I am Malcolm Baker and the group Scout Leader for 1st Coddington Scout Group. I took over as Group Scout Leader in 2009 when the position became vacant.
I grew up with Scouting, beginning with Cubs and then Scouts. I joined Venture Scouts but decided to concentrate on Assisting with the Cub Pack.
When I joined the Cubs my father started helping with the group but was adamant that he would not wear a uniform, so he became group Quatermaster.
He stayed with the group long after I moved away only stopping due to ill health.
When I changed my job I moved out of the area and left Scouting.
After an absense of 25 years I started helping again when my daughter announced she wanted to join Cubs . I was quickly placed in the position where the leader saw
help coming and chose to exit. So I stepped up and with some assistance took over the Cub pack here at Coddington.
When the Group Scout Leader left I started looking after the group. One of my assistants saw how much I was trying to do and as he was
planning meetings while I was away he took over the pack allowing me to concentrate on running the group.
My job takes me away on a regular basis but I am able to keep in touch with the assistance of modern technology.
Scouting is growing again and I can see expansion in the future for our group here.
We are currently operating at maximum with Beavers and Cubs, Scouts is growing again and in a few years time our Explorer group will see growth again.
Our fund raising is doing well, Our textile collection has raised over £200. This is a great start and I know of more donations coming.
If you have any old textiles you would like to donate, please let us know
We are gearing up to collect printer cartridges for recycling so please do not throw them away. We will recycle all cartridges
but only get a donation from certain genuine models. Ask at work if they will donate thier used cartridges to us.
We have signed up with 'Give as you live'. This is a web based system where we will raise money as you shop online.
Just download the app to your computer and set 1st Coddington Scouts as your charity.
So far the app is only available for Internet Explorer or Firefox but they are working on versions for the other browsers.
During the year we have held 3 Quiz Nights which have been well attended.
At the end of November we received a phone call from Sainsbury's in Lincoln (Tritton Road) inviting us to bag pack from 13:30 to 16:00
on 18th December. As we would not be able to make good use of all of the check outs we invited the District to take some of the checkouts.
We raised £380 and District raised £511. The District fund will be going towards the exchange camp being held in 2012.
The money raised this year will be going to replacing the paths either side of the building.
If you need a letter from us on headed paper just ask....