay off. They had two training weekends with wise knowledge and very useful guidance from Amanda Radford and Tim Gray.

I’m sure that all four of them will have a wonderful trip to Windsor on St Georges Day to celebrate the achievements with all the new Queen's Scout Award holders, which I hear Her Majesty the Queen, accompanied by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh are attending this year and without fail Bear Grylls, the Chief Scout, will be there to show his support.

Kieron Vance

Southampton City